In response to attacks from opposition parties about the president's remarks to the Washington Post last week, the Presidential Office yesterday published the original Chinese version of the interview to confirm that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did accuse the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) of receiving help from China.
"The president wanted to point out the facts that China is making all-out efforts against Taiwan's government and Beijing has shown its subjective expectation about all Taiwan's elections," said Presidential Office spokesman James Huang (黃志芳).
"However, he wanted to make it clear that such a bias and unpractical expectation is not good for the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait," Huang said.
Following KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (
The office said that Pomfret asked Chen if he was disappointed with China for failing to help Taiwan when the SARS virus hit and for its unwillingness to talk about direct links.
According to the statement, Chen replied, "The Chinese government does not want to give credit to Taiwan's government. Thus they think only of their own interests in every matter while neglecting the ideals and the greater interests pursued by the 23 million people of Taiwan. China does not recognize Taiwan as a country, nor can it accept the democratic result that was made by the Taiwanese people in 2000, so it cannot accept me as the national leader of Taiwan."
"It has been pleased to see the KMT and PFP working together to boycott the administration of the government and has secretly given them support. It believes that the Lien-Soong ticket will win the presidential election in 2004, so it will wait until March 20, 2004, when the result of the poll will come out. It does not need to talk to the current Taiwanese government, as any [cross-strait] exchange will merely give credit to the incumbent Taiwan govern-ment," Chen said.
"We have to point out clearly, that China is in fact wrong, that China's leaders are wrong. In the last couple of years, the Chinese Communist Party has taken heart at the KMT and the PFP's deliberate attempts to bring down the DPP-led government ...," he said.
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