Taiwan suggests talks on Wang Daohan visit before May

Asian Economic News, April 5, 1999

TAIPEI, April 2 Kyodo Taiwan suggested Friday to send a middle-ranking official to Beijing by the end of this month in a bid to hammer out details for a planned visit to Taiwan by China's top Taiwan negotiator Wang Daohan. Jan Jyh-horng, deputy secretary general of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), said he hopes his visit would result in a more concrete date for Wang's visit and a detailed itinerary for it.

Last month the two sides tentatively agreed Wang will come in October or November and his trip will include Taipei and the southern port city Kaohsiung. Wang, chairman of China's semiofficial Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), would be reciprocating a trip to China by SEF Chairman Koo Chen-fu in October. In a letter to ARATS, the SEF also said Hsieh Fu-yuan, an SEF section chief, would accompany Jan to resume working-level talks on the repatriation of hijackers, illegal immigrants and other issues. In the March talks Taiwan proposed reviving the working-level talks in April, but China has so far not responded to the request. An agreement on the repatriation of hijackers and other issues was close to completion when cross-Strait dialogue collapsed in 1995 over Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's visit to the United States. Taiwan hopes Wang's visit will lead to the resumption of regular dialogue.