Taipei, Jan. 28 (CNA) The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) , Taiwan's top China policy-making agency, celebrated its 20th anniversary Friday and looked back on the roller-coaster ride of cross-strait exchanges during that period.
"It takes enormous patience to handle cross-strait affairs, which had never been an easy task, " President Ma Ying-jeou said at the anniversary ceremony.
Taiwan-China relations have changed a lot during the past three decades. Late President Chiang Ching-kuo declared his "three noes" policy of "no contact, no compromise, no negotiation" when the United States normalized relations with China in 1979. Last year, more than 1 million Chinese tourists visited Taiwan and more than 260,000 Chinese spouses were living in Taiwan.
Ma said his China policy, which advocates cross-strait detente and forging exchanges with China based on the so-called "1992 Consensus" has taken Taiwan on the right track, evidenced by relaxed tension across the strait and the 15 agreements signed between the two sides.
The situation was very different before Ma, who served in 1988 as executive secretary of a mainland affairs task force under the Executive Yuan -- the predecessor of the MAC -- took office in May 2008.
The institutionalized framework of cross-strait dialogues and meetings were marred by a visit to the U.S. by former ROC President Lee Teng-hui in 1995, Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996 and the 2000-2008 administration of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), during which China opted to have dialogue with the then-opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and ignore the DPP-led government.
"Not until my presidential campaign in 2007 did I have an opportunity to call for a resumption of cross-strait exchanges, " Ma said at the ceremony, which was attended by several former MAC chairmen, including former National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi and Chen Ming-tung, who headed the council during the DPP administration.
Noticeably absent was DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, who served as MAC chairwoman from 2000-2004. Tsai and her party have been formulating a new China policy of their own and have been trying to establish direct dialogue with China.
"Like it or not, we have to face the fact that China has become the second-largest economy in the world, " Ma said, adding that while Taiwan will keep shoring up its defensive capability, it hopes never to be at war with China. (By Chris Wang) ENDITEM/J