Ma hopes for consensus in China talks

Ma was referring to the difficulties that both sides are facing to carve out agreements on the three issues.

The Taiwan government has been hoping that the three issues will be raised during a meeting in August between the heads of the intermediary organizations on both sides — Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Cheng Pin-kung and Chen Yunlin, president of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS).

“Pre-meeting talks on the issues are underway, and we have achieved some progress,” Ma told the press in a tea meeting. “We hope the remaining obstacles to the deals will be overcome in time for the Chiang-Chen meeting.”

However, the president did not elaborate what the “obstacles” were.

Chiang and Chen have signed 15 agreements on behalf of the two sides since 2008 when President Ma took office.

On the debt crises in Europe and the United States, Ma said that judging from past precedent, disputes between the U.S. president and Congress will finally be solved.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal a day earlier, President Ma expressed concern that European and U.S. debt problems might wreak havoc on the global economy, including Taiwan's, in the second half of the year.

With regard to Taiwan's US$400 billion foreign exchange reserves, about 60 percent of which are kept in both U.S. national bonds or other debt forms, President Ma said and the government has no immediate plans to switch to other ways of keeping its reserves.

“We basically have confidence in the U.S.,” Ma said.

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