How China missed the window of opportunity

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espite high praise for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) National Day address from the US and Japan, China poured cold water on his gesture toward cross-strait reconciliation once again, and labeled his call for a resumption of bilateral talks as nothing but a blatant assertion of Taiwan independence and a serious provocation of cross-strait tensions.

Intentionally overlooking Chen's suggestion to initiate confidence building measures to minimize cross-strait tensions -- including establishing an arms control mechanism and a "code of conduct across the Taiwan Strait" to reduce miscalculations -- China distracted public attention away from such pragmatic and strategic thinking about the sovereignty issue as a way to invalidate Chen's proposals.

Instead, the spokesman of China's Taiwan Affairs Office Zhang Mingqing (張銘清) decried Chen's proposal that cross-strait negotiations should resume on "the basis of the 1992 meeting in Hong Kong." Beijing insisted that cross-trait talks would be possible only when Taiwan recognizes the "1992 consensus" and unilaterally accepts the "one China" framework.

Taipei Times