Opening ceremony of the seminar. (Photo by Wang Yi and Chen Fasheng)
On 13th November morning, the Seminar on Hakka Culture and Peaceful Development of Cross-Straits Relations, co-sponsered by the Cross-Straits Magazine of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, Fujian Provincial Taiwan Affairs Office, CPC Longyan Committee and Longyan Municipal People s Government, and organized by Longyan Municipal Taiwan Affairs Office, Minxi Hakka Sodality, Longyan Hakka Culture Research Institute, and the Hakka Research Center of Longyan University, opened in Longyan.
Wang Fuqing and Zhang Mingqing, Vice Presidents of Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait, Rao Yingqi, Chairman of the presidium of Board of Regents of Kuomintang Central Committee and President of China Cross-Straits Hakka Culture and Economic Exchanges Association, Lu Kaijin, Vice Secretary-General of CPC Fujian Committee, Ma Xiaoguang, Vice Secretary-General of Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait, Liao Wanlong, standing member of Kuomintang Central Committee and Vice President of Taiwan Hakka Party, Wei Zongci, the Inspector of Taiwan Affairs Office of CPC Fujian Committee, and experts and scholars engaged in the research of Hakka culture both home and abroad, and city leaders Lin Renfang, Chen Jianshou, Rao Zuoxun, Wang Shuzhen, Zhang Siliang, and Zhong Meiying, as well as leaders from municipal departments, attended the meeting. Vice Mayor Zhang Siliang chaired the meeting.Vice Secretary Chen Jianshou of CPC Longyan Committee gave a welcome speech at the seminar as entrusted by Secretary Zhang Jian and Acting Mayor Huang Xiaoyan. He first extended warm welcome on behalf of CPC Longyan Committee and Longyan Municipal People s Government to all leaders, guests and friends. After giving a brief introduction of Longyan, Chen Jianshou expressed that Longyan had long history of relations with Taiwan; and is a major ancestral home for Taiwan compatriots. The past years had witnessed increasing contacts among the people, expanding economic and trade cooperation, and mutual development. Longyan has become an important region for the exchanges and cooperation across the Straits. It s the basic way of promoting the mutual prosperity and development to enhance the exchanges and cooperation across the Straits. We are fully willing to enhance exchanges and friendship, explore cooperation and seek mutual development via a platform like the Seminar on Hakka Culture and Peaceful Development of Cross-Straits Relations. We sincerely hope that the experts and scholars present at the seminar may act as a bridge to invite more Taiwan compatriots to visit Longyan, to establish businesses in Longyan, and to create our bright future.
Mr. Rao Yingqi addressed an enthusiastic speech at the seminar. He said he was very excited to come back to his hometown again. He was grateful that, thanks to the efforts of government officials and the people, the hometown had been developing rapidly. Rao said the success of Beijing Olympic Games was a glory of all Chinese; what s more, my hometown Longyan won three gold medals at the game, which was a great honor for my hometown people and presented the power of Hakka spirit. He said, the second Jiang-Chen Meeting concluded successfully in Taipei the other day, on which the both parties signed agreements on the direct cross-Strait links on transport and postal services as well as food safety, which made historic and positive contributions to the peaceful development across the Straits, and laid a sound foundation for institutional negotiation between the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait and Straits Exchange Foundation. Hakka culture enjoys long history, the people on both sides of the Straits are all Chinese that share the same blood bond. The Hakka people on both sides should seize the opportunity, under the optimum atmosphere of reconciliation and peace at new age, to establish an interactive exchange platform, that may contribute to the enhancing of friendship, exchanges, and peace across the straits, and eventually bring happy life to the people on both sides of the straits.
Vice President Wang Fuqing of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait expressed congratulations on the opening of the seminar, on behalf of Taiwan Affairs Office for the State Council and the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait. He said Hakka culture is an important part of Chinese excellent traditional culture; it inherited and carried forward the excellent traditional culture of Chinese people. The abundant Hakka genealogy books reflect Hakka ancestors yearning for their hometown and culture in central China, and the abundant well-preserved Hakka ancestral temples, Hakka residential buildings, and Hakka Tulou also reveal the Hakka people s inheriting of Chinese culture, all these embody the close relation between Hakka culture and Chinese excellent traditional culture. The development process of cross-straits relations reveals that the excellent Chinese traditional culture is a vital tie linking the feeling of the people on both sides of the straits. Over the past years, the exchanged in fields of economy, trade and culture have been increasingly deepened, among which the exploration and utility of Hakka culture had played a distinct role. Now we discuss about the relations between Hakka culture and peaceful cross-straits development so that we may make good use of related resources to strengthen the historic and realistic foundation for the peaceful development of the cross-straits relations, and to upgrade the exchanges of cross-straits culture.
Wang Fuqing said that the Hakka people in Taiwan are an essential group and important force in promoting the peaceful development of cross-straits relations. Many research revealed that most of the Hakka people in Taiwan find their family roots in Minxi. They share the same clans, same feeling and similar folk custom, which form a sound intangible spiritual bridge connecting Minxi Hakka and Taiwan Hakka. This bridge, together with the Hakka hometowns in Meizhou of Guangdong and Ganzhou of Jiangxi, witnessed the historical facts that Taiwan has been a part of China since ancient times and that the ties between the people on both sides of the straits cannot be cut off. Currently, the exchanges across the straits are expanding greatly, and the pave of exploring a new era of peaceful development of cross-straits relations is fastening, the compatriots including the Hakka people on both sides of the straits shall join together to promote the peaceful development of cross-straits relations, to bring about a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and to reach a new stage of win-win development across the straits. CPC Fujian Committee Vice Secretary-General Lu Kaijin and Association for the Exchanges across the Taiwan Straits Vice Secretary-General Ma Xiaoguang also addressed at the opening ceremony.
Experts and scholars from both home and abroad gave speeches on the theme of Hakka Culture and Peaceful Development of Cross-Straits Relations and attended grouping discussion after the opening ceremony.
