China Says Taiwan Talks Could `Collapse' If Framework Challenged
- Reasserts bottom line after disputed by presidential candidate
- Tsai had said there were 'other options' to continuing talks
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China said Wednesday that ties with Taiwan could "collapse" if the island refuses to recognize the framework that has underpinned negotiations between the two for more than two decades.
The remarks by Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office, came in response to comments three days earlier by Tsai Ing-wen, the island’s leading presidential candidate, that there were other options for negotiations with Communist Party leaders. Ma said in Beijing that the so-called 1992 consensus that they both belong to one China was a core concept that couldn’t be questioned.