China has rebuffed a request by Taiwan for Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou to meet at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing, saying it was “inappropriate”, a Taiwan official said on Friday.
China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since Nationalist forces, defeated by the Communists, fled to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has never ruled out the use of force to bring it under its control.
But over recent years the two sides have built up extensive economic ties, and this week, they held their first direct, government-to-government talks, a big step towards expanding cross-strait dialogue beyond trade.
At the talks in the mainland city of Nanjing, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-chi said Zhang Zhijun, head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, brought up the subject of a meeting this year between their leaders.
Wang said he responded by proposing the APEC summit later in the year as “the only choice for us”, but Zhang resisted the request.
“I told Zhang that Taiwan hopes Ma and Xi can meet in the upcoming APEC meeting,” Wang told a news conference in Taipei after returning from his four-day visit to China.
“However, Zhang said that is not acceptable. China doesn’t see APEC as appropriate,” Wang said, without elaborating.
via China dashes Taiwan’s hope of meeting between leaders at APEC | Reuters.
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