{"id":21020,"date":"2015-11-04T08:50:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T08:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/protests-in-taiwan-ahead-of-key-meeting-with\/"},"modified":"2015-11-04T08:50:10","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T08:50:10","slug":"protests-in-taiwan-ahead-of-key-meeting-with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/protests-in-taiwan-ahead-of-key-meeting-with\/","title":{"rendered":"Protests in Taiwan ahead of key meeting with China"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Demonstrators gather outside parliament in Taipei to protest against planned meeting between Taiwan and China’s leaders.}<\/p>\n

Demonstrators have gathered outside Taipei’s parliament to protest against a historic meeting planned between the leaders of Taiwan and China.<\/p>\n

Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Singapore on Saturday, in what will be the first meeting between leaders from the two rival nations since the end of a civil war in 1949.<\/p>\n

The surprise summit comes less than three months before Taiwan’s elections.<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s protests were being led by legislative candidate Huang Kuo-chang, a leader of the Sunflower Movement, which in 2014 opposed a planned trade deal with China.<\/p>\n

The protesters, worried about Beijing’s growing influence on the island, said President Ma has let down the Taiwanese people.<\/p>\n

“Beijing’s move will not only affect the coming presidential election [in January], but it is also a shot at Taiwan’s democracy,” protester Yung-ming Hsu, a political analyst at Taipei-based Soochow University, told reporters outside the parliament building.<\/p>\n

Taiwan opposition leader and presidential front-runner Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday said she “felt very surprised” to hear about Saturday’s talks.<\/p>\n

“A meeting of the leaders of the two sides across the strait is a great event, involving the dignity and national interests of Taiwan,” she told reporters. “But to let the people know in such a hasty and chaotic manner is damaging to Taiwan’s democracy.”<\/p>\n

Improved relations<\/p>\n

The unexpected meeting follows a gradual warming of relations with Beijing since Ma of the China-friendly Kuomintang party came to power in 2008.<\/p>\n

The two presidents will “exchange views on cross-strait issues” Ma’s spokesman Charles Chen said on Tuesday, referring to the stretch of water separating mainland China and Taiwan.<\/p>\n

The intention of the visit is to “secure cross-strait peace” but no agreement will be signed, he said.<\/p>\n

Beijing still considers the island part of its territory even though the two sides have been governed separately since nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT forces fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists.<\/p>\n

“The purpose of President Ma’s visit is to secure cross-strait peace and maintain the status quo of the Taiwan Straits,” Chen said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“No agreement will be signed, nor any joint statement be released,” he said, adding that Ma will hold an international press conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The White House gave a cautious welcome.<\/p>\n

“We would certainly welcome steps that are taken on both sides of the Taiwan strait to try and reduce tensions and improve cross-strait relations,” said spokesman Josh Earnest.<\/p>\n

“But we will have to see what actually comes out of the meeting.”<\/p>\n

\"Tuesday's<\/figure>\n

ALJAZEERA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Demonstrators gather outside parliament in Taipei to protest against planned meeting between Taiwan and China’s leaders.} Demonstrators have gathered outside Taipei’s parliament to protest against a historic meeting planned between the leaders of Taiwan and China. Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou will meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Singapore on Saturday, in what will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000070019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-21020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000070019,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton21020.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000070019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21020"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=21020"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=21020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}