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Tsai calls for talks with President Ma

The Presidential Office yesterday said it had not yet received a telephone call from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who on Saturday said that she hoped to talk with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) following last week’s controversial visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said that Tsai had the telephone number of Presidential Office Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏), but as of yesterday Chan had not received a call from Tsai.

“She also has the telephone number of National Security Bureau Director Tsai Chao-ming [蔡朝明] and called him.” Wang said. “So it is a question of whether she wants to call or not.”

Wang said that while Tsai had criticized the Presidential Office for lacking sincerity by inviting her for talks via the media, Tsai had done the same thing this time around.

Wang said they would like to find out Tsai’s intentions and would be happy to make arrangements if she really wanted to talk.

In response to the Presidential Office’s comment, DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said: “Tsai brought up a serious discussion topic — unifying the people as well as the maintenance of Taiwan’s sovereignty. Instead of having his staff bounce back the issue so frivolously, President Ma should conscientiously ponder these issues, consider a framework in which the ruling and the opposition parties can interact, and decide how he wishes to respond.”

Cheng added that it was Ma who first brought up cross-party talks several months ago, a proposal that Tsai had supported.

“President Ma has said he had gotten in contact with Chairperson Tsai three times, which he hasn’t. I’m not sure why he said that, but it is not true,” Cheng said, adding that although Chan contacted the DPP a few months ago, the discussion went nowhere and was dropped.

As the national leader had proposed such a meeting, Tsai, who leads the opposition party, was demonstrating goodwill in response, Cheng said, adding that the exchange should not get stuck on who should call whom first.

While the DPP would not ask the Presidential Office for a formal invitation, it would ask that the president demonstrate his sincerity when he said that he wanted interaction by carefully considering Tsai’s comments — that gaps exist between Ma’s performance and people’s expectations, as well as between the two parties — before taking the next step, he said.

Commenting on the need for talks, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) voiced support for dialogue. Wu said such a dialogue would help ease the tension between the government and the opposition as long as Tsai did not limit the topic of dialogue to the sovereignty issue.
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