Fri, Oct 24, 2008 page4

• Chen pans Ma for ‘breaking’ vow

  THE ROAD TO UNIFICATION? The former president said Ma Ying-jeou promised not to negotiate with Beijing unless it was agreed Taipei had its own version of ‘one China’

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to stop China’s top negotiator from coming to Taiwan for further negotiations if Beijing does not agree to Taiwan having its own interpretation of “one China.”

  Chen’s office issued a statement demanding Ma keep his promise that Taiwan would not engage in any talks with China if Beijing did not agree to Taiwan having its own interpretation of “one China.”

  Chen said Ma made the remarks when they met at the Taipei Guest House on April 1 this year.

  “I would like to know which Chinese leader over the past five months has said that Taiwan can have its own interpretation of ‘one China,’” Chen said. “The only consensus of the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ is ‘one China’ and there has never been room for a different interpretation of what that means. Why does President Ma want to deceive himself and the people of Taiwan?”

  Whether “one China” can be interpreted differently by each side of the Taiwan Strait must be clearly stated, Chen said, and Taiwan’s national sovereignty must not be lost in word games.

  Chen said his experience handling cross-strait affairs over the eight years of his presidency had led him to believe that the so-called “1992 consensus” was nothing but a “lie” and a “hoax,” because it was a term created by then Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in April 2000 after both sides’ top negotiators met in Hong Kong in 1992. Su and then Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), as well as former SEF secretary-general Shi Hwei-yow (�?�), have since denied the existence of the so-called “1992 consensus,” Chen said.

  The so-called “1992 consensus” is a “one China consensus,” Chen said, adding that the official document published by the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) clearly states that “one China” cannot be “interpreted differently.”

  If “one China” could be interpreted differently, Chen said, there would be two Chinas, but it cannot, so it is a “one China consensus.”

  In other words, to accept the so-called “1992 consensus” is to admit that Taiwan is part of China, a province or a regional government of the People’s Republic of China, Chen said.

  The so-called “1992 consensus” is the “unification guidelines” of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), Chen said.

  Chen blamed the National Unification Council, National Unification Guidelines and all the related interpretations of “one China” during former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) term as the source of controversy surrounding the so-called “1992 consensus.”

  Since the then KMT government did not reject Su’s “consensus” in 2000, Chen said, the “1992 consensus” became the simplified form of unification guidelines, adding that not until his presidency did the government firmly reject the term and the concept.

  Chen said the so-called “1992 consensus” is a contract to sell out the Taiwanese people. To accept it is to accept the “one China” principle and abandon Taiwan’s status as an independent sovereignty, he said.

  “Only the 23 million people of Taiwan have the right to decide the future of Taiwan,” he said. “If we forsake Taiwan’s sovereignty, we will become a second Hong Kong or Macau.”
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