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Former MAC chief calls for new China-Taiwan talks

Former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) yesterday said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government has been moving the country toward independence and called for Taiwan and China to reopen talks.

Now a member of the the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) National Policy Foundation think tank, Su said that the DPP's recent campaign efforts showed that the party was gradually implementing the "Taiwan Independence Clause" it passed in 1991.

In a legislative seminar, Su said the DPP had abandoned the "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" it passed in 1999. The party neutralized its stance on independence in the 1999 document.

He said three issues that the DPP is pursuing -- a new constitution, rectification of the country's name and holding referendums without a legal foundation -- are absent in the resolution. But they are the key elements in the 1991 clause, he said. The DPP has taken the path to independence without declaring it has been doing so, he added.

"China sees Taiwan is already on the path. That's why it has ratcheted up its hostile rhetoric over President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) moves over the past week," Su said.

Given its concerns about North Korea and Iraq, the US would not want more trouble from Taiwan and China, Su said.

Commenting on the US State Department's pronouncements about cross-strait relations over the past week, Su said the US' bottom line in its "one China" policy is that Taiwan cannot seek independence.

Wang Zaixi (王在希), vice minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of China's State Council, threatened to use military force against Taiwan if the government does not restrain what he called its "separatist attempts."

Su said Wang's remarks are not surprising because he is from a military background. But Su said he was alarmed when even Wang Daohan (汪道涵), head of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, and often considered a dove in the Chinese administration, used strong rhetoric to attack Chen's moves.

Su urged the government to use the name "the Republic of China" (ROC) and the so-called "1992 consensus" with Beijing to return to the negotiating table with China.

But Chang Wu-yen (張五岳), a professor at the Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University, said the "1992 consensus" is no longer a practical foundation for both sides to reopen talks because circumstances have changed.

Noting that the term "1992 consensus" only began to be widely used after 2000, Chang said that during the 1993 Koo-Wang talks, Taiwan called itself the "ROC" and China used its title "the People's Republic of China."

"But neither side acknowledged the official titles employed by the other," he said.
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