An annual forum between Shanghai and Taipei was postponed suddenly, leaving even parts of Taiwan's government surprised. Taipei City officials say the suspension is due to needing more time to prepare.
00:00Amid rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait, an annual city-level forum between Taiwan and China appears to have stalled.
00:07Several Taipei City officials were set to head to Shanghai on Thursday, but the city government has now announced that this trip won't be going ahead.
00:15Our reporter Cadence Karanta has been following this story and she joins us live.
00:19Cadence, what's been happening with this?
00:21Yeah, so this is a very significant event that was supposed to happen this week in Shanghai, but the Taipei City government actually just announced that it would be postponed.
00:34They said it's because they needed more preparation time, especially because some of the agreements that they were supposed to sign with Shanghai involved a lot of different agencies that needed to weigh in on the meeting.
00:45And just to give some background, this is an annual meeting between the city governments of Taipei and Shanghai that started in 2010.
01:08They usually talk about some city-level issues like trade, tourism and cultural exchanges and sign some agreements.
01:16But really what makes this meeting so significant is that amid cross-strait tensions, it's one of the few remaining platforms for government-to-government communication between Taiwan and China at any level.
01:28China cut off all contact with Taiwan's central government in 2016 when Tsai Ing-wen was president because she would not endorse the idea that Taiwan and the mainland are part of one China.
01:41And Cadence, what have people been saying about this sudden change of plan?
01:48So this sudden announcement seems to have taken the government by surprise.
01:52The mainland affairs council, which handles relations with China, and is also involved in preparing for this forum, said that it thought that everyone had reached at least a preliminary consensus last week on some of these agreements.
02:04And a cross-strait relations expert that I actually talked to this morning says it's unlikely that preparation issues are the most important.
02:34That's the main reason why the Taipei city government decided to suspend the forum, because the forum happens every year and it's relatively routine.
02:42So that means that the planning is also relatively routine.
02:46It's worth noting that this comes during a period of heightened cross-strait tensions, and it also comes after the mainland affairs council called on the two sides last week not to discuss any national level issues like tourism, which have been discussed in the past.
03:02But there is still a lot of questions right now.
03:04It seems like the central government doesn't even really know what's going on.
03:07So we also don't know when the forum is going to be postponed to.
03:11The Taipei city government hasn't really given us any details about that as well.
03:15So we'll just have to wait and see about some of these details.
03:20Thanks, Cadence.
03:21That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:24That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:24That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:25That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:25That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:26That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:27That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:28That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:29That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:30That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
03:31That was Cadence Karanta live from our newsroom here in Taipei.
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