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Incoming Taiwan President Ma's China pledges
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Tue, May 20, 2008
Reuters
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Taiwan -- Taiwan President-elect Ma Ying-Jeou took office on Tuesday with a slate of pledges to rebuild relations
and open trade links with long-time rival China, which claims sovereignty over the island.
Ma, the 57-year-old, Harvard-educated candidate of the Nationalist Party (KMT) and a former Taipei mayor, won 58 per cent of the vote in elections on March 22. He replaces Chen Shui-bian, who must step down after two four-year terms.China has claimed self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's KMT fled to the island.
Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan back under its control, by force if necessary.
Following are Ma's main pledges for policy changes on cross-Strait relations:
* An agreement with Beijing to launch direct weekend flights by July and direct daily flights within a year, an
increase from today's holiday-only charter flights and a move to alleviate time-consuming stopovers in Hong Kong or Macau
* An agreement allowing an initial 3,000 Chinese tourists per day into Taiwan and 10,000 per day after four years; only a handful of tourists are allowed at present with most barred due to concerns about security and visa overstays
* Convertibility between the Chinese yuan and the Taiwan dollar by the end of 2008
* Permission for China investors to buy Taiwan real estate, especially commercial property
* Gradual reduction of the current limit of 40 per cent of net assets that Taiwan-listed firms can invest in China
.
* Eventual creation of a China-Taiwan common market similar to the European Union
* A pact similar to the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) that Hong Kong has with China
* Formal talks with China towards the signing of a peace agreement, but no discussion of unification, a change from the current stance of no formal Taiwan-China dialogue
* An agreement with China on avoiding accidental military mishaps in the heavily armed Taiwan Strait that separates the two territories
* Acceptance of two giant pandas, a symbol of China, that Beijing has offered to Taiwan as a goodwill gesture, after numerous refusals by the Chen administration
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