Xi presents a three-step unification plan with Taiwan

Guangming Daily, a sister newspaper of Chinese state-owned Xinhua News, said Wednesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a three step plan for unification with Taiwan. Attention is on whether the three-step plan could serve as a political guide during the exchange between China and Taiwan.

President Xi announced the plan while meeting Lien Chan, honorary chairman of Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang party, who recently visited China. It is unprecedented for a Chinese leader to mention unification plans with Taiwan.

The first step, peaceful development, is to pursue development through exchange collaboration based on the “1992 Consensus,” an agreement made in 1992 between the two countries to mutually accept each other based on the "one-China" principle. Guangming Daily said the key is who has the governing power in Taiwan. If a political force that claims for Taiwan`s independence takes power, there will be setback from the first step.

The second step is inter-country visits by high-ranking officials. Currently, the broad exchange of human resources is being made in various sectors of economy, society, humanity, science and technology. This will expand to the political sector, ultimately leading to meetings between heads of states.

In the third step, exchanges between high-ranking political powers will naturally bring about discussions of peaceful reunification.