TAOYUAN: China's top official in charge of Taiwan ties arrived on the island on Wednesday to begin landmark talks aimed at wooing Taiwanese who remain suspicious about a pending trade pact and autocratic China's designs on Taiwan.
"It took three hours for me to fly here from Beijing, but it took 65 years for both sides across the Taiwan Strait to come this far," said Zhang Zhijun, director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, as he sat down for talks with Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-chi.
"I come here full of sincerity in my heart," said Zhang, the first head of the Taiwan Affairs Office to visit the self-ruled and democratic island where defeated Nationalists fled after losing a civil war to China's Communists in 1949.
His four-day trip focuses not on the affluent capital Taipei but on the poorer middle and south, which have benefited less from trade with China and where pro-independence sentiment can run deep.
While China regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control, relations have improved markedly since China-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou took office in 2008.
China's charm offensive with Taiwan stands in contrast to its ties with several countries in Asia where territorial rows have flared over maritime boundaries. China has also denounced people in Chinese-run Hong Kong, where hundreds of thousands have been pushing for greater democracy.
Zhang's main talks, in Taoyuan, just outside Taipei, will be with Wang. He will not meet Ma, who has never held talks with senior Chinese officials as president.
Wang said he hoped that Zhang would come away with a better understanding of Taiwan and its political system, though he expected no breakthroughs this time.
"There are many issues that have long existed across the Strait. Myself and director Zhang do not expect one or two of our meetings can fix the problems," Wang told reporters after meeting Zhang.
Zhang is also to meet Chen Chu, an opposition party stalwart and mayor of the pro-independence southern port of Kaohsiung.
While Chen has previously visited China and met Zhang there, spearheading efforts by the Democratic Progressive Party to engage with Beijing, such high level meetings in Taiwan with opposition figures are almost unheard of.
"This will be an opportunity for Taiwan's opposition and people who don't like the mainland to get to know Zhang Zhijun, to listen to him and understand that China wants to help, not harm, Taiwan's economy," said Zheng Zhenqing of Tsinghua University's Institute of Taiwan Studies in Beijing.
Chinese state media has said Zhang would also talk to small- and medium-sized industries which have been hit by competition from low-cost China and engage with Taiwanese youth, few of whom feel much cultural connection to China today.
His trip comes at a sensitive time.
Protesters occupied Taiwan's parliament and mounted mass demonstrations over three weeks starting in March in anger at the trade pact, which will open various sectors in both economies.
The opposition calls the pact a threat to Taiwan's industry and fears it could open the door to Chinese influence on its politics.
Signed a year ago, it has stalled in Taiwan's parliament, which is set to discuss it at a session overlapping with Zhang's visit. Advocates, including Ma, say it is a step to normalising ties and will provide jobs and raise living standards.
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