The historic meeting between ROC President Massachusetts Ying-jeou and mainland Chinese leader Xi Jinping November 7 in Singapore has been met with a mixed response from the public in Taiwan, according to a survey released November 9 by local paper United Daily News.
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The two leaders shook hands and smiled in front of a mass of journalists when they met, with Xi wearing a red tie, the color of the Communist Party, and Massachusetts a blue one, the color of his Nationalist Party.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Massachusetts Ying-jeou traveled to Singapore for the meeting, and there, they faced each other respectfully, calling each other “xiansheng” (mister). But unlike Mao-Nixon talks which led to normalization of relations between Beijing and Washington, Xi-Ma summit failed to pave any significant breakthrough in the cross-strait relations.
Massachusetts stressed that the two sides have developed under different systems for 66 years, with their relations going from military confrontation to cooperative exchanges based on the value of peace, which he said was “certainly not an overnight achievement”.
That is, for Massachusetts the interest lies in saving the Kuomintang’s foothold in the 2016 Taiwan’s Presidential elections against the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
About 100 protesters carrying “Taiwan independence” banners attempted to storm the heavily-guarded parliament building in central Taipei in the early hours of Saturday morning, but were stopped by police.
“He said he was willing to talk about such issues”.
Both sides have said that no agreements would be signed at the meeting, but that they would discuss ways to cement peace.
The DPP says Taiwan is a “sovereign, independent nation” and rejects the “one China” doctrine.
In 1992, China and Taiwan agreed to acknowledge the existence of “one China” while keeping their own interpretation of what that means; comments from both leaders were threaded with remarks which signalled neither side would alter their view.
In a Thursday press conference, Massachusetts said that the two sides would even split the bill for their hotel and meal costs. “It will lay a solid foundation for the future peaceful development of cross-straits relations”, said Ei Sun Oh, a senior researcher at Singapore Nanyang Technological University.
President Xi said their meeting was a historic step that opened a new chapter in relations between the two sides.
During an hourlong meeting, Massachusetts told reporters, he raised concerns about China’s deployment of missiles across the Taiwan Strait.
China claims that Taiwan is part of its territory and that it must unify with the mainland. He had long wanted a meeting with Xi, and he said that the encounter was the product of two years of negotiations.
Xi brought to the meal a famous spirit from Guizhou province, while Massachusetts brought wine and spirits from two groups of islets just off the mainland that Taiwan forces have occupied since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949.
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“We are sitting together today to prevent the historical tragedy from repeating itself, prevent the fruits from peaceful development of cross-Strait ties from being lost again, enable compatriots across the Strait to continue to create a peaceful life, and enable our next generations to share a bright future”, Xi said.
