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Cabinet spokesman says Beijing is the real troublemaker

The government yesterday branded China a troublemaker after Beijing voiced its "stern opposition to" referendums in Taiwan.

"The accusation that our plan to hold a referendum is crossing the red line is an oxymoron. China, with its continuous military buildup against Taiwan, is the one crossing the red line and the genuine troublemaker," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told reporters after the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.

Lin said Taiwanese were sickened to see a foreign country violently trying to deprive them of their basic rights guaranteed by the Constitution.

"In a democratic country, it's the inherent and inalienable right of the people to exercise initiative and referendum. We'll never let any country take this away from us," Lin said.

Lin was speaking in response to comments made by Beijing.

During a routine press conference, Li Weiyi (李維一), a spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, expressed his government's "stern opposition to" Taiwan's plan to hold a referendum because it considers such a move a prelude to a referendum on independence.

"We strongly oppose any action -- such as holding a referendum or adding the word Taiwan to the cover of Taiwan's passports -- that would divide the motherland and create instability across the Taiwan Strait," Li said. "We hope Taiwan will stop the plan immediately as well as all other activities under the name of referendums."

When asked whether the US had expressed its stance on the matter, Li said only that China and the US had a consensus on the Taiwan issue.

"The Taiwan issue is the most sensitive and core problem of Sino-US relations," Li said. "The US government should make good on its promise to ensure peace across the Taiwan Strait. To that end, it should insist on the `one China' policy, adhere to the three Sino-US communiques and oppose all forms of Taiwan independence."

Reiterating a pledge made by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in his May 2000 inaugural address, Lin said that Taiwan will not seek a referendum on the independence issue as long as China does not attack.

"We won't cave in to China's pressure and stop pushing for the first islandwide referendum," Lin said. "We regret that political reasons have hampered the enactment of such a law to allow the people to initiate referendums."

Although the exercise of initiative and referendum is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, it also says that referendums need to be regulated by law.

In April last year the Cabinet sent an initiative and referendum bill to the legislature but lawmakers were deadlocked over the issues a vote should cover.

While there is no legal basis for the government to hold a referendum, Yu said on Monday that the Cabinet was drafting a measure to allow the government to do so. The provisional measure would automatically be nullified as soon as the legislature passes a referendum law.
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