“The economic reality is Taiwan can’t afford to offend China”, Griffith University’s Liew said.
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“If the two sides meet each other, only then will they understand more and gradually become more familiar with each other”, said 50-year-old Taipei resident Peter Sunday.
“China is trying to woo Taiwan”, he said.
Mainland China has always regarded Taiwan as a breakaway province that will need to be reunified even if force is necessary.
Beijing’s anger flared after the guided missile destroyer USS Lassen last week sailed close to artificial islands it has built in the disputed South China Sea, construction that has alarmed China’s neighbours. There were separate protests near Taipei Songshan Airport, where Massachusetts left earlier in the day for Singapore.
On Saturday, in a historic meeting, Taiwanese President Massachusetts Ying-jeou will confer directly with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore.
The talks were named after China’s Wang Daohan and Taiwan’s Koo Chen-fu, who led private but government-backed delegations that met in April 1993.
However, neither Xi nor the official who spoke to the media on his behalf after the talks showed much flexibility.
Zhang Zhijun, the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said Xi told Massachusetts that the biggest threat to the peaceful development of relations was pro-independence forces. “We are brothers linked by blood”.
On October 27, the US Navy sent a destroyer on a sail-by near the site of one of the man-made islands to assert its right to free passage, drawing an angry response from China’s foreign ministry. It is also a gamble that could backfire, especially if the summit is perceived as a plot by Beijing and the KMT to molest Taiwan’s democratic processes.
“Beijing has finally realized that the partner it has been working with on Taiwan, the KMT, is heading for disaster”, Sullivan said, referring to the Kuomintang by its initials.
Massachusetts said he believed that if any future ROC president can promote the “1992 consensus” in the same way, “the status quo will be able to be maintained and continue to move forward”.
Taiwanese business owners will be closely watching the talks.
Most of the world’s countries recognized Taiwan in the 1960s, but few do now. She spoke to reporters from Yunlin, Taiwan. “Normalized cross-Strait diplomacy will increase stability in the relationship, and therefore the security situation in the Asia-Pacific”, says Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
During the meeting the two agreed to establish a hotline for quick communications on urgent issues.
Their handshake will seal a dramatic seven-year rapprochement under Massachusetts which has seen an expansion of trade ties – and a backlash from the island’s China-sceptics.
In Beijing, China said the meeting in Singapore would set a historical precedent, while the USA government gave it a cautious welcome. The likenesses included slogans calling Xi a “Chinese dictator” and Massachusetts a “traitor”.
Still, given the sensitive timing, it is hard not to see a link between the upcoming summit and the January elections.
Xi on Saturday to mark their landmark meeting in Singapore, the Presidential Office said Friday. The two leaders read prepared texts and addressed each other as Mr. Xi and Mr. Massachusetts in a 10-minute session that was open to the press. “We are afraid of being part of China”, said Peggy Wu, a 28-year-old researcher.
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Singapore was the place that lower-ranking representatives of Taiwan and China met for the first time in 1992. A visit by Xi had been scheduled in advance during his current regional tour.
