CHANGE IS THE NORM:A party spokesperson said China should not see the DPP’s return to power as a failure of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s Taiwan policy
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has always maintained the stance that it wishes to work with China for cross-strait stability and prosperity, the DPP said yesterday in response to criticism from China and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over its stance on independence.
In an interview aired on Thursday evening, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義), tapped by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as his running mate in January’s presidential election, attacked DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) advocacy of independence as “only a rhetoric that she dare not implement.”
It is like “fraud,” he added.
King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), executive director of Ma’s re-election campaign, meanwhile, has also said Tsai “dare not include ‘no independence’ as part of her [presidential] campaign platform.”
Coincidentally, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅), who is visiting Washington, reiterated China’s anti-independence stance and its firm position on the so-called “1992 consensus,” saying that any violation of that position would jeopardize future cross-strait development.
Wang criticized Tsai’s support of “one country on each side” and described her as “walking the path of Taiwan independence.”
When approached by press for response to Wu and King’s criticism, Tsai yesterday said the DPP’s position on Taiwan’s future had been clearly stated in the party’s resolution on Taiwan’s future in 1999.
The resolution states that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country and any change to the status quo must be decided by all the residents of Taiwan by means of a plebiscite.
Meanwhile, party spokesman Liang Wen-jie (梁文傑) said the party would not treat Wang’s comments as a major Chinese statement, as “it has been common practice in Beijing for years before Taiwan’s major elections, but we do not encourage unnecessary threats like this.”
“Everyone understands the KMT’s pro-unification position, despite it having excluded related text from its party platform. Will Wu speak out loud about his goal for eventual unification?” he asked, adding that the KMT is also obligated to explain to Taiwanese its position on Taiwan’s future, be it eventual unification, maintaining the status quo or anything else.
Another DPP spokesperson, Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), said that Wang’s comment showed the agreements signed in the past three years by the Ma administration and China were based on the “one China” principle as defined by China, rather than Ma’s interpretation of “one China, with each side [of the Taiwan Strait] having its own interpretation.”
China should not see the DPP’s return to power as a failure of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) Taiwan policy because regime change should be accepted as a norm in a democracy, Cheng added.
Wang was also quoted as saying that the “Taiwan problem” is China’s “internal affair.”
Denouncing the comment, Cheng said the DPP’s position adheres to the 1999 resolution.
The Mainland Affairs Council on Thursday also criticized Wang’s statement. It said the Republic of China is an independent and sovereign country.