President Chen Shui-bian (
"Reaching a consensus should start with the citizens [and be passed on] through the political parties to their leaders," he said at a press conference to review the achievements of his party, which will celebrate its first anniversary next month.
"Making the public understand the government's policy-making and be part of it is more important than anything else," he said.
Chen has called for a summit of the leaders of the main parties at which he said anything can be discussed. The KMT and PFP, however, have reacted cooly to the proposal.
"In the current political atmosphere, with the sharp divisions between the political parties, I don't think the summit of political parties' leaders that President Chen has called for would result in any significant achievements," Huang said.
Huang welcomed Chen's remark that Taiwan should take its own path, which he made at his inaugural speech as DPP chairman.
However, "it's kind of too late," Huang said of the comment. "President Chen should have made this kind of remark two years ago. He had obviously expected something from China, but China, is of course, not a country that you can expect anything from."
Huang said that the first step Taiwan should take on "its own path" should be to call itself Taiwan rather than the Republic of China, a policy the TSU has promoted.
"By following the Constitution, Taiwanese have become confused about their national identity. To make the nation more recognizable, we would promote rectifying Taiwan's name by pushing for an official referendum as our first step," Huang said.
However, Taiwan doesn't have too much time to work on national identity, Huang said, echoing former president Lee Teng-hui's assertion that Taiwanese will have to be clear about their identity by 2008 so that the nation will be strong enough to counter China's rising nationalism.
"2008 will be the year when China's nationalism reaches its pinnacle. The dam in Sanxia [a major infrastructure project on the Yangtze River] will be completed, the highway connecting Nanjing and Chongqing will be finished and Beijing will host the Olympic Games," Huang said, basing his comments on those Lee made last week.
"Nobody in the international community recognizes the Republic of China. Taiwan can't go anywhere with the ROC. The only way for Taiwan to take its own path is by rectifying its name first," Huang added.
The TSU chairman also announced yesterday his party's plan to extend its membership from a few hundred now to 10,000. He welcomed anyone sharing beliefs similar to those of the party to join.
He said the party intended to expand only gradually to avoid the problems of rapid growth that the DPP had experienced.
"Our main target now is the 2004 legislative elections. We hope to attract real talent for the election. Our goal is to get 20 percent of the votes in the election, which would get us about 45 seats in the Legislative Yuan," Huang said.
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