BRIDGING THE GAP: A Mainland Affairs Council official questioned the need for a Beijing-Taipei rail link in light of existing efforts to improve cross-strait transportation
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER, WITH AFP , BEIJING
Friday, Mar 13, 2009, Page 1
Taiwanese officials responded with caution yesterday to a Chinese official’s announcement of a plan to build a rail link between Beijing and Taipei.
Responding to a Xinhua report yesterday in which Chinese Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun (劉志軍) was quoted as saying that Beijing was “actively planning” the rail link, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said China would have to take professional and political aspects into consideration.
Wang declined to comment further.
“The railway network is expected to lay a foundation of transport infrastructure for the cross-strait economic zone,” Xinhua quoted Liu as saying.
The rail line may stretch across the body of water between Xiamen, a city in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian, and Taiwan, the news agency said. It did not specify how trains would cross the 180km Taiwan Strait.
At a separate setting yesterday, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) cast doubt on the need for a cross-strait railroad, saying that both sides of the Strait were making efforts to improve transportation links, including sea, air and postal links.
Regular flights will also be on the agenda at the third session of high-level cross-strait talks scheduled for sometime in the next few months, he said, adding that cross-strait transportation links already had a “solid foundation.”
As China has previously proposed building a freeway to Taiwan, Liu Te-shun said it was necessary for both sides to “shorten the psychological distance.”
He said it was also debatable whether there was any need for a “cross-strait economic zone.”
What mattered more was building a better investment environment and protecting the interests of Taiwanese businesses based in China, Liu Te-shun said.
When approached for comment, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said he opposed the cross-strait railway idea because it would put Taiwan in an unfavorable strategic position.
The railway plan was also illogical, as focusing on air links between Beijing and Taipei would be a better way of improving cross-strait trade ties, Huang said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Hsien-yao (張顯耀) said current transportation links between Taiwan and China and the regular cross-strait charter flights the two nations plan to discuss would be sufficient to satisfy the needs of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Building a railway between Taipei and Beijing in a bid to boost cross-strait trade ties would be “uneconomic,” he said.
Regarding the Kinmen County Government’s plan to build a bridge from Kinmen to Xiamen, Liu Te-shun said his understanding was that the Council for Economic Planning and Development had decided “in principle not to build it.”
Wang said the Presidential Office respected the council’s decision.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told local residents during his inspection trip to Kinmen on Aug. 24 last year that, although there should not be any technical problem building the proposed Kindeng Bridge (金嶝大橋), he would like them to consider the political implications and effectiveness of building a bridge to China.
Tell me, why do you feel that there is an need to spend money on unnecessary things in a global recession? Especially Taiwan and China is seperated by 180km.
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
This is how they plan on invading Taiwan, of course. They know they can't face the USN, so they figure, let's just take the train!
They are cunning devils.
And it'll definitely make reunification more likely. Think about it: it's like getting the saddle, because then your parents will have to buy you a horse. Except this will actually work.
Where's all the money going to come from? China has a lot of other infrastructure projects (like the 100 AP1000 reactors) to fund in the mean time.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
There's no way in hell someone is building a 180km railroad tunnel, that's just insane. They're clearly thinking of a system involving a large number of huge ro-ro ferries (remember ships are actually more efficient than trains) from the most convenient points possible so that the cargo doesn't have to be shifted from train to boat and back, and instead they can just roll the cars onto the ferries and pull them back off in Taiwan.
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The Duchess of Zeon wrote:There's no way in hell someone is building a 180km railroad tunnel, that's just insane. They're clearly thinking of a system involving a large number of huge ro-ro ferries (remember ships are actually more efficient than trains) from the most convenient points possible so that the cargo doesn't have to be shifted from train to boat and back, and instead they can just roll the cars onto the ferries and pull them back off in Taiwan.
Ah, I see. Which doesn't do anything except for speeding up transporting goods from China to Taiwan and vice versa.
Although I'm pretty sure China realise that reunification is not that realistic in the next few years, so China should focus on giving Taiwan a chance to be more prominent in the global community, such as allowing them to enter the WHO.
Humans are such funny creatures. We are selfish about selflessness, yet we can love something so much that we can hate something.
Allowing them to be more prominent in the global community would lessen the chances of reunification in the long term. Making even closer economic ties with the island makes Taiwan more dependent on them, and less able to realistically declare its full independence.
