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DPP's China visit plan draws flack

Most opposition politicians, with the exception of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), expressed doubts yesterday about the feasibility of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) proposal to send a high-level DPP delegation to China in August.

Lien said Chen's administration must be confident that it has correctly gauged the state of cross-strait relations.

"He must be quite sure of the way things have developed since he has dared to make this remark," Lien said.

Asked if Chen's gesture to try to promote cross-strait peace -- which has been interpreted as a further softening of the DPP's pro-independence stance -- would hurt the advantage the KMT and PFP held with the electorate regarding relations with China, Lien said these were two completely separate subjects.

"This is not a question of partisan advantages, but one concerning the survival of the whole nation," he said.

PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), however, said cross-strait talks should be conducted on a government-to-government basis, rather than party-to-party basis.

Soong reminded Chen that it was the DPP that insisted cross-strait issues should be dealt with by the government, not a political party.

"The DPP has forgotten most of what it said in the past," he said.

Soong said the people should scrutinize how Taiwan has progressed since the DPP won power.

The people should also wait and see if the DPP will actually be able to pull off the visit, Soong said.

PFP legislators were even more damning, saying the visit would be "impossible to achieve."

PFP Legislator Chen Chin-hsin (陳進興) said Chen's remarks would be no more than "empty talk" unless he handled the "one China" issue properly.

He said the deadlock in cross-strait relations centered on the "one China" issue and the DPP's stance on Taiwan independence.

Under these circumstances, he said, any breakthrough would be difficult unless the DPP changed its policies.

Chen Chin-hsin also criticized the president's China policy for lacking coherence.

For example, the legislator said, only a week before he announced the visit to China, the president had said that he was the only person with whom China should deal and that no political party could make decisions on his behalf.
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