Scholar calls for DPP participation in cross-Strait dialogues

More people from Taiwan's main opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should participate in non-official political talks across the Taiwan Strait, a mainland scholar said Monday. Cheng Siwei, president of the National Society of Taiwan Studies (NSTS), said such dialogues should be further promoted to enhance mutual understanding and political trust. Cheng was speaking at the opening ceremony of a three-day symposium on mainland-Taiwan relations in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province. The two sides should prioritize the overall interests of the whole Chinese nation, and constantly strengthen goodwill interactions based on the common political principles of "opposing Taiwan-independence" and the "1992 consensus," said Cheng. He also urged to deepen such dialogues by being more open in discussing various political issues. Such dialogues could "create conditions for dealing with complicated cross-Strait issues such as political relations, military security and external affairs," said Cheng, also former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the top legislature. He called for "caring, respecting, understanding and trusting Taiwan compatriots, fully learning of their real needs, actively formulating new measures favoring the island, and improving the environment for Taiwanese to work, do business and tour in the mainland." The symposium, organized by NSTS, the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots, and the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, is being attended by more than 100 experts from the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. The annual symposium, launched in 1991, covered almost all topics concerning cross-Strait relations, according to Sun Yafu, vice director of both the Taiwan Work Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office.