Two weeks ahead of President-elect Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) highly-anticipated inauguration speech on May 20, two scholars yesterday offered their own advice on what he should say with regards to the sensitive issue of cross-strait relations -- including a "four no's" policy for avoiding conflict with China.
Pan Hsi-tang (潘錫堂), a political analyst at Tamkang University, suggested Chen promise not to enact four controversial political programs -- which he said would greatly reduce chances for China to use force against Taiwan.
Those four touchy subjects are Taiwan independence, President Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "special state-to-state" framework to define Taiwan's relations with China, a change in the country's name and the holding of a plebiscite on whether there should be reunification or independence.
"It is not enough for Chen to re-emphasize `one-China' as an issue. Chen must make it clear to the Beijing leadership that he will not carry out any of those controversial political goals," Pan said.
He said if Chen can exercise restraint, China will not be able to find any justifiable causes to use force against Taiwan.
Lu Jui-chung (盧瑞鍾), a political scholar at National Taiwan University, suggested Chen could follow the KMT-run government in insisting that both sides of the Taiwan Strait enjoy the same right to interpret "one China."
The bottom line for both the DPP as well as for Beijing leadership, Lu said, is that it would be best for the two sides of the strait to go back to the consensus they reached during the cross-strait talks in 1992.
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