KMT chairwoman holds talks with CPC chief in Beijing

Opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (???) held talks Tuesday with Xi Jinping (???), China's president and leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC), as part of a visit to Beijing to attend a cross-Taiwan Strait forum.

Hung and Xi both led respective seven-member delegations to the meeting. The delegation of the China-friendly KMT included vice chairmen Steve Chan (???) and Jason Hu (???); Huang Ching-hsien(???), director of the party's Department of Mainland Affairs; Tsai Cheng-yuan (???), executive director of the KMT's Policy Committee; former KMT deputy secretary general Chang Jung-kung (???) and Taipei City Council Speaker Wu Bi-chu (???).

The Chinese delegation led by Xi included Wang Huning (???), director of the CPC's Central Policy Research Office; Li Zhanshu (???) and Ding Xuexiang (???), director and deputy director of the CPC's Central Committee General Office; Taiwan Affairs Office director Zhang Zhijun (???) and deputy director Chen Yuanfeng (???), as well as Chen Deming (???), president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS).

Hung and Xi each gave opening remarks before holding the closed-door talks.

In her remarks, Hung said that the KMT is committed to playing an active role in institutionalizing peace across the Taiwan Strait and that it will explore the possibility of a peace agreement to formally end cross-strait rivalry.

For his part, Xi reiterated the "1992 consensus" as the political foundation for the development of cross-strait ties, adding that maintaining peaceful cross-strait relations is the mainstream public opinion among the people on both sides of the strait.

Cross-strait relations have cooled since President Tsai Ing-wen (???) took office May 20, due mainly to China's insistence that the "1992 consensus" must remain the political foundation for the development of cross-strait exchanges, and the Tsai administration's reluctance to accept that.

The "1992 consensus" refers to a tacit understanding reached in 1992 between Taiwan -- then under a Kuomintang government -- and China, that there is only one China, with both sides free to interpret what that means.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel