President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is likely to chair the National Unification Council (國家統一委員會), Chen Che-nan (陳哲男), acting secretary-general to the Presidential Office, said yesterday afternoon.
Eugene Chien (
"The NUC and the cross-party task force have been indexes of the goodwill we have extended to China in terms of cross-strait interaction. If the NUC is not chaired by a political heavyweight, China might doubt our sincerity," said Chen Che-nan.
President Chen had consulted with some other important political figure to be the chairman, but no reply was received yet, the secretary-general said.
In 1997, former DPP Chairman Huang Hsin-chien (
Chen even criticized the NUC as "as superfluous as an appendix" and that "nobody would feel remorse or even notice if it were cut away,"
On top of this, the DPP Central Standing Committee (CSC) passed a resolution which banned party members from attending the NUC.
As a result, if Chen insists on chairing the NUC now, he may run into trouble for violating the platform of his own party.
Chen Che-nan further made reports to DPP Chairman Frank Hsieh (
The DPP said yesterday that it was still evaluating the possible impact of the president's heading the NUC. "Nevertheless," said Hsieh, "resolutions passed by the CSC in the past are consistent over time. If any dispute arises, the party's CSC and Central Review Committee (CRC,
Both President of the Legislative Yuan Wang Jin-pying (
"We doubt that President Chen would persuade the DPP to accept the concept of national unification," said Lin Feng-cheng (
The opposition parties, on the other hand, all expressed their support for the president's taking up the chairmanship.
"It shows President Chen's concerns for cross-strait issues if he chairs the NUC himself," said Lee Ching-an (
KMT's legislator Tseng Yuan-chuan (
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