Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on Friday defended his safe play in his speech before last week's closed-door summit with President Xi Jinping , saying that Beijing and Taipei had agreed to steer clear of sensitive issues in public.
Ma was labelled a traitor by the island's opposition party for not elaborating in his opening remarks that Beijing and Taipei differed on what "China" refers to in the "one China" principle.
On Friday, Ma said he had saved the elaboration for the closed-door meeting as he did not have time to raise the contentious issue publicly.
"Time was limited," he said. "We had also reached the consensus to save contentious issues for the [closed-door] meeting. It's not like we dared not say it."
The island's Mainland Affairs Office released the full transcript of Ma's remarks in the meeting on November 9. It showed that he did tell Xi the two sides had agreed to disagree on the interpretation of "one China".
Ma said more than 60 per cent of people polled by the Mainland Affairs Office after the talks believed cross-strait ties had benefited from the meeting.
The president said he had not made any plans to meet Xi again.
He also appeared more impressed with former president Hu Jintao than with Xi.
"I was truly impressed when Hu called former US president George W. Bush after I was elected in 2008 … and mentioned we differed on China's definition when he talked about the 1992 consensus," Ma said.
Asked about his impression of Xi, Ma said simply that Xi was a "candid and flexible" leader who could make "fast" decisions.