Taiwan media: Mainland CPPCC member Nie Xin reportedly granted rare approval to visit Taiwan for academic forum

Amid persistently low cross-strait relations, Nie Xin, a member of the Chinese mainland's National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and professor at Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing, has reportedly been approved by the Taiwanese government to visit Taiwan for an academic forum.

Taiwanese media described the approval for Nie Xin, who holds a CPPCC member status, to visit Taiwan for exchanges as highly unusual.

Taiwan's United Daily News reported on Thursday (Nov 5) that the 14th Cross-Strait Public Law Roundtable Forum was held at Soochow University in Taipei from Oct 17 to 18, with about a dozen mainland scholars approved to visit Taiwan for exchanges, including incumbent CPPCC National Committee member Nie Xin.

This also marked the forum's return to an in-person format in Taiwan after eight years.

Since 2013, the forum has been co-hosted by Soochow University Law School in Taiwan and Tsinghua University Law School in Beijing.

This year's event was held behind closed doors, and the organizers kept a notably low profile.

Nie Xin has long researched cross-strait relations and legal issues.

According to a 2024 report by the People's Political Consultative Conference Daily, he has concurrently served since 2013 as secretary-general of the mainland's Taiwan Affairs Office research base on cross-strait relations and legal-political issues, and in 2019 became a member of the expert group on non-party intellectuals' policy suggestions under the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee.

Regarding the approval for Nie Xin to visit Taiwan, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council responded that exchanges in academic and educational fields across the strait are continuing, and that the government conducts case-by-case reviews of mainland scholars' applications to visit Taiwan, which must meet conditions such as professionalism, relevance and necessity.

It also stressed that the Taiwanese side is aware of the relevant personnel's party and government identities.

People familiar with the matter described the Taiwanese government's attitude toward this exchange as "cautiously supportive," but said the space for exchanges has tightened compared with the past, and the organizers did not arrange other visits. "The current atmosphere is not favorable toward activities beyond academic ones, so we follow this approach." The people familiar with the matter mentioned that many scholars have influence on the other side. "When the other side is fostering a certain kind of suspicion, these people, because of their friendship with us, will step forward at the appropriate time to express an atmosphere of cross-strait goodwill, which helps ease cross-strait tensions." The report said the last time the Cross-Strait Public Law Roundtable Forum was held in person in Taiwan was in 2018.

After the pandemic ended, although the forum resumed in-person meetings, due to tense cross-strait relations and repeated obstacles to mainland scholars' applications to visit Taiwan, the event was held on the mainland until it returned to Taipei this year.

Cross-strait academic exchanges have also shown signs of increasing recently.

Taiwan's Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages held the 21st Cross-Strait Foreign Language Teaching Symposium in mid-October, and Taiwan's National Central Library will also hold the "Xuanlan Forum," a cross-strait public library exchange mechanism, at the end of this month, with several mainland library directors expected to visit Taiwan to participate.