Sunday 20 September saw Taiwan’s Labour Minister Hung Sun-han board a flight to Nanjing, to become the first cabinet-level official in President Lai Ching-te’s administration to set foot on mainland China. A flight, yes, but for the waves created he may as well have taken a small boat.
台北——週日,台灣勞動部長洪申翰搭機飛往南京,成為賴清德政府就職以來首位踏上中國大陸土地的部會首長。
Hung’s mission was to attend an APEC human resources ministerial meeting, one of the few multilateral forums where Beijing and Taipei still sit at the same table, however awkwardly. Taiwan participates only under the name “Chinese Taipei.”
他此行是參加APEC人力資源部長會議——這是少數兩岸仍能同席與會的多邊場合之一,儘管台灣只能以「中華台北」名義參與。
The optics were striking. Hung, a former Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker once known for championing human rights in Hong Kong and Tibet, was granted entry to a country whose government has spent the past two years describing President Lai as a “separatist.”
這一幕頗具象徵意味。洪申翰曾任民進黨立委,以關注香港、西藏人權議題著稱,如今卻獲准進入一個過去兩年不斷將賴清德稱為「分裂分子」的國家。
Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army continues near-daily military activity around Taiwan. China has also maintained its suspension of individual travel permits for mainland residents wishing to visit Taiwan, leaving ordinary people unable to travel there independently for tourism.
與此同時,解放軍軍機軍艦仍持續幾乎每日在台灣周邊活動。中國大陸也持續暫停核發赴台個人旅遊許可,使普通民眾目前無法以自由行方式前往台灣旅遊。
Here lies the irony that makes Hung’s visit so notable: a senior official from the administration Beijing refuses to recognise as the government of a sovereign state can fly to Nanjing for a ministerial meeting.
這正是此行耐人尋味之處:一位來自北京不承認其具有主權國家政府地位的行政當局的高階官員,卻能飛赴南京出席部長級會議。
Yet an ordinary shopkeeper in Xiamen or a student in Shanghai cannot simply decide to travel independently to Taipei. Across the Strait, official diplomacy currently enjoys greater freedom of movement than ordinary people do.
然而,廈門的小商販或上海的學生,卻無法自行安排自由行前往台北。如今的兩岸之間,官員的往來,反而比普通民眾更加自由。
Diplomacy Without a Thaw
外交互動,並不代表解凍
Hung insisted his visit followed “the existing pattern” and would be conducted on the “principle of parity and dignity”—routine multilateral diplomacy rather than any political breakthrough.
洪申翰強調此行「循既有模式」,秉持「對等尊嚴原則」,屬於例行性的多邊外交互動,而非任何政治突破。
Many analysts agree. Rather than signalling a thaw, the visit appears to reflect both sides’ desire to preserve established channels ahead of the APEC leaders’ meeting Beijing will host in Shenzhen this November, which Taiwan’s president is again expected not to attend.
不少分析人士也持相近看法。與其說這象徵兩岸關係解凍,不如說雙方都希望維持既有互動管道,為北京今年十一月在深圳主辦的APEC領袖會議預留空間;屆時台灣總統預料仍將不會出席。
The contrast, however, remains difficult to ignore. A minister can pass through immigration in Nanjing under diplomatic arrangements both sides have found acceptable within the APEC framework, while broader cross-strait exchanges remain constrained by the political tensions that make such official visits unusual in the first place.
然而,這樣的對比仍然令人難以忽視。在APEC架構下,部長級官員可以依循雙方都能接受的安排通關南京;但更廣泛的兩岸民間交流,仍受到使這類官方訪問格外罕見的同一種政治緊張所限制。
For now, official diplomacy appears to move more freely across the Taiwan Strait than ordinary travel. Ministers can cross under carefully negotiated international arrangements, while millions of people on both sides remain subject to restrictions that politics has yet to remove.
至少目前看來,穿越台灣海峽最自由的,似乎不是普通旅客,而是官方外交。部長級官員可以透過精心協調的國際機制往來兩岸,而數以百萬計的普通民眾,仍受制於尚未鬆動的政治限制。
