Taiwan opposition wants rights on agenda in China talks

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) blamed China for causing the deaths of 156 demonstrators during the weekend by mobilizing troops and police and using tanks and machine guns to quell protests by Xinjiang's Muslim Uighurs.

Chinese authorities have blamed exiled Uighurs for masterminding the unrest — charges they deny.

“While the international community has voiced its concerns about China's abuse of human rights, the Ma Ying-jeou administration has totally ignored the issues,” the DPP said in a statement.

“The Ma administration must not keep silent on the bloody crackdown in Xinjiang and rather should put democracy and human rights on the agenda while engaging in exchanges with Beijing.”

Ma's office declined to comment on the violence in Xinjiang, some of the deadliest scenes of ethnic unrest seen in China in decades in which 1,080 people have been injured.

Taiwan's China policy decision-making body, the Mainland Affairs Council, called for calm in solving the unrest.

Exiled Chinese dissident Wu'er Kaixi, a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and a member of the ethnic Uighur minority, told reporters: “I'm very much disappointed at the about-face of Ma over the past two years.”

Ties between Taipei and Beijing have improved dramatically since Ma came to power last year promising to promote reconciliation and trade links with China.

Ma was an outspoken critic of Beijing's crackdown on the Tiananmen protests until June 4 last year, when he, for the first time, missed a gathering organized by exiled Chinese dissidents and their supporters to mark the anniversary.

Taiwan's president also did not attend a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown last month.

Ma's predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, often antagonized Beijing with his pro-independence rhetoric.

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