Chinese Scholars call for enhanced cross-Strait identity

Greater efforts are needed to increase cross-Strait identity and mutual trust, scholars from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan said on Friday. Speaking at the closing ceremony of the "Beijing Talk" seminar on mainland-Taiwan relations, Yu Keli, head of the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), spoke of enhancing the cross-Strait identity, in order to realize peaceful reunification. Yu said, "Exploring political arrangements between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan is the first step to realize peaceful reunification across the Taiwan Straits." The two-day seminar was attended by more than 100 scholars from both sides of the Strait, including those from Taiwan University and the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the CASS. Chao Chung-shan, president of the Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies, said more efforts should be made by cross-Strait scholars in order to help lay out political arrangements between the mainland and Taiwan under the one-China framework. Mainland-Taiwan relations entered a tense era after the Kuomintang (KMT) lost a civil war with the Communist Party of China (CPC) and fled to Taiwan in the late 1940s. However, relations between the two warmed up after the KMT, led by a new generation of leaders, returned to power in a 2008 election, ending eight years of rule by the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party.