By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) new China policy is expected to be finalized in a China Affairs Committee (CAC) meeting on Jan. 9 next year, the party said yesterday.
However, the party was reluctant to call it a “new” China policy as the core values of safeguarding Taiwan’s sovereignty, among others, would remain unchanged and there would be only minor tweaks in its strategy in dealing with Beijing, CAC spokesperson Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said in a press briefing.
The committee, convened by DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), gathered for its fourth meeting yesterday for discussion of a draft report on the DPP’s China policy, but failed to finalize the report, Cheng said.
The report, containing five chapters — core values, bilateral engagement and the political positioning of Taiwan and China, economic strategy, civil society exchange and national security strategy — is expected to be finalized in the fifth CAC meeting on Jan. 9, he said.
The report would be an accumulation of the opinions and ideas collected from three CAC meetings and seven expanded meetings on China policy.
Participants of the meeting agreed that constitutionalism should be the foundation of all bilateral engagement, according to Cheng.
Meanwhile, the DPP’s Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday morning rejected a report published by the Chinese-language newspaper United Daily News, which said that the DPP has reached a consensus to abandon its effort of seeking de jure independence for better relations with China.