Call for direct transport links

Vincent Siew, appointed by Taiwan's president Chen Shui-hian as his economic adviser in May, has
called for Taiwan to present pro-posals for direct transport links with mainland China. Talks
have been held up because President Chen said he was not ready to offer a blueprint for
direct links to the mainland unless Beijing agreed to technical talks with-out first insisting
Taiwan acknowledges the 'one China principle'.
Siew, who is a member of the opposition Nationalist Party and has served as premier and economies minister in past
Nationalist administrations, said that Taiwan's survival depended on building peaceful
economic ties with the mainland and that Taiwan should try to break the deadlock by taking
an economic rather than an ideological approach. As a first step, he was asking Taiwan's
Mainland Affairs Council to prepare a proposal for direct cargo charter flights with
China.