China dangled economic sweeteners for Taiwan on Sunday, pledging 600 billion yuan ($94.3 billion) in bank loans to investors as part of a campaign to lure the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own back to the fold.
The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and China Development Bank will provide loans to Taiwan investors on the mainland over the next three to four years, minister of Taiwan affairs Wang Yi said. He did not say if they would enjoy preferential interest rates.
Wang also told the 4th Straits Forum in China's south-eastern coastal city of Xiamen that the world's most populous nation with 1.3 billion people would start importing rice from Taiwan.
Beijing and Taipei have been diplomatic and military rivals since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, but trade, investment and tourism have flourished since detente in the late 1980s. Taiwanese professors can apply to teach at Chinese universities, according to Wang, whose speech was posted on the website of the cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office.
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