Translation Tag: people-to-people exchanges
In this speech delivered to a group of Taiwan delegations attending the third session of the 12th national Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Xi Jinping invites Taiwan “compatriots” to participate in economic and educational opportunities on the mainland, and more broadly to contribute to further development of cross-Strait relations.
This is an official readout from a July 2018 meeting between Xi Jinping and Lien Chan, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang and former vice president of Taiwan, who was then leading a delegation to Beijing. Xi suggests it is vital to deepen cross-Strait exchange and cooperation, warns that China “will not tolerate the surge of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces,” and calls on “compatriots” across the Taiwan Strait to collectively promote China’s “national rejuvenation.”
This white paper was released by the PRC State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office and the State Council Information Office within a week of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. The white paper provides a comprehensive overview of the official PRC position on Taiwan’s status, outlining Beijing’s assessment of the current factors impacting cross-Strait tensions, and a policy pathway for achieving “reunification.” This is the third white paper that the State Council has published on Taiwan, and the first under Xi Jinping’s leadership.
Liu Jieyi, the former director of the Taiwan Affairs Office, expounds on the 20th Party Congress work report to distill Beijing’s overarching strategy for “reunification” with Taiwan. Liu argues it is important to “put [this strategy] into practice,” which includes suppressing voices in favor of Taiwan independence and what Liu terms “foreign interference schemes,” promoting cultural and educational exchange across the Strait, and refusing to renounce the use of force to achieve “reunification.”
In an academic journal published by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a top think tank under the Ministry of State Security, scholars from Beijing Foreign Studies University analyze evolving debate on China in Germany, half a year into the federal German “traffic light” coalition. They argue that Germany sees China as both an economic competitor that “will surpass it” and a “world economic and political superpower” on which it is dependent economically. As a result of what they term this “extremely contradictory” assessment of China, there are still “some positive elements that should receive more attention” from Chinese policymakers seeking to further develop a practical, cooperative China-Germany relationship. The authors conclude by arguing that China should leverage “the internal rifts among the Western allies [that]…will be difficult to heal” to its advantage in creating a “new space for great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics” and an “international environment conducive to China.”
On the 10th anniversary of the erstwhile 17+1 (now 14+1) cooperation mechanism between China and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, scholars at Fudan University and invited experts on Europe examine the state of the mechanism and prospects for the future. The scholars argue that the cooperation mechanism has served China’s strategic interests; for example, one scholar argues it has usefully promoted the “friendly attitude of Hungary and other countries towards China.” However, many of the experts assert that CEE countries have experienced a “gap between their expectations and reality” for the mechanism, and as a result, China should consider boosting investment and trade with these countries in order to improve the value proposition for them going forward.