Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun yesterday defended the president, saying that the National Unification Council and Guidelines for National Unification should have been abolished long time ago.
"President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did not break his promise, but instead he made his stance clearer than before," Yu said. "In fact, there is nothing to abolish because the unification council has not met since 2000."
Yu made the remarks in response to a criticism lodged by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Sunday. Ma said that the president's credibility would be questioned if he now decided to scrap the council and guidelines, because Chen had promised before his election and re-election that he would not abolish them.
Chen said in his inauguration speech in 2000 that he would not declare independence, change Taiwan's formal name from the Republic of China, enshrine the "state-to-state" model of cross-strait relations in the Constitution, endorse a referendum on formal independence or abolish the National Reunification Council or the National Reunification Guidelines as long as the Chinese Communist Party regime has no intention to use military force against Taiwan. The pledge is commonly known as the "four noes" or the "four noes and one without."
Ma's comment came after Chen's remarks on Sunday, when he said that the time is ripe to seriously consider doing away with the council and guidelines in order to reflect the current state of Taiwanese consciousness.
He also outlined two other tasks for the new year, including entering the UN as "Taiwan" and drafting a new constitution this year in order to put it to a popular vote next year.
The council was set up in 1991 by then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The guidelines were adopted by the council that same year as the blueprint for the government's cross-strait policy.
The guidelines set a goal to pursue a unified China that is governed by a democratic and free system with equitable distribution of wealth.
Since Taiwan has not yet decided whether it wants to unify with China, Yu said that the unification council and guidelines are meaningless.
"Taiwan is an independent, sovereign state and its sovereignty belongs to the 23 million people of Taiwan," Yu said. "There is no issue of whether to abolish the unification council and guidelines because they exist in name only."
The KMT, however, said that the president's true intention is to negate his "four noes and one without" pledge and rush toward formal independence.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday dismissed the talk that the president's intention was to respond to the legislature's resolution to abolish the Presidential Office's human-rights office, science commission and four other offices.
"While both the unification council and guidelines were approved by the Executive Yuan, the [six presidential offices] do not have any legal basis to exist," Wang said.
The legislature resolved on Jan. 12 that the two offices and four others established under the Presidential Office must be dissolved immediately.
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