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whether they should go to Taiwan or back to China. Finally, on 14 November the authorities announced that they had granted political asylum to three mainland dissidents who had arrived in Taiwan the previous month. In general the Taiwan authorities have been relatively cautious in accepting dissidents escaping from the clamp down in China.
2. Nonetheless, in most other respects the relationship continues to develop. A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade said on 25 November that the mainland would not change its economic and trade policy with Taiwan and denied that any restrictive measures had been adopted against Taiwan's businessmen. This followed an announcement in China that restricted the authorisation to trade with Taiwan to certain named organisations. On 6 November a donation of rice and flour, given by the Red Cross Society of Taiwan, for earthquake victims in Shanxi and Hebei provinces on the mainland was loaded on board a ship for China.
3.
On 12 November, Wu Hua-Peng, the Chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, announced that the Dalai Lama was expected to visit Taiwan next year, in his capacity as a Buddist monk. Wu said that the "ROC" government had the highest respect for the Dalai Lama personally, and would be honouring him with a citation. Although the Taiwan authorities regard Tibet as a part of China, the report stated that the late President Chiang Kai-Shek had said after the 1959 uprising that Tibetans might decide the future of their homeland themselves after the ROC government returned to the mainland.
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4.
A delegation led by Koo Chen-Fu, Chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, and including Taiwan's Vice-Minister of Economic Affairs, went to Australia at the time of the Asian Pacific Economic Conference and then on to New Zealand to attend the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council. Taiwan was not formerly invited to the APEC Conference, and an official radio commentary said that the organisation had little chance of succeeding without the participation of Taiwan or Hong Kong, neither of which were invited. If politics were to intercede at the outset, the organisation would hardly stand a chance. It should not tie one hand behind its back by excluding top players. A 20 nation conference held in New Zealand towards the end of the month on the problems of the next question of driftnet fishing produced an agreement on creating an international system to protect marine resources. Japan and Taiwan, two of the biggest offenders, however, declared that they would continue limited fishing in this fashion. A Taiwan press report of 7 November announced that the government had begun lobbying industrialised nations and major third world countries for readmission into the GATT. A Malaysian business leader was reported on 8 November as saying that Malaysia was willing to help Taiwan regain its membership of the GATT.
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