By Lin Hsin-han and Shelley Shan / Staff Reporters
Former Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) is scheduled to meet with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) today in Xiamen as part of his ancestor-worshiping tour in China’s Fujian Province.
Wang departed for China yesterday.
Wang and former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) are attempting to find ways to interact with China to defuse rising tensions and avoid a war between the two countries, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus deputy chief secretary Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) said yesterday.
Former Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng speaks to reporters in Taipei on Wednesday.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
If the Taipei-Shanghai City Forum can be successfully held by the end of this year, it would help to build the solid foundation for peace that people across the Taiwan Strait have been hoping for, she said.
Wang Jin-pyng established a think tank on Wednesday called the “Middle Way Peace Alliance” (中道和平聯盟智庫), while Ma’s foundation invited a group of Chinese students to visit Taiwan, who are expected to arrive on Wednesday next week, she said.
During a lunch hosted by his think tank on Wednesday, Wang Jin-pyng said he would spend his twilight years building a more harmonious political atmosphere domestically and contributing to cross-strait peace, adding that the think tank would recruit members across party lines to help him achieve those goals.
“Everybody hopes for cross-strait peace. Taiwan has bought NT$20 billion [US$650 million] of military equipment from the US, which has yet to delivered, and US president-elect Donald Trump is filling his would-be Cabinet positions with anti-China hawks. The cross-strait tension would only rise,” KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said.
Wang Jin-pyng’s appeal to unite Taiwan, contribute to cross-strait peace and facilitate reconciliation between the ruling and opposition parties is a good start, Lai said.
“We are facing a precarious international situation, and each of us should ask ourselves how we can contribute,” KMT Legislator Hsieh Long-jie (謝龍介) said, adding that the government’s national security team should spend more time thinking about ways to create peace and dialogue.
