A key writer of Chen Shui-bian's (
"We wanted to talk about Taiwan and China's equal status without provoking Beijing. So we used some historical facts to do this," said Antonio Chiang (
This effort was most evident in a paragraph near the end of the address which stated: "Over the past 100 plus years, China has suffered imperialist aggression, which left indelible wounds in her history. Taiwan's destiny has been even more arduous, tormented by brute force and the rule of colonialist regimes."
Chiang said that this paragraph draws a clear line between Taiwan's history and that of China.
"The reason why we mentioned that China had suffered from imperialist aggression for over a hundred years was because we wanted to also point out that Taiwan has its own history, which proves Taiwan is separate from China," Chiang said. "Beijing always says that Taiwan's history only began after the civil war ended in 1949."
The line, which stated "400 years ago, Taiwan was called Formosa -- the beautiful island," was also another hint that Taiwan has its own history, Chiang said.
The wording which preceded Chen's five pledges to Beijing not to declare independence and not to put "state-to-state" into the Constitution was also carefully considered, Chiang said.
Although it appears to be a statement that proves Taiwan is not a troublemaker, it also gives China some pressure to change its hardline stance of using the threat of force to push Taiwan to the negotiation table.
"The speech has urged Beijing to do away with the idea of using force altogether," Chiang said.
Shortly after Taiwan's election, China accused Chen of not even mentioning the fact that he was Chinese. This point was also addressed in the speech, Chiang said.
"We used ancient Chinese philosophy to show that Taiwanese are actually more Chinese that China," Chiang said.
This was illustrated in the portion of the address which read: "Chinese people emphasize the difference between statesmanship and hegemony, believing in the philosophy that a government which employs benevolence will please those near and appeal to those from afar," and "when those from afar will not submit, then one must practice kindness and virtue to attract them. Such Chinese wisdom will remain universal words of value."
After scrounging through some philosophy books of Confuscious and eventually the correct philosopher, Mencius, Chiang found the quote, he said.
"I was really pleased with this portion," he said.
The point is clear, he added: Beijing doesn't draw upon the wisdom of philosophers of the past. "Beijing doesn't even act Chinese," he said.
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