| BEIJING, March 25 -- The first ever civil forum will be held in May to inject new life into the warming ties between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, a spokeswoman with the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the Cabinet, said on Wednesday.
The activity, jointly organized by the office and the Fujian provincial government, aims to expand exchange and communication between people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, said Fan Liqing at a press conference.
The forum will run from May 15 to 22 in cities like Xiamen, Fuzhou, Quanzhou and Putian in the southeast province.
It consists of 18 activities, including a conference on cross-Straits tourism, a trade fair, movies and a symposium featuring presidents from universities on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Issues like the economy and trade, culture, education, women and youth would be covered in the forum, said Fan.
The forum would be a platform for civil exchange and we invite people from all walks of life in Taiwan, especially the participants at the grassroots level to the forum, she said.
The forum would not overlap talks between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and the island's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), Fan added.
The two sides are expected to hold talks on joint efforts to fight crime, financial cooperation and regular cross-Straits flights in the first half of this year.
The island's SEF and the mainland's ARATS were authorized by Taiwan and the mainland to handle cross-Straits exchanges in early 1990s. Negotiations were suspended for almost 10 years until June 2008 when Chiang Pin-kung and his mainland counterpart Chen Yunlin held their first meeting in Beijing. |
