CHINA-TAIWAN: CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS

Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported on May 7, 2017, that a low-key civilian group headed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s former deputy, Wang Yifu, may take a more prominent role in driving Beijing’s new strategy to engage the Taiwanese public, as mainland China continues to shake up senior members of its Taiwan policy team. The All China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots (ACFTC), which focuses on Taiwanese living on the mainland and is chaired by Wang Yifu, might lead a civilian body on behalf of Beijing to reach out to Taiwanese youth and small businesses, a source close to the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office said. Beijing is looking for a fresh channel to engage the island’s public. Major General Peter Huang Zhicheng, a national political adviser and member of ACFTC who formerly served in Taiwan’s air force but defected to the mainland by flying a F-5 fighter jet to Fujian in 1981, said “The central authority is pondering possible adjustments on the basis of policies towards Taiwan ...One thing for sure is that the ACFTC will play a more important role in the years to come.” Ji Bin, a Vice Chairman of ACFTC

said  “When all formal channels of communication and dialogue between both sides have stopped working as a result of Taipei’s refusal to recognise the 1992 Consensus, civil organisations have to provide more opportunities for young Taiwanese on the basis of working, studying and starting up businesses on the mainland.” He added they now served 35,000 Taiwanese working or studying on the mainland.

 

Beijing’s Taiwan policy team has undergone an intense senior reshuffle in recent months. In late February, veteran Taiwan affairs senior official Zheng Lizhong was sacked as Vice Chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) for “seriously violating Communist Party discipline”. Meanwhile, Gong Qinggai, the former deputy director of TAO who was detained during a corruption probe in 2016, was sentenced to 15 years in jail last month. The mainland’s key official think tank on Taiwan affairs, the Institute of Taiwan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also saw its director Zhou Zhihuai retired and replaced with Yang Mingjie, an expert on Sino-US relations from CICR early this year. This month, Zheng Shanjie, a Fujian native and deputy head of the National Energy Administration, joined TAO as its No 3 official. On the sidelines of the annual congressional sessions in March, Chen Deming, ARATS’ head, maintained that top Communist Party leaders including Xi and Yu Zhensheng, the mainland’s top political advisor, were both very happy with TAO’s work.







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