TAIPEI - The
opposition Kuomintang has reiterated its three
principles for promoting the opening of direct charter
flights across the Taiwan Strait during the upcoming
Chinese New Year holiday for Taiwan business people
working in mainland China.
KMT spokesman Chang
Jung-kung claimed on Sunday that the KMT would mainly
play the role of communicator, not negotiator, in the
proposed cross-strait charter flight services.
The KMT's three principles are that both
mainland and Taiwan carriers should be allowed to
operate cross-strait charter flights during the period,
those flights should be non-stop and three mainland
destinations - Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou - should
be included in the package.
Chang said the KMT
package can be carried out without prior cross-strait
negotiations.
"With the consent of relevant
government authorities, the proposed two-way, non-stop,
cross-strait charter flights can kick-start," Chang
claimed.
He urged the Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) administration to accept the KMT-proposed
formula to benefit a large number of Taiwan business
people working on the mainland, commonly known as
taishang, intending to return to spend the lunar
new year holiday.
If the KMT-initiated charter
flights package can be implemented, Chang claimed, it
can also help defuse cross-strait tension.
Chang
said representatives from the KMT legislative caucus and
six local carriers will travel to the mainland for
discussions with mainland Chinese air carriers to pave
the way for the proposed holiday charter flights.
With Beijing's consent, six Taiwan carriers
operated special charter flights between Shanghai and
Taipei/Kaohsiung via Hong Kong/Macau during the 2003
Chinese New Year holiday. The services were not offered
the following year because Beijing insisted that
mainland carriers also be allowed to provide the same
flight services but it refused to negotiate the
necessary technical details with Taiwan.
Huang
Teh-fu, KMT legislative whip, said mainland Chinese
carriers can commission private organizations to apply
to Taiwan authorities for permission to operate the
proposed cross-strait charter flights, just as mainland
news organizations have been doing in the past few years
in applying for approval to post reporters in Taiwan.
"If the DPP administration agrees to this
formula, bilateral negotiations are not necessary for
the opening of special cross-strait charter flights
during the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday," Huang
claimed.
Huang said he and his KMT colleagues
were to visit the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) -
Taiwan's top mainland policy planning agency - again on
Monday to seek its support for the KMT package.
MAC Vice Chairman Liu Teh-hsun said Friday that
the proposed cross-strait charter flights could be
modeled after the 2003 formula.
Liu said that
the MAC has repeatedly urged the mainland side to
negotiate the holiday charter flight issue, but to no
avail. With only a little more than one month before
Chinese New Year Day, which falls on February 9, Liu
suggested using the 2003 model in which only Taiwan
carriers operated the special charter flight service.
If taishang believe that more mainland
cities should be included in the services, Liu said the
MAC is willing to consult with air carriers to expand
the services to Guangzhou and Beijing.
Should
mainland air carriers want to apply for operating
similar flight services, Liu said, the two sides must
consult to come to terms because such operations involve
the exercise of public authority and complex technical
details for safety reasons.
(Asia
Pulse/CNA)
Jan 4, 2005
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