Friday, October 05, 2012

China must prove its good faith to maintain peace: Su

By Chris Wang  /  Staff reporter

Only by good intentions and determination to maintain peace can China win the hearts of the Taiwanese and overcome all barriers to establish peace across the Taiwan Strait, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday on Kinmen.

“The concern about military threats [from China] — not the distance — was the barrier of the cross-strait interaction,” Su said during his visit to the island, which was once a Cold War frontline island and sustained heavy bombardment during the first Taiwan Strait crisis of 1954 and 1955.

While a million artillery shells fell on Kinmen in the past, now a million tourists across the Strait passed through here due to peace and exchange, Su said.

Taiwan has loosened its clenched fist by the abolition of the temporary provisions effective during the period of mobilization for the suppression of Communist rebellion (動員戡亂時期臨時條款) in 1991, he said.

“But you can not shake hands with each other when the other side still clenches its fist,” Su said.

If China wanted to win the hearts of the Taiwanese, good will and a pledge of peace would be better tools than its united front strategy of “into the island, into the households and into the hearts (入島,入戶,入心),” he said.

Kinmen is located less than 2km off the southeast coast of China and the city of Xiamen, where former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), a member of the DPP’s Central Standing Committee, was visiting yesterday.

Su said Hsieh’s five-day visit to China showed that the DPP is ready to proactively engage with China with confidence.

The chairman visited Kinmen, a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) stronghold, to inspect the DPP’s organizational effort in the county, where its popularity has grown in recent years from 3 percent to 10 percent.