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BEIJING, CHINA - CHINA said on Thursday it was making efforts to restart dialogue with Taiwan and that the situation there was improving, state media reported, after Mr Ma Ying-jeou became president of the island this week.
'There have been major positive changes in the situation in Taiwan as a result of joint efforts of compatriots across the Strait,' Xinhua news agency quoted Mr Chen Yunlin as saying in a speech.
Mr Chen is the director of the ruling Communist Party Central Committee's Taiwan Work Office.
'Both sides are making efforts to restart negotiations and discussions based on the '92 consensus,' he said.
Taiwan and China in 1992 reached a guideline for bilateral talks, saying that each side could interpret the term 'One China' in its own way.
In his inauguration address on Tuesday, Mr Ma called for a resumption of dialogue based on the 1992 agreement.
The two rivals held landmark top-level dialogue in 1993 in Singapore. But China suspended follow-up talks to protest a 1995 US visit by Taiwan's then president, which it saw as a move promoting independence.
On his first day as president on Wednesday, Mr Ma vowed not to enter an arms race with China but said he would build on the island's defence to deter a possible attack from Beijing.
The Harvard-educated former mayor of Taipei succeeded Mr Chen Shui-bian, whose pro-independence rhetoric during eight years in power irked not only Beijing but also the United States for the way it spiked regional tensions.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to invade if the island, which split from the mainland in 1949, declares independence. -- AFP
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