By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should make former KMT chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) meetings with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) transparent to ease people’s doubts over secretive cross-strait engagement, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
Lien is set to lead a delegation to China tomorrow and become the first senior Taiwanese politician to meet Xi since the presidential designate was named General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November last year.
Before his departure, the former vice president held a meeting with Ma yesterday.
“The DPP has always maintained that all cross-strait engagement should be conducted transparently and it opposes any secret deals between the KMT and Beijing,” DPP spokesperson Ho Po-wen (何博文) told a press conference.
The KMT is obligated to tell the public what message, if any, Ma has asked Lien to relay to Xi, what Lien and Ma talked about in their meeting and what Lien plans to discuss with Xi, Ho said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) urged Lien to relay Taiwanese mainstream opinion, in particular their opposition to a peace agreement of any form, to Xi, rather than only conveying Ma’s messages.
Huang denounced Lien’s “one-upmanship” of always trying to be the first in cross-strait engagement and said the meeting with Xi would be more symbolic than substantial because Beijing’s Taiwan policy had already been affirmed.
A three-point agenda has been set regarding China’s cross-strait policy, Huang said, which includes a cross-strait political relationship before eventual unification, military confidence-building measures and negotiations on a peace agreement. The meeting between Lien and Xi would not be able to change that agenda, he added.
In other news, the DPP yesterday said a press release issued by the KMT on Thursday which said DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) was ridiculous for demanding that the new Cabinet achieve 5 percent GDP growth this year and should be held accountable if it fell short, was “absurd.”
The press release was based on a blog entry written by former Council for Economic Planning and Development minister Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘).
“A ruling party that has a legislative majority is asking the opposition to be held accountable for that party’s governance. It is crazy,” Ho said.