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No secret deals at cross-strait talks: Lai

Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday that no secret deals would be signed during the meeting between the top negotiators from both sides of the Taiwan Strait in Taipei next month.

Lai made the remarks during an interview with a radio station yesterday morning.

She said that both sides had reached a consensus to sign four agreements during the forthcoming meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

The visit is scheduled to take place from Monday through next Friday.

Two forums will be held to discuss the impact of the “global financial crisis” and other economic issues.

Chen is also expected to visit prominent figures and government officials, including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

Lai said she was baffled by pro-independence groups’ opposition to Chen’s visit.

“I wonder what they are afraid of,” she said. “Chen’s visit will only serve as a plus for cross-strait relations, not a minus.”

Lai said the object of Chen’s visit was to strengthen the mechanism for talks and negotiations. While bilateral talks have been suspended since 1998 because of political tensions, Lai said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration managed to resume negotiations three weeks after Ma took office in May.

On how Chen should address Ma during their meeting, Lai said Ma is the president of the Republic of China (ROC) and that she would like Chen to address Ma using his official title.

However, both sides are still negotiating the details, she said.

“The arrangements will be made on the basis of equality and dignity,” she said. “Both sides will use creativity to put such principles into practice.”

In an interview with TVBS yesterday, Ma said he hoped the public would pay attention to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.

He urged both sides to put aside their differences on the question of sovereignty.

If both sides cannot recognize each other’s existence, Ma said, they should at least not deny each other.

All the issues on the agenda of the meeting concern public welfare, Ma said, with the ultimate goal of cross-strait peace, coexistence and coprosperity.

The TV interview was one of a series of interviews Ma has given to selected local media outlets to promote Chen’s visit.

During a question-and-answer session at the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee yesterday, Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Vanessa Shih (史亞平) vowed to increase communication with foreign correspondents to ensure that their reporting provided a realistic picture of the negotiations.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said she was worried international media outlets could portray the Chiang-Chen meeting as “Taiwan moving one step closer to unification with China.”

“In no way should [the GIO] allow the international media to describe [the meeting] as a move toward the political integration or unification of Taiwan and China,” Kuan said.

Shih told Kuan she could not guarantee anything because she was in no position to control how international media reported on the event, given freedom of speech in this country.

Shih, however, assured Kuan that the GIO would do its best to provide facts and information on the meeting to both domestic and foreign media, before and after the meeting.

Meanwhile, KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) yesterday dismissed a story in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) that he, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) were “lining up” to meet Chen.

“It’s a ridiculous and distorted comment. When I visited China in May, top Chinese officials held various banquets to welcome me. Can I say they were lining up to see me?” Wu said during a KMT central standing committee meeting.

In an interview with the Liberty Times, former MAC deputy chairman Chen Ming-tung (陳明通) condemned Wu, Lien, Wang and other KMT leaders for their eagerness to meet Chen Yunlin while ignoring the country’s dignity.

The KMT declined to comment on when Wu or Lien would meet Chen Yunlin.

Wu defended the ARATS chairman’s visit and urged the government to “protect legal activities and clamp down on illegal moves” during the visit.

Chiang, who also serves as KMT vice chairman, pledged in the committee to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty during his meeting with Chen Yunlin.

In response to a call by the DPP on party members to carry national flags to protest the visit, KMT spokesman Lee Chieng-jung (李建榮) ridiculed the move and said the DPP should hang national flags in front of its headquarters if it really valued them.

National Security Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Cheng-tung (林成東) and National Police Agency Deputy Director-General Hsieh Hsiu-neng (謝秀能) yesterday morning led a team of 60 officers on an inspection at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Hsieh said the inspection was part of measures to ensure that everything goes according to plan upon Chen Yunlin’s arrival.

In Hsinchu City yesterday afternoon, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said Taiwan did not welcome Chen Yunlin and that the public should turn to more dramatic actions and protests if the top negotiator insisted on coming.

“He should be arrested as soon as he arrives in Taiwan,” he said. “How can we let a communist bandit run free?”

“Some have proposed that President Ma Ying-jeou should be sued for colluding with the enemy because he is attempting to make the ROC part of the People’s Republic of China,” he said.

“Both are subject to a life or death sentence according to Article 104 of the Criminal Code,” Chen Shui-bian said.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
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