By Mahmut Atanur
BEIJING (AA) – A Chinese official confirmed Saturday that a communication mechanism between the mainland and Taiwan has been suspended since a traditionally pro-independence party took power in the island territory, which Beijing considers a breakaway province.
An Fengshan, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, said the mechanism was halted after May 20, when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) leader Tsai Ing-wen was sworn in as president, since Taiwan has not recognized the 1992 Consensus and the “one China” principle it entails.
While Beijing insists that cross-Taiwan Strait ties be based on the consensus, the DPP has objected to it in the past.
Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported that An’s remarks came a day after Taipei’s Mainland Affairs Council issued a press release protesting the latest deportation of Taiwanese telecom suspects to the mainland.
On Friday, Cambodia deported 39 suspects — among them 25 Taiwanese — to the mainland, after similar moves by Kenya and Malaysia in past months.
After winning the January election, the DPP secured its first majority in the island’s parliament.
In Tsai’s inaugural speech May 20, which was criticized by China for not mentioning the “one China” policy”, she said her administration “will also work to maintain the existing mechanisms for dialogue and communication across the Taiwan Strait”.
“In 1992, the two institutions representing each side across the Strait, through communication and negotiations, arrived at various joint acknowledgements and understandings,” she had added, without using the term “consensus”.
Since Chinese nationalist leaders fled to Taiwan in 1949 after a brutal civil war with Mao Zedong’s Communists, the island’s legislature has been dominated by the nationalist Kuomintang party, whose outgoing government had overseen an improvement in ties with Beijing.
