He said this was part of consolidating the “1992 consensus” – the agreement under which both sides recognise the principle of “one China” but define it in their own ways.
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Progress over the past seven years – referring to the rule of the mainland-friendly Ma of the Nationalist Party – has been possible due to a joint political will to oppose Taiwan independence and accept there is “one China”, albeit it with different interpretations, the paper said.
“No force can pull us apart”, Xi told Ma. “At this very moment, the sides from across the strait are shouting out aloud to the whole world our commitment to enhancing peace across the Taiwan Strait, and our message to push forward regional peace”, said Ma.
Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China, was founded by wealthy Chinese nationalists fleeing mainland China after Mao Zedong and the Communist Party took control of the country in the late 1940s.
China refuses to acknowledge the island as anything other than a breakaway province, and pressure from Beijing keeps Taiwan out of the United Nations and other major multinational organizations.
Although the economic ties between China and Taiwan have expanded and deepened, the Taiwanese people, who have won freedom through a bitter fight against dictatorship, have little appetite for unifying their island with today’s China. “[Such incidents] generate a lot of complaints from people”, Ma said.
According to a Reuters report, Xi told Ma they must not let proponents of Taiwan’s independence split them, while Ma called for mutual respect for other’s systems and continued efforts to reduce hostility and resolve disputes in a peaceful manner.
The DPP has accused Mr Ma of trying to revive the chances of the ruling KMT party in the presidential and parliamentary polls with the surprise summit.
The two leaders, in a sign of the delicate protocol for the meeting, were to address each other not as “president” but as Mr. Xi and Mr. Ma.
Further underscoring the sensitivities in China, state television only showed Xi’s comments live, cutting away when Ma began to speak, prompting a flurry of complaints on Chinese social media about censorship.
There were issued discussed as well as those that were left along during the meeting of the two leaders.
However, in the Taiwanese capital, Taipei, about 1,000 protesters marched on Saturday to denounce the meeting.
A state-run mainland Chinese newspaper denounced Taiwan ‘s opposition leader and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen as narrow-minded and selfish on Monday after she criticised a historic meeting between the leaders of the two sides. “We will wait and see if this can be achieved”.
Later at the press conference, Ma was asked how he felt when he shook hands with Xi.
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When the Presidents of China and Taiwan shook hands on Saturday (November 7), they reached across a gap that has yawned between the two sides since 1949, in the wake of China’s civil war.
