Retired senior military officers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait are pressuring President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to allow greater cooperation with China, telling a forum earlier this week that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) controversy provides the perfect context in which to do so.

The comments, which called for the creation of a cross-strait military cooperation mechanism, were made on the sidelines of a workshop organized by the Chinese Century Communicating Association (中華世紀交流協會) in Hong Kong on Tuesday.