The Presidential Office yesterday defended President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) recent call for a new Constitution before the end of 2006, saying that such a timetable is an issue of the nation's democratic development rather than the debate between independence and unification.
The Executive Yuan also spoke out in Chen's defense, saying the US must understand and support Chen's promise to rewrite the Constitution and that neither the US nor China have any right to intervene in or criticize the nation's domestic affairs.
"The president proposed a new vision and concept of the country's Constitutional framework for future development," said Presidential Office spokesman James Huang (黃志芳).
"As the head of state, the president has the responsibly to indicate the direction and let the public ultimately make the decision," he said.
"The president's remarks have nothing to do with independence or unification and will not affect his `five no's' promises made in his inauguration speech," Huang said.
He reminded the public that a pre-condition of Chen's "five no's" was that China take no military action against Taiwan.
Huang refused to say if the government has assigned an official to discuss Chen's remark with the US government, but he did say that the communications between Taiwan and Washington remain close.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
"We will always adhere to the `one China' principle and stand firmly opposed to any splittist activities by `Taiwan independence' separatists," Wen said in his first National Day speech since becoming prime minister in March.
In response to Wen's remarks and comments from US officials, Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) told reporters yesterday that constitutional reform was a matter of Taiwan's internal affairs and other countries should not try to intervene.
"It's a country's internal affair to conduct constitutional reform. No other nation has any right to interfere or criticize our initiative to overhaul the country's constitutional structure," Lin said.
Lin said that Beijing has been poking its nose into the nation's domestic affairs over the years, commenting on the direct presidential elections, constitutional amendments and the holding of a referendum.
"The 23 million Taiwanese people have exercised utmost wisdom in this regard and I believe we'll do the same this time," Lin said.
Meanwhile, a political observer commented yesterday that Chen's remarks should be analyzed only from the presidential campaign angle, saying people should know that a new Constitution is necessary to build Taiwan into a normal country.
"The significance of the president's remark is not only to set the media's agenda but also to set a clear direction for Taiwan," said Ku Chung-hwa (
Ku said that since former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) announced his "special state-to-state" model of cross-strait relations in 1999, the issue of defending Taiwan's sovereignty had become a common goal of the country.
Ku said Taiwan had experienced the most controversial and tense moment after Lee's 1999's remarks and that "subsequent discussions about Taiwan's sovereignty will become less sensitive."
"Chen can use the opportunity to describe how the DPP will build Taiwan into a normal country by giving more details," Ku said. "The more Chen and the DPP talk, the easier it will be for the public to accept those idea as realities."
In related news, Lin announced yesterday that the Cabinet will give its approval today to withdrawing the draft initiative and referendum bill that it sent to the legislature for review over a year ago.
"To expedite passage of the referendum law, we have decided to withdraw our version and endorse that of the Democratic Progressive Party's [DPP] legislative caucus," he said.
The DPP draft gives the people the right to initiate a referendum on constitutional-related issues, while the government would only be authorized to initiate referendums on legislative-related issues and public policies.
The government would also be authorized to initiate a referendum if the nation's sovereignty or security was jeopardized by a foreign force. The initiative would have to come from the president and be approved by the Cabinet.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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