BEIJING, China (Reuters) – The Chinese mainland welcomes participation by Taiwan in the Belt and Road construction to share development opportunities, a mainland spokesperson told a press briefing on Thursday in Beijing.
Spokesperson for State Council Taiwan Affairs Office An Fengshan, said that the cross-Strait communication and negotiation mechanisms have been broken off because of the Democratic Progressive Party’s refusal to recognize the 1992 Consensus.
The mainland, however, still expects and welcomes the participation of Taiwan businesses in the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The Democratic Progressive Party authorities refused to recognize the 1992 Consensus only to break off the normalized contact, communication mechanism and ongoing negotiations across the Taiwan Straits. The institutionalization of cross-strait economic cooperation also suspended to the detriment of immediate interests of compatriots across the Strait. Many business people and enterprises from Taiwan have seen their development opportunities wasted. All these were not what we wish to see. We have repeated time and again that we welcome businesses from Taiwan to participate in appropriate format in the Belt and Road construction,” said the spokesperson.
Proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative, also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa through the ancient trading routes.
The spokesperson said that the mainland continues making efforts to help Taiwan businesses share the economic development opportunities created by the initiative.
“We actively support businesses from Taiwan to benefit from the freight train link with Europe to sell their products and expand market. In the past two years, we have organized businesses from Taiwan for frequent visits to the mainland Belt and Road regions. Some of these businesses have already found opportunities and started investment and operation. In future, we will continue to make efforts to help Taiwan businesses share economic development opportunities with the mainland,” said An.
