China, Taiwan talks set for December

BEIJING, Oct. 14 (UPI) -- China and Taiwan, whose relations have been improving since last year, will hold their next round of talks in December, it was announced Wednesday.

The talks will be held between China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation. The two agencies handle the two sides' cross-Strait exchanges.

The two sides agreed to draw up four topics for the talks but gave no details.

Economic cooperation is one of the pending issues but it was not clear if that would be included in the December talks.

"Respective studies by the mainland and Taiwan show that such an agreement would be in the interests of people on both sides and promote economic development across the Strait," a Chinese spokeswoman said.

Another pending issue is drawing up regulations governing the financial cooperation agreement, which was signed in April, although Taiwan has been accepting investments from the mainland in manufacturing, service and infrastructure sectors.

Bilateral relations have improved since Ma Ying-jeou became Taiwan's president in May of last year.

Communist China, ever since its founding in 1949, has never given up its sovereign claim on Taiwan although the two have had separate governments for six decades.