`State-to-state' the bottom line: Lee

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said that his characterization of relations between Taipei and Beijing as being "special state-to-state" in nature has become the "bottom line" in cross-strait negotiations.

Lee shared the limelight yesterday with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at the opening of an Academia Historica seminar on 20th-century Taiwanese history.

Lee said yesterday there was no longer a question of the so-called "1992 consensus" or the "one China" principle when it comes to cross-strait relations.

His clarification that relations across the Strait were "special state-to-state" in nature came after almost two years of research based on the works of domestic and foreign legal experts, Lee added.

Lee said when he first made the remarks in July 1999, Beijing had been preparing to announce to the world at its national day celebrations in October that its top cross-strait envoy was scheduled to visit Taiwan to discuss the "one country, two systems" formula.

That was the reason why Wang Daohan (汪道涵), the head of Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, had delayed his scheduled visit, Lee said.

During a recent television interview, Lee said he decided to clarify that relations were "state-to-state" in nature after he received intelligence information about Beijing's planned announcement.

Lee said he believed the situation was serious, because the announcement would have sent out the message that "the Republic of China has been destroyed."

He said the "one country, two systems" is not a formula because Hong Kong has only been governed under that system for less than four years, yet "things have already become this bad." Lee also said Taiwan must maintain its sovereignty in order to ensure its national security and dignity.

Beijing froze all dialogue and negotiations with Taipei after Lee made his "two states" remarks.

For his part, Chen called in his speech for an objective review of Taiwan's history -- the study of which was suppressed for almost a century under Japanese and KMT rule.

Research on Taiwan's history did not begin to blossom until the late 1980s, Chen said, and since than the academic perspective has been gradually moving away from a Sino-centric angle to a more local one.Also See Debate Inside