Taipei - China and Taiwan will hold talks in autumn to
discuss opening sea links across the Taiwan Strait, a newspaper
reported Friday.
The statement was made by Chen Yunlin, China's top negotiator with
Taiwan, at a maritime seminar Thursday in Taicang, in China's Jiangsu
Province, the China Times said.
The seminar was attended by Chinese and Taiwanese shipping
industry executives and port officials.
At the seminar, Chen, chairman of the Association for Relations
across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), said he expects to visit Taiwan in
autumn, and the first issue to be discussed will be sea links across
the Taiwan Strait.
'ARATS is making preparations for holding talks on opening sea
links across the Taiwan Strait. Sea links will be top issue for the
autumn talks because China and Taiwan have reached consensus on it,
so we should make it happen as soon as possible,' China Times quoted
him as saying.
Chen said that he was attending the seminar to hear ideas from
Taiwan shipping representatives, ahead of holding talks.
At the seminar, Taiwan shipping representatives said it is urgent
for Taiwan and China to open sea links because the island's ban on
sea links with China has seriously hurt Taiwan's economy.
Lin Sun-san, vice chairman of Taiwan's Evergreen Marine Corp, said
that direct sea links will benefit Taiwan shipping firms because
their vessels will be allowed to sail directly to China.
'I hope Taiwan will stop being a sucker, because right now Taiwan
ships must sail indirectly to China and let foreign countries make
money out of this,' he said.
Taiwan has banned sea and air links with China since 1949, when
the Republic of China government lost the Chinese Civil War and fled
to Taiwan to form its government-in-exile.
On July 4, Taiwan relaxed the air link ban by launching weekend
charter flights with China, so that Chinese tour groups can visit
Taiwan.
President Ma Ying-jeou from the pro-China ruling party KMT hopes
the weekend charter flights will be expanded to daily charter flights
and eventually to regular flights.
Ma has expressed the hope that the two sides can discuss opening
direct sea links.
Taiwan's five-decade ban on sea links has seriously hampered
Taiwan's shipping industry, forcing some foreign shipping lines to
withdraw from Taiwan or downsize their operations in Taiwan.
In the latest blow caused by the sea links ban, AP Moller-Maersk,
the world's largest container shipping fleet, plans to cut half of
its container handling capacity at Kaohsiung Harbour, the world's
eighth-busiest container port.
Maersk is Kaohsiung Harbor's largest foreign client. On Thursday,
Kaohsiung Harbor confirmed that Maersk intends to give up two of the
four berths it leases in the harbor, when the lease expires in
October.
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