Taiwan visit postponed because of crash

Emergency personnel retrieve the body of a passenger from the wreckage of a TransAsia Airways turboprop ATR 72-600 aircraft after it was crashed in a river, in New Taipei City on Wednesday. Stringer / Reuters

Zhang Zhijun, the mainland's head of Taiwan affairs, postponed a visit to Kinmen County, Taiwan, in the aftermath of the TransAsia Airways crash on Feb 4 that killed at least 40 passengers.

Zhang was scheduled to lead a delegation to Kinmen on Feb 7 and 8, during which he was to meet his counterpart Wang Yu-chi, Taiwan's mainland affairs chief. Representing the further improvement of the cross-Straits communication mechanism, their meeting was supposed to address issues concerning local people's livelihoods. However, it had to give way to the rescue efforts after the crash.

The postponement of Zhang's trip was of course, an unimpeachable response to the crash in which at least 26 of the 31 mainland passengers on board the plane perished.

The ATR-72 aircraft which was destined for Kinmen from Taipei, was actually on the "Mini Three Links" routes based on a pact signed between the mainland's Fujian province and the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen and Matsu counties, and Penghu Island that allows small-scale transportation of personnel and cargo.

However, Taiwan's mainland affairs council made a clumsy attempt to distract public attention from the air crash on Feb 4, by claiming that Zhang delayed his visit because the two sides had failed to reach a consensus over the mainland-proposed M503 flight path over the Taiwan Straits. Such a claim was both unnecessary and untimely.

Five more bodies were retrieved from the Keelung River on Saturday, bringing the total death toll to 40. Rescuers are still searching the river for three more passengers that remain missing, and this is clearly the priority at present.