Taiwan's main opposition party, the Kuomintang, announced that Vice President Xia Liwen will visit China from the 26th.
It will be interesting to see how the Chinese side will treat the representatives of the Kuomintang Party, which won the most seats in Taiwan's parliament ahead of the Democratic Progressive Party's Lai Ching-toku administration taking office in May this year.
According to the Kuomintang, Mr. Xia will visit Xiamen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai in China for seven days starting from the 26th, and will send Lunar New Year greetings to local Taiwanese business officials and others.
She said she has "no plans to meet with mainland officials, but I wouldn't rule it out," and there is also the possibility that she will meet with senior Chinese officials.
If I have the opportunity to meet with them, I would like to express my condolences to the victims of the capsizing accident of a Chinese fishing boat that occurred off the coast of Kinmen Island, a remote island in Taiwan, on February 14th. We are trying to communicate that we do not want things to continue to get worse.
Chinese authorities have criticized the Democratic Progressive Party government for the capsizing accident, calling it a ``malicious incident,'' and are also making moves to overturn Taiwan's jurisdiction over the island's coastal waters, which is said to have been tacitly agreed upon.
The Kuomintang criticized the Democratic Progressive Party government, saying, ``If a sudden incident occurs in the absence of cross-strait dialogue, it has become clear that the dangerous situation could escalate.'' We will work to ease the situation.''
It will be interesting to see how the Chinese side will treat the representatives of the Kuomintang Party, which won the most seats in Taiwan's parliament ahead of the Democratic Progressive Party's Lai Ching-toku administration taking office in May this year.