The recent appointment of Song Tao (??) as director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) showed that Beijing is giving an even higher priority to Taiwan affairs, Chang Wu-ueh (???), an expert on cross-Taiwan Strait relations, told CNA.
The 67-year-old Song, a veteran Chinese diplomat, replaced the 65-year-old Liu Jieyi (???) as the head of the TAO, which handles the guidelines and policies of China’s State Council related to Taiwan, the TAO announced in a statement Wednesday.
Having Song, who served in the upper echelon of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the “deputy state level,” lead the TAO is indicative of Beijing giving “greater importance” to the Taiwan issue, said Chang, an associate professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of China Studies.
Chang was referring to Song being a member of the then 204-seat 19th CCP Central Committee from 2017 to 2022, part of the CCP’s top leadership body.
Song is likely to be named as one of the 24 vice chairpersons of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a nominal advisory body under the CCP’s United Front Work Department, when it convenes for its first session in March 2023, Chang said.
The arrangement should “facilitate coordination” among the CCP’s departments in their handlings of Taiwan affairs, Chang said.
Yaita Akio, Taipei Bureau chief for Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, disagreed, saying the appointment of Song as head of the TAO was “jaw-dropping” news because he was not elected to the CCP Central Committee at the party’s National Congress in October.
Chances are that Song could find himself at a loss when something comes up that requires him to exercise judgment because he is not involved in the operations of the Central Committee, Yaita said in a post on his Facebook page Friday.
Liu and his two predecessors, Zhang Zhijun (???) and Wang Yi (??), were all members of the CCP’s Central Committee, putting them on an equal footing with province-level heads and giving them the ability to settle the problems of Taiwanese businesses in China simply by making a call to local officials, Yaita said.
A call from Song might not carry as much weight with local officials because unlike his predecessors in the Central Committee, he is an ordinary CCP member, Yaita said.
The last position Song held in the Chinese government was head of the International Liaison Department (ILD) of the CCP from 2015 to 2022.
Prior to that, he was executive deputy chief of the Foreign Affairs Office, the execution arm of the Foreign Affairs Leading Group; vice minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and ambassador to Guyana and the Philippines.
After Song left the ILD, a ministerial-level agency that manages the CCP’s relations with foreign political parties, international political organizations, and overseas political elites, it was believed that he would be retiring from politics, Yaita said.
Song may have been appointed to the TAO post because he worked in Fujian province when Chinese President Xi Jinping (???) served as governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002 and was considered a close confidant of Xi, Yaita said.
Separately, asked to comment on TAO’s new leadership on Thursday, Chiu Chui-cheng (???), spokesperson of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, called on Beijing to refrain from employing coercive measures against Taiwan.
CCP authorities should respect the values Taiwanese people hold dear, including defending the sovereignty of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and freedom and democracy, and take actions to pragmatically improve cross-strait relations, Chiu said.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel