ARATS Head Greets Taiwan Compatriots on New Year's Eve

Wang Daohan, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), called on Taiwan compatriots, on New Year's eve, to unit for the reunification of the motherland.

Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Straits shoulder the common responsibility for China's future, and it is the sincere hope of the mainland that Taiwan compatriots unite to oppose "Taiwan independence," Wang said in his New Year's greetings to Taiwan compatriots, carried in the latest issue of Cross-Straits Relations, a magazine run by the ARATS.

Under the principle of "peaceful reunification and one country, two systems" advocated by Deng Xiaoping and the eight-point proposal put forward by President Jiang Zemin, the mainland has made unremitting efforts to promote the historic process of peaceful reunification, said Wang.

The mainland has carried out an acute and fierce struggle against separatist forces on whether to adhere to or abandon the one-China principle and the goal of peaceful reunification, and has maintained China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.

Through the joint efforts of the compatriots living on the two sides, there has been drastic growth in economic, trade, personnel, scientific, technological and cultural exchange across the Straits. And there is an increasingly strong trend for boosting all-round exchange between the two sides of the Straits, Wang said.

After Taiwan's regional elections in March 1999, the mainland continued to adhere to the principle of "peaceful reunification and one country, two systems" in view of the facts that the Taiwan authorities promised not to declare "Taiwan independence," to try to add the "two-state theory" into the "constitution," or to hold a "referendum on independence," according to the ARATS president.

Wang criticized the Taiwan authorities for having failed to accept the one-China principle, denying the consensus on the one-China principle reached between the ARATS and Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation in 1992, and even to recognize themselves as Chinese.

All these factors have made it impossible to break the political deadlock between the two sides across the Straits and erase the root of tensions, resulting in Taiwan compatriots' concern over the orientation of the cross-Straits relations and the future of Taiwan, Wang said.

He described the separation across the Straits as the largest wound of the Chinese nation in the 20th century, stressing that it is the hope of all Chinese, both at home and abroad, that the pain would not last indefinitely.

Wang expressed his belief that Taiwan compatriots are against " Taiwan independence" and in favor of the one-China principle and they have been longing for a steady development of the cross- Straits relations.

"We will, as always, pin our hopes on the people of Taiwan," Wang said.

He urged the Taiwan leader to recognize the history and reality that the two sides of the Straits belong to the same one China, so that dialogue between the two sides could be resumed at an early date.

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