The transcripts for the closed-door summit reveal that Ma did mention “one China, respective interpretations”. Xi and Ma smiled broadly and clasped hands for well over a minute.
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In the poll taken on Sunday, 46.8 per cent of those surveyed said they did not think Mr Ma protected or maintained Taiwan’s sovereignty and interests in the meeting with Mr Xi, while 32.9 per cent said he did. Moving into a meeting room, Xi says two sides are family. Territories on both sides of the strait belong to the same country, this is a historical fact, and the legal foundation of this fact cannot and will not change, he said, according to China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
The first face-to-face encounter since 1945 between leaders of China’s civil war foes provided a new high-water mark in efforts to resolve one of the last century’s biggest unsettled conflicts.
That refers to the 1992 Consensus, under which both sides agree there is one China but that each may define it differently.
The historic Xi-Ma meeting at the Shangri-La Hotel, a stone’s throw away from the Four Seasons, starts at 3pm on Saturday. Ma, a democratic politician used to interacting with the public, held his own relaxed press conference afterward.
Their meeting Saturday in Singapore was the first cross-strait summit since the 1949 split.
The Global Times newspaper – which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – said in an editorial that Tsai had “made gaffes”, describing her as “wrathful” in an attempt to “belittle the meeting”. This means both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is only one China containing Taiwan as a part, shelving the question of whether this China is the People’s Republic of China or the Republic of China.
Taiwan is regarded as a renegade province of China. Ma claimed that this clarifies Taiwan’s position, and is also a consensus reached by the majority of Taiwanese citizens.
Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen said that Ma also stated that the development and success of Taiwanese democracy remains the “pride of the Chinese nation”.
In driving this point home, Zhang said, Xi is apparently seeking sought to dispel the illusion a few politicians in Taiwan may harbor that authorities in Beijing have to engage with Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party and its leader, Tsai Ing-wen, should the party that has rejected the consensus win the election. Xi responded by saying the deployments are not aimed at Taiwan.
Looking back at cross-strait relations over the past six decades, the meeting between Xi and Ma was no doubt a breakthrough.
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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.
