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TAIPEI - TAIWAN'S President Ma Ying-jeou on Monday renewed his call for an end to the decades-old competition for diplomatic recognition between Taipei and Beijing amid signs of warming ties.
Mr Ma said the two sides should end the practice of 'chequebook diplomacy', since neither side had benefited from the stiff competition to lure nations away from the other's camp, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
'The lingering hostility between the two sides has been the root cause of the issues over the past 60 years, and that's why the government dedicated itself to the improvement of cross-Strait ties the past two months,' Mr Ma said, addressing a gathering of more than 200 foreign ministry officials.
'Hopefully the improved ties would ... enable the two sides to stop the vicious competition,' he said in a speech seen as laying out the Ma administration's policy on the issue.
The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war, and Taipei lost its United Nations seat to Beijing in 1971.
Only 23 nations formally recognise self-ruled Taiwan over China. Both sides have often used generous financial packages to influence governments, particularly in Africa, Latin America and the Pacific, to ensure loyalty or persuade them to switch recognition.
Mr Ma's landslide victory in Taiwan's presidential polls in March over Frank Hsieh, the candidate for the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, has triggered the rapprochement between Taipei and Beijing.
Mr Ma, of the ruling Kuomintang, has taken a much more conciliatory approach to China than his predecessor Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence rhetoric angered Beijing's communist leadership.
The former DPP government was also mired in a scandal over the alleged embezzlement of 30 million US dollars (S$41.16 million) earmarked for Papua New Guinea, which currently recognises Beijing.
Critics said the scandal was the result of the rampant cash diplomatic battle across the Taiwan Strait. -- AFP
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