On June 16, 1995, Beijing unilaterally suspended the channel for cross-strait dialogue which had been established in 1991. On February 24 , 1998, Beijing formally notified Taipei of its willingness to resume the dialogue without its narrowly defined "one China" precondition, which had been Taipei position and Taipei readily accepted.
During the interim of two years and eight months, Taipei sent four official letters ( April 29/96, July 3/96, November 7/97, and January 19/98) to Beijing urging the resumption of the dialogue, but to no avail. Furthermore, President Lee Teng-hui, Vice President Lien Chan, and Premier Vincent C. Siew made a total of 114 separate public appeals to Beijing for the resumption of the cross-strait dialogue.
Meanwhile, Beijing launched three rounds of military exercises and missile "tests" (July 21-26/95, August 15-25/95, and March 8-23/96) to intimidate the people in Taiwan.
Cross-strait dialogue was resumed on April 22, 1998 after SEF and ARATS exchanged eight faxed letters since February 24. SEF had to propose and re-propose (March 17, and April 3) mid-April as the date for cross-strait meeting before ARATS finally concurred (April 13). In between, ARATS in its March 26 letter to SEF totally ignored SEF's proposed date. Attached please find for your reference a chronology and copies of letters exchanged between the SEF and the ARATS in Chinese as well as their English translations. |