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. |