Delusional claims by a would-be dealmaker

New Party legislator Elmer Feng (馮滬祥) has claimed he was asked by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to convey messages to China on cross-strait policy and that, during the period in which he supposedly did so, Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), deputy secretary general of the Presidential Office, made 12 visits to Feng's office at the president's behest.

Feng also claimed that he and Chen had talked about President Chen's plan to accept the "one China principle," about "convening the National Unification Council" within three months, recognizing the "1992 consen-sus" to pave the way for the "three links" and laying stress on what they called "integration" -- in other words, unification.

It is interesting that Feng said that he wasn't a secret envoy, but only a cross-strait "communicator." But if everything Feng said is true, then his role was even more secret than the secret envoy role played by Su Chih-cheng (蘇志誠), who played a key role in liaising with senior Chinese officials before the Koo-Wang talks in 1993. The information conveyed must have been a hundred times more confidential than that conveyed by Su. Feng's role must have exceeded that of secret envoy and certainly cannot have been that of a mere messenger. On this point alone, Feng's words are not credible.

This is a matter of Taiwan's future. To be honest, even if the president wanted to do these things, he wouldn't necessarily have the guts to; and even if he did, he wouldn't necessarily have the authority. It is even less likely that such serious "promises" would be conveyed by a third party such as Chen Che-nan. Though Feng speaks with an air of certainty, his audience can't help but feel his statements are just too much to be believed.

Furthermore, if Taiwan was ready to make concessions and recognize the one China principle, then things like the 1992 consensus or National Unification Council wouldn't even be worth mentioning. If Chen really wanted to "surrender," would he show all of his bargaining chips? True, for Chen to reveal his hand is exactly what both China and Feng want, but it is something that not even an idiot would attempt. As for Feng's statements, he is probably the only one who believes them. They aren't plausible even to the Chinese government.

An even more obvious point of course is that, just as Feng said, he wasn't a secret envoy, nor was he a communicator, but rather a "messenger of surren-der" carrying a statement of surrender to Beijing. But would just a messenger have been granted an audience with just Vice Premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛)?

Still, Feng's self-agrandizing mumblings can be compared to Chin Hui-chu's (秦慧珠) "secret document" that supposedly proved that Chen had struck a deal with Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民). It's not clear, however, who is more delusional or whether both Feng and Chin live in fantasy world.

Chin Heng-wei is editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.

Translated by Scudder Smith