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Aug 10, 2006 'Little Chance' Taiwan Will Let Top China Cross-Strait Official Visit Taipei Premier won't risk falling out with President Chen over trip, say analysts By China Correspondent, Clarissa Oon Straits Times BEIJING - THE chances of a top Chinese official visiting Taiwan in October are practically zero unless the island's premier takes a major political gamble and departs from President Chen Shui-bian's hardline stance towards the mainland, several Taiwanese academics said yesterday. But the analysts, who spoke at the opening of a cross-strait seminar in Beijing yesterday, doubted that Taiwanese Premier Su Tseng-chang would risk falling out with Mr Chen and other pro-independence stalwarts, especially after the fresh loss of an African ally to China. Mr Su, a presidential hopeful for the 2008 election, is thought to favour a more open and pragmatic cross-strait policy which would set him apart from the increasingly unpopular Mr Chen. Some 120 mainland and Taiwanese scholars are in Beijing this week for an annual three-day forum on cross-strait relations, even as the island's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) fumes over African ally Chad's switching of diplomatic recognition to China last weekend. In retaliation for the embarrassment, DPP officials are seeking to bar the mainland's top bureaucrat on Taiwan affairs, Mr Chen Yunlin, from visiting Taipei for an October forum on cross-strait agricultural cooperation. If the visit does take place, it would be a coup for both Beijing and Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang (KMT), which invited Mr Chen, director of the Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO). He would become the most senior Chinese official to visit the island since 1949. China's diplomats have long sought to isolate Taiwan in the global arena, even as the TAO, a Cabinet-level body, tries to win over ordinary Taiwanese through economic and other sweeteners. Beijing broke the news of its diplomatic coup just days after announcing Mr Chen Yunlin's plans to visit Taipei. By so doing, it appears to have ruled out all hope of a trip for the TAO director and his delegation. Unnamed Taiwanese officials have told the island's media that China should apologise to Taiwan for yet another loss of a diplomatic ally before Taiwan would even consider issuing a visa for Mr Chen Yunlin. Beijing had made its calculations on the grounds that the visit was unlikely to have been approved anyway, several Taiwanese scholars said at the seminar, which was organised by three mainland think-tanks. 'The DPP government basically opposes cross-strait links. It will protect its pro-independence platform and not concede anything to the KMT,' Professor Chang Lin-cheng of the National Taiwan University told The Straits Times. She said the Chad issue was 'essentially an excuse' for the DPP to make itself look like a victim of Chinese bullying, when it has never had any intention of granting Mr Chen Yunlin a visa. Professor George Tsai of the National Chengchi University said the visit would happen only if Mr Su used it to push his moderate stance on cross-strait issues. But 'it is a big political risk, given the opposition within his party and the pro-independence camp', Prof Tsai said. A previous KMT invitation for the TAO's Mr Chen to attend a cross-strait economic forum in Taipei had been blocked by the Taiwanese government. The forum was later moved to Beijing and held in April this year. TAO deputy director Sun Yafu, who attended the seminar yesterday, told reporters he hoped the Taiwanese authorities would look at the upcoming agricultural forum 'objectively' as something separate from the island's relations with Chad. Copyright © 2006 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access |