Editorial: Going slow is the right move

During an interview with the Reuters news agency published on Friday, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said that there was no need to rush cross-strait talks. Chen said he wanted to "strive for delays while not fearing talks " -- which was a clever turn of Beijing's earlier phrase about "striving for talks while not fearing delays."

This slight change in wording clearly shows how the two sides of the Taiwan Strait differ in terms of their priorities on cross-strait relations.

The "talks" which Beijing seeks come with a big precondition, namely Taiwan's acceptance of the "one China" principle and "one country, two systems" -- which translates into accepting eventual unification. What Beijing is really after is not just any "talks," but a "resolution" of the cross-strait issue on Beijing's terms.

This goal is so important to Beijing that it does not want any intermediate steps, such as holding talks with Taiwan simply for the sake of holding talks or establishing friendlier relations with Taipei. For this "sacred" goal, Beijing is willing to pay the price of time, or delay talks.

This is why Chen explained his unwillingness to rush into talks in terms of preserving Taiwan's sovereign status. After all, if Taipei accepted Beijing's preconditions for talks, then Taiwan would be relegated to a role as a "Chinese province."

From Taiwan's standpoint, if holding talks with Beijing is necessarily preceded by acceptance of the "one China" principle, then naturally Taipei prefers postponing such talks as long as possible.

The truth of the matter is Chen was simply being polite and tactful in his interview. What he should have done was cut through the word games and clearly say there would be no talks unless there were no strings attached.

During the interview, Chen did not forget to mention that the pan-blue camp's leaders -- specifically former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) -- had been defeated by Beijing in this battle of wills and determination, since their visits to China this spring were on Beijing's terms. Not a single pan-blue leader or official managed to escape having to perform a song and dance about "one China" while visiting the other side of the Taiwan Strait.

One reason Beijing prefers delaying talks with Taipei is that it believes and hopes that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will lose the 2008 presidential election. Beijing was shocked when Chen won in 2000 and then bitterly disappointed when he won re-election last year. Any hopes Beijing had that the pan-blues would be able to oust Chen through their ludicrous probe into the assassination attempt on Chen or lawsuits seeking to overturn last year's election have come to naught.

Many people see KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as a leading contender for the presidency in 2008. He apparently does as well. While the next presidential election is still a few years away, the voters must keep their eyes and ears open and make sure that the next president of Taiwan will not roll over and beg to Beijing the way that Lien and Soong did.