As the opposition parties are responsible for blocking discussion on important bills in the Legislative Yuan, opposition leaders -- in particular outgoing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) -- should support holding a special session, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday.
During a speech at the 12th annual conference of the Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce in Asia in Taipei, Chen said that Taiwanese businesspeople had worked hard overseas for years to protect Taiwan's interests. Chen said that this spirit of adopting cooperative strategies is the only way for Taiwan to move forward.
However, Chen said it was a pity that some political figures put personal and political parties' interests higher than the interests of the people, and had not realized the importance of cooperation.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FENG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen said that the government has been somewhat impeded not only by global factors, such as the spread of terrorism, but also by domestic factors, such as opposition parties' refusing to communicate with the government. He did not elaborate.
"I urge KMT Chairman Lien to help the Legislative Yuan convene an extraordinary session to review arms procurement and other important bills efficiently before he steps down," Chen said.
Chen said that the military imbalance in the Taiwan Strait deserves more attention, and that Lien should take the Pentagon's latest report on China's military more seriously.
"We're facing a growing threat from China. Taiwan needs to take action to ensure that it's able to defend itself," Chen said.
The arms bill was first submitted by the Executive Yuan in June last year. Since then, the bill has been blocked 26 times by opposition parties in the Procedure Committee, thereby failing to put the bill on the waiting list of proposals for review.
Last September, Chen sent an official document to the Legislative Yuan, asking for a chance to discuss the reasoning behind the bill. His request was rejected by the legislature due to a boycott by the opposition parties.
Criticizing the opposition parties' recent visits to China, Chen said that cross-strait interaction has its own pace, which is not easily altered by any single event.
Since the government lifted a ban against visiting relatives across the Taiwan Strait in 1987, both sides' have increased their interaction in diverse fields, such as economics, industry, culture and politics.
"The recent `China fever' and other controversies induced can be attributed to confusion of national consciousness," Chen said.
Chen said that Taiwan, a country having only a short history of democratization, national consciousness stressing the priority of Taiwan's interest has to be extraordinarily promoted.
Meanwhile, when addressing representatives of farmers' associations and fishermen's associations yesterday at a separate event, Chen said China's recent offer of tariff-free imports for some Taiwanese fruit was "a 100 percent political move; a full-fledged war to achieve the goal of unification" with Taiwan.
Stressing that over-dependence on China's market would be bad commercial policy, Chen added that China remains hostile to Taiwan and that markets there are full of risks. That's why the Taiwan External Trade and Development Council (TAITRA) has been designated by the government as the only agency to deal with fruit exports to China, further lowering risks, Chen said.
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