{"id":189624,"date":"2015-12-30T14:17:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T22:17:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=189624"},"modified":"2015-12-31T10:46:39","modified_gmt":"2015-12-31T18:46:39","slug":"189624","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2015\/12\/189624\/","title":{"rendered":"China-Taiwan Hotline Launched"},"content":{"rendered":"
Following the historic\u00a0November meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou<\/a> in Singapore\u2014the first of its kind since the end of the civil war in 1949\u2014officials from China and Taiwan for the first\u00a0time spoke over\u00a0a new cross-strait hotline<\/strong><\/a>. AP’s Christopher Bodeen reports:<\/p>\n The link that went into service Wednesday represents an upgrade in contact between the sides by connecting the heads of the two Cabinet-level agencies responsible for their relations, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang told reporters in Beijing that the new hotline would ease communication on important issues and help enhance mutual trust and understanding.<\/p>\n “We hope the two authorities will make efforts to maintain and promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations,” said Ma, who also referenced China’s demand that Taiwan recognize it is a part of China.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0However, [despite the warming of cross-trait relations under Ma] China and Taiwan are now moving into a period of uncertainty, with Ma leaving office next year and opposition Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen touted to win next month’s presidential election.<\/p>\n Tsai’s DPP backs Taiwan’s formal independence, and she has refused to endorse Beijing’s demand that she recognize the island and mainland as part of a single Chinese nation. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Taiwan will choose its new president on January 16, and victory is expected for pro-independence Tsai Ing-wen<\/a>. With the inauguration of the new hotline also\u00a0came a pre-election warning from Beijing<\/strong><\/a>, reports The Washington Post’s Simon Denyer:<\/p>\n Unless the winner of those elections explicitly endorses the idea that China and Taiwan are one country, the entire dialogue process between the two sides \u201cwill inevitably be affected and could even collapse,\u201d [Ma Xiaogang] a senior official in Beijing warned.<\/p>\n […]\u00a0The \u201cone China\u201d principle, agreed to in 1992, allows both sides to claim to be rightful rulers of the Chinese nation, but explicitly closes the door to the idea that Taiwan could one day become an independent nation, a concept that is anathema to Beijing.<\/p>\n The 1992 consensus, as it is known, was hammered out by China\u2019s Communist Party and Taiwan\u2019s Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, and has underpinned a deepening of trade and diplomatic ties between the two sides, culminating in a historic meeting of the their respective presidents in November.<\/p>\n At that meeting, both sides took pains to stress that the summit had only been possible because of the 1992 consensus. That was seen as a pre-election message to Taiwanese voters, and to the opposition and more independence-minded Democratic People\u2019s Party (DPP), which has never endorsed the \u201cone China\u201d idea.<\/p>\n […] \u201cAs long we have sincere communication, I believe cross-strait relations can be stable,\u201d Tsai [Ing-wen] said, according to\u00a0Bloomberg<\/a>. \u201cThe 1992 consensus is one option, but it\u2019s not the only option. It is inappropriate to continue to frame it as such.\u201d\u00a0[Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n At the\u00a0University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute Blog, J. Michael Cole analyzes the threat in the context of Taiwan’s current political climate, concluding\u00a0that Beijing is likely to negotiate<\/strong><\/a> with an expected President\u00a0Tsai Ing-wen:<\/p>\n […] While ominous, such threats should be taken in their proper context. For one thing, Mr. Ma\u2019s comments were ostensibly an attempt by Beijing to corner Ms. Tsai and to give her opponent from the KMT, Eric Chu, a much-needed boost.<\/p>\n Beyond that, we should note that Beijing\u2019s rigid\u00a0official rhetoric<\/a>\u00a0is not necessarily an indicator of\u00a0policy<\/em>. Oftentimes it is what Chinese officials\u00a0have<\/em>\u00a0to say, and the principal audience is domestic rather than external. In many ways, Beijing has been hostage to its own rhetoric and ideology, so much so that to depart from the official line could be interpreted domestically as a sign of weakness on the part of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).<\/p>\n Given Ms. Tsai\u2019s repeated vows to maintain the \u201cstatus quo\u201d in the Taiwan Strait, as well as her commitment to engaging China constructively and \u201cwith sincerity,\u201d Beijing would be shooting itself in the foot if, come May 20, it suddenly \u201ccollapsed\u201d dialogue with Taipei, a decision that could only succeed in propelling Taiwan away from China and undo eight years of normalization that, by almost every yardstick, were politically beneficial to Beijing. Notwithstanding the TAO\u2019s rhetoric and the more extremist elements in the CCP who would choose to act on its threats, we can therefore expect that Beijing will act\u00a0pragmatically<\/a>\u00a0in the initial phase of a Tsai administration, during which it would assess her commitment to dialogue and continuity (keen on improving Taiwan\u2019s moribund economy, Ms. Tsai knows all too well that unduly alienating the world\u2019s second-largest economy and Taiwan\u2019s No. trading partner is not a viable policy). […] [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following the historic\u00a0November meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese counterpart Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore\u2014the first of its kind since the end of the civil war in 1949\u2014officials from China and Taiwan for the first\u00a0time spoke over\u00a0a new cross-strait hotline. AP’s Christopher Bodeen reports: The link that went into service Wednesday represents an upgrade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":985,"featured_media":169163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,14744,14745,14746,100],"tags":[1882,2913,8355,3264,7697,14669,4674],"class_list":["post-189624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","tag-ma-ying-jeou","tag-one-china-policy","tag-taiwan-democracy","tag-taiwan-public-opinion","tag-taiwan-relations","tag-tsai-ing-wen","tag-xi-jinping","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n