Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jou announces that autonomy for Tibet, and direct talks between the Dalai Lama and China, are the only solution.

Below is an article published by Tibetan Review:

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jou said April 30 [2010] in an interview with the CNN that he supports autonomy for Tibet and the Dalai Lama’s efforts to talk to China. “This is the only way to solve the Tibet issue,” DPA Apr 30 [2010] quoted Ma as telling CNN.

Ma had also said Taiwan wants peace with China, but needs to buy modern weapons from the United States for self-defence. He had reiterated that Taiwan must maintain independence and does not consider a "one country, two models" system like Hong Kong's workable.

Although Taipei-Beijing relations have greatly eased since Ma took office in 2008, China accused the US of trampling on what it claimed were its core interests when President Barack Obama decided to sell defensive arms worth $ 6.8 billion to Taiwan and welcomed the Dalai Lama to the White House.

China considers Taiwan a renegade province of the PRC although the communists who took power in Beijing in 1949 and went on to annex East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia and Tibet have never ruled the de facto sovereign island.