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Nov 16, 2006 China May Set Up Association For Taiwanese Businessmen Beijing also confirms detention of two Taiwanese on spying charges By China Correspondent, Clarissa Oon Straits Times BEIJING - CHINA said yesterday it would consider setting up a business association at the national level for mainland-based Taiwanese businessmen so as to draw cross-strait economic ties even closer. Beijing's comments came as it confirmed the detention of two unnamed Taiwanese businessmen on spying charges - a sign of the mainland's uneasy courtship of the island's business community. Taiwanese and Hong Kong media reports last week said the two businessmen had allegedly gathered intelligence for the Taiwanese military. One was detained in China's central Hunan province, while the other was being held in the southern city of Guangzhou. When asked about the case at a routine briefing yesterday, Mr Li Weiyi, a spokesman for China's Cabinet-level Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), confirmed the detention of the two men. He said the relatives of the two men had been notified, but gave no further information. News of the spying case, however, did not appear to have cooled Beijing's desire to court the island's business community. Mr Li told reporters yesterday the Chinese government was 'seriously considering and assessing' proposals by Taiwanese businessmen to set up an umbrella association representing Taiwanese business interests across China. The move would improve links between Taiwanese businessmen and China's central government. It would also put them on a par with other groups of foreign businessmen like Americans, Hong Kongers and Singaporeans, all of whom have their own chambers of commerce in China. Despite being one of the largest groups of investors on the mainland, Taiwanese businessmen are currently allowed to form associations only at the local or provincial level. More than one million Taiwanese live and work in China. Cross-strait business relations are booming despite on-going political tension between Beijing and the island's pro-independence government. Mr Li said the review would take into consideration the healthy growth of Taiwanese investments on the mainland and the mushrooming of local-level Taiwanese business associations to 99 across China since 1990. The Taiwanese are estimated to have poured nearly US$150 billion (S$234 billion) worth of investments into the mainland. China has also been targeting several economic sweeteners at ordinary Taiwanese with no business interests on the mainland. Mr Li said China's Education Ministry has doled out scholarships to some 1,705 Taiwanese students studying at mainland universities in the past two years. But observers here pointed out that the island should not expect any free lunches from Beijing. They warned that the Chinese government will drive a hard bargain in crucial areas, such as using lifting of restrictions on mainland tourists travelling to Taiwan, which would significantly boost the island's tourism sector, to get concessions. Talks on this thorny subject have stalled for nearly a year. Recent Taiwanese media reports quoted sources saying that Beijing wants Taipei to first allow direct cross-strait charter flights on weekends. Both sides currently have no direct air links. Mr Li said yesterday that cross-strait talks on the visit of Chinese tourists to Taiwan should proceed 'in tandem' with those on weekend charter flights and expressed the hope that such discussions start 'as soon as possible'. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2006 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access |