Cross-strait negotiations are necessary, but domestic conflicts of interest must be handled before going to the negotiation table. Otherwise KMT elders will ruin reasonable domestic decisions on the pace of negotiations.
This is why it was out of line for former KMT chairmen Lien Chan (連戰) and Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to use the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum and their personal connections to meet China.
Not long ago, Ma won the KMT chairmanship and gained influence over the KMT-CCP forum.
He has made efforts to restrict KMT elders from acting on their own, but they are upset because they think Ma is not letting anyone else in on the act.
KMT elders argue that if former US president Bill Clinton could go to North Korea to negotiate on Obama’s behalf, then Lien, Soong and Wu should be able to behave in the same manner.
But Clinton received authorization from Obama before going to North Korea. Politicians cannot go off at will to help another government hurt their country and then feel proud of it.
Ma has not done much right since coming into office and his China policies remain questionable. However, revamping the team that negotiates with China is a step in the right direction. The statements by the Mainland Affairs Council, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and the SEF over this incident have been forceful. Ma has not been applauded in a long time, so let us give him some encouragement for once.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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