World

Taiwan president says wants to maintain communication with China

Taiwan president says wants to maintain communication with China

TIL Desk/World/Asuncion-Taiwan’s government will continue to look for ways to maintain dialogue with China, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Tuesday, after Beijing said it had halted a regular communication mechanism with Taipei. China, which regards the self-ruled island as a wayward province, is deeply suspicious of Tsai, who took office last month, since Beijing suspects she will push for formal independence.

Tsai, who heads the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, says she wants to maintain the status quo and is committed to ensuring peace. But China has insisted she recognise a pact called the “1992 consensus” between its Communists and Taiwan’s then-ruling Nationalists, by which both agreed there is only one China, with each having its own interpretation of what that means.

On Saturday, China said because Taiwan’s new government would not recognise that principle, it had stopped the regular communication mechanism between the two sides. “No matter what party is in government in Taiwan, we always have a single, common objective: to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Tsai told reporters during a visit to Paraguay, Taiwan’s sole diplomatic ally in South America.

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