TAIPEI, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A symposium was held Saturday in Taipei to mark the fifth anniversary of the historic meeting between leaders across the Taiwan Strait.
In a speech at the symposium, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan's former leader and head of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, said that the historic meeting five years ago built a "bridge for peace across the Strait."
He said that the meeting was based on a common political foundation and solid political trust accumulated by the two sides over about seven years, noting that history will not forget the efforts the two sides made to achieve the meeting.
Ma said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority's strategy to "ally with the United States and confront the mainland" will not bring Taiwan security, and he called for a return to the correct path of the 1992 Consensus and the seeking of peace across the Strait.
At the symposium, scholars on cross-Strait relations agreed with Ma's statement and questioned whether, by spending huge sums of money on purchasing U.S. arms since they took office in 2016, the DPP authority has brought security to Taiwan.
If cross-Strait relations had remained peaceful and stable, as they were before 2016, a huge amount of resources would have been saved to improve people's livelihood and welfare, instead of going to arms purchases, they said.
The symposium was jointly held by the College of Social Sciences with the Taipei-based Chinese Culture University and the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation.
In a statement on Saturday, the Kuomintang pledged that it would carry on the spirit that facilitated the historic meeting between leaders across the Strait and continue to promote cross-Strait exchanges and peace. Enditem
