A senior member of Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party told a senior Chinese official about the Taiwanese people’s concerns about Beijing’s war games near the island in talks the party described as “candid”. China, which claims that Taiwan was democratically ruled as its own territory, staged massive military exercises near the island to express its anger over US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei.
KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia arrived in China on a pre-planned visit to Taiwan’s business community and met on Wednesday night with Zhang Chun, head of the China Association for Cross-Strait Relations, the quasi-official body that manages ties with Taiwan.The Taiwanese government criticized Hsi for his timing, and some senior KMT officials expressed reservations about the trip.”Vice President Hsia said he wanted to reflect Taiwanese public opinion and should not condemn his words,” the KMT said in a statement after a meeting in the eastern Chinese city of Kunshan.
“The first priority was to express the dissatisfaction and concerns of the Taiwanese people regarding the continued exercises of the mainland military in the waters around Taiwan,” he added. The KMT described the dinner meeting as a frank exchange of views on both sides. China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that Zhang, who previously headed the Taiwan Affairs Bureau, described the current situation as “tension and unrest”.
“The relevant countermeasures we have taken are a just step to defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity, suppress and counter the ‘Taiwan independence’ split and foreign interference,” Xinhua said. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s claims of sovereignty, saying its future can only be decided by the island’s residents. The KMT has traditionally favored close relations with China, although it has condemned Beijing’s war games. The KMT ruled China before retreating with its defeated Republic of China government to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war to the communist forces of Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic of China.
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