Taiwan

Chongqing, Taiwan share 'political roots'

By Xie Yu (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-30 07:35

CHONGQING - As the venue of a major cross-Straits trade deal's signing, this municipality on Tuesday began a new chapter in its legacy of linking the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang (KMT).

The tariff-slashing ECFA is a landmark deal that follows six decades of hostility that had at times led to the brink of war.

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"By choosing Chongqing, Beijing underscores the link between Taiwan and the mainland," George Tsai, a political scientist at Taipei's Chinese Culture University, was quoted as saying by AFP.

"Choosing Chongqing as the venue certainly has political implications, and this is understandable, as ECFA is more than an economic agreement."

Otherwise, Beijing would have likely selected a city highlighting economic synergies, Tsai added.

As then-KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung said as he toured war memorials in Chongqing in May of last year: "Chongqing and Taiwan share deep historical roots."

The city gained political importance following the Japanese invasion in the late 1930s. When Nanjing, which was the capital at the time of KMT rule, fell to the Japanese in 1937, Chongqing became the provisional capital.

It became symbolic of the time from 1937 to 1945 when the CPC and KMT faced a common Japanese enemy. The need to fight foreign invaders forced the parties, who had been locked in a spiral of violence since the 1920s, to create an uneasy truce.

Among the city's modern high-rises are historical memorials to the brief period during which the parties basically peacefully coexisted.

Chongqing was once home to Zhou Enlai, China's former premier and foreign minister.

It also contains the wartime abode of then-KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang invited Mao Zedong to the city on Aug 28, 1945, for 43 days of negotiations to prevent civil war after the Japanese surrender on Aug 15 of that year.

On Oct 10, 1945, the CPC and KMT signed the Double Tenth Agreement, pledging to work for peace. But civil war broke out months later, leading to the KMT's retreat to Taiwan in 1949 and New China's founding on Oct 1 of that year.

The ECFA's signing on Tuesday puts the city in the center of reconciliation that has been ongoing since mainland-friendly KMT Ma Ying-jeou assumed leadership of the island in 2008.

"The distance between Taipei and Chongqing has narrowed," top Taiwan negotiator Chiang Pin-kung said upon his arrival on Monday.

"Today, we spent less than three hours to get here."