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Guidelines akin to `secession' law: Lu

"Since the remaining time in office for the president and I is only two years, it only makes sense to examine the refrigerator and see whether there is anything going bad that needs to be thrown out."

Annette Lu, Vice President

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday said it is necessary to scrap the unification guidelines because they have the same goal as China's "Anti-Secession" Law.

"The Guidelines for National Unification are very similar to China's `Anti-Secession' Law, because they both consider Taiwan part of China and their ultimate goal is to see a unified China," Lu said.

The vice president made the remarks while receiving members of the UK's Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies at the Presidential Office yesterday.

Lu said the guidelines were approved by the National Unification Council in July 1991, five years before the nation's first direct presidential election. She said the council itself was certified by the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Central Standing Committee at a time that Taiwanese did not have the right to directly elect their leaders.

"If Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) insists on retaining the National Unification Council rather than discarding it, I'm very curious to know whether he would also honor resolutions passed by the Democratic Progressive Party's [DPP] Central Standing Committee if he were elected the next president," she said.

Lu said the "Anti-Secession" Law is Beijing's version of the US' Taiwan Relations Act and that it makes clear that China will only talk to Taiwan on the condition that its "one China" policy is accepted.

"I'm not averse to the `one China' concept, but to regard Taiwan as part of China clearly violates the common wish of the 23 million people of Taiwan," she said.

Lu also criticized the KMT for backing away from a controversial newspaper ad it placed last week, saying the party had revised its stance after a telephone call from Chinese officials.

She was referring to an ad placed by the KMT in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) that floated independence as an option for the nation. The ad sparked controversy, only for the KMT to since clarify that the nation's independence is not an option for the party.

"If such a situation continues, I don't think we need any weapons, because one simple phone call from China can make the KMT change its policy," Lu said.

With speculation still rampant over why President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced his proposal to scrap the unification council and guidelines on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Lu offered her own insight into the president's timing.

"It's like housecleaning before Lunar New Year," she said. "Since the remaining time in office for the president and I is only two years, it only makes sense to examine the refrigerator and see whether there is anything going bad that needs to be thrown out."

Lu said she was glad to hear Ma emphasize peace and prosperity in his speeches on his just-concluded trip to Europe. But she said she was sorry he mentioned little about China's military buildup, which she said was a threat to regional security.

Ma also failed to mention the extent of Taiwan's democratic development despite its giant communist neighbor, she said.

Calling on the international community to heed China's military buildup and condemn what she called Beijing's intense efforts to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, Lu said the number of missiles China has deployed against Taiwan jumped to 200 in 2000, 400 in 2004 and 784 this year.

A reasonable estimate would be that this figure would exceed 1,000 by the end of the year, she said.

also see story:
China uses US, Japan to rein in Taiwan

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