Taiwan opposes China's building a rail link with Taipei

Mar 12, 2009, 23:16 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan is opposed to China's plan to extend China's national railway network to Taipei, calling it unnecessary, according to a newspaper report Friday.

According to the Taipei Times, both the Presidential Office and the Mainland Affairs Council have called China's plan unnecessary from both economic and political perspectives.

'China would have to take professional and political aspects into consideration,' presidential office spokesman Wang Yu-chi was quoted by the paper as saying.

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council also disapproves of China's extending its railway to Taiwan.

On Thursday, China's Railway Minister Liu Zhijun told the Xinhua News Agency that China was 'actively planning' the mainland-Taiwan rail link so as to promote cross-strait trade.

Liu did not say how the railway would cross the 200-kilometre Taiwan Strait, but Chinese experts have proposed building a tunnel under the Taiwan Strait for automobiles and trains to cross the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwan press reports said Chinese experts have held several seminars on building the tunnel under the Taiwan Strait and have drawn up several blueprints.

Taiwan-China tension has thawed since the late 1980s, but Taiwan insists it is an independent country whose future must be decided by the 23 million Taiwanese, not by Beijing.