This is 'just a start': Taiwan's ex-president Ma Ying-jeou welcomes mainland Chinese academic team
Former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou has called for more student exchanges with mainland China to boost communication and help lower the chances of a cross-strait conflict.
This came as Ma, former chairman of Taiwan's main opposition Kuomintang party, welcomed students and faculty from five mainland universities to Taipei on Saturday.
Led by former Peking University president and ex-vice-minister for education, Hao Ping, the 37-member group is in Taiwan at the invitation of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, a public policy advisory body set up by the former Taiwanese leader in 2018.
Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.
The 31 students and six faculty members represent the first major academic group from the mainland to visit Taiwan in three years.
Ma hosted a welcome dinner for Hao - now the Communist Party chief of Peking University - and the rest of the team as they arrived for a nine-day trip.
"Ma told Hao [their visit] was just a start," foundation director Hsiao Hsu-tsen said.
According to Hsiao, Ma told Hao he hoped the two sides could push for more exchanges between university students "to increase their understanding, which is a way to help avert a potential [cross-strait] conflict".
In response, Hao said it was the responsibility of people of his generation to push for closer cooperation and understanding between young people on either side of the Taiwan Strait, Hsaio recounted.
"As a member of Peking University, [Hao] said he would do his best to push for such exchanges beginning next year."
Cross-strait relations warmed under Ma from 2008-2016 but have soured since Tsai Ing-wen of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party succeeded him. Tsai, who was elected president in 2016, has refused to accept the "1992 consensus" on "one-China" between Beijing and KMT.
Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and vows to bring it under control, by force if necessary, suspended official dialogue and exchanges in 2016. It has also stepped up sabre-rattling in recent years as Taipei develops closer US ties under Tsai, resulting in heightened cross-strait tensions.
Most countries, including Taiwan's biggest informal ally the United States, do not recognise the island as an independent state, but are opposed to any unilateral, forcible change in the cross-strait status quo.
Soon after arriving on Saturday, the mainland group visited a museum linked to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co - the world's largest contract chip maker - in Hsinchu, south of Taipei.
On Sunday, they travelled to the central city of Taichung to visit a bicycle museum maintained by globally leading manufacturer Giant Bicycles.
This comes just over three months after Ma visited several mainland cities during a 12-day trip in a personal capacity, bringing with him a group of Taiwanese students to foster cross-strait youth exchanges.
Hunan University student Sun Peng said he had met Ma and the Taiwanese delegation when they visited his university in March.
"I am happy to be able to see them [in Taiwan] this time," Sun said.
Ma's trip from March 27, which made him Taiwan's first democratically elected leader to visit the mainland, saw him pay tribute to his ancestors in the central province of Hunan and meet students from Wuhan University, Hunan University and Fudan University.
Peking University undergraduate Chen Shihua said Ma chatted at length with the students at Saturday's dinner, and she was impressed with his message that visits and exchanges were "a good way to increase mutual understanding".
She said she found Taiwanese people friendly and was looking forward to sampling the local snacks.
Mainland table tennis legend and three-time Olympic gold medallist Ding Ning is among the Peking University representatives in the delegation.
From Monday, the group will travel to meet peers from National Chengchi University, Chinese Culture University and National Taiwan University in Taipei, as well as the National Dong Hwa University in Hualien county of eastern Taiwan.
They will also visit several major tourist spots and night markets before returning to the mainland on July 23, according to the foundation.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
