The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance yesterday embraced pragmatism and moved away from its long-time policy of unification with China, saying that the decision on Taiwan's future should be taken by future generations and that maintaining the cross-strait status quo was essential.
"We are not capable of making a decision to decide the future of both sides of the Strait in this particular election," KMT Chairma Lien Chan (連戰) said. "That's why we will leave this issue -- as important and crucial as it is -- to our future generations."
The press conference, at the alliance's campaign headquarters, gave presidential hopeful Lien and his running mate, PFP Chairman James Soong (
Lien was asked to give his view on recent remarks by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
In an interview published in a Chinese-language newspaper yesterday, Wang said that "the alliance would not rule out the option of an independent Taiwan."
Lien neither confirmed nor denied the apparent shift in the alliance's policy.
"We insist on the maintenance of the status quo," Lien said.
"We are opposed to the idea of immediate independence, we also oppose immediate reunification," he said.
"We are patient enough to not rule out any possibility for the future," Soong added.
"But at the present time -- so far as sovereignty is concerned -- we stand for postponement of any head-on confrontational dispute," Soong said.
Saying that "I am a firm believer of the statement that `you don't push history,'" Lien stressed that "there's no timetable on cross-strait political developments."
Pressed further on what he meant by delaying a decision on Taiwan's future status, the KMT chief said: "Postponing it, delaying it, whatever you want to call it, but we are not capable of making the decision, changing the situation in this election. Not at this particular moment, especially 90 days before the election."
When reminded that China had once said that delaying the cross-strait issue could give it a reason to invade, Lien said, "China has not set a timetable at this moment as far as we know. On the contrary, [President] Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has proposed a timetable; 2006 a new constitution and 2008 implementation of the new constitution."
As well as putting unification on the back-burner, Lien also said the alliance would refrain from mentioning the "1992 consensus" during the campaign to avoid being painted by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as being pro-China.
The 1992 consensus refers to a disputed agreement arrived at by the two sides that there is "one China with each side having its own interpretation."
Earlier in Chen's presidency, the pan-blue camp had urged him to accept the consensus as a means of restarting talks with China.
"The 1992 consensus is distorted by Chen Shui-bian. He is using that as an instrument to paint his opponents in red," Lien said.
"It is not a good campaign language to emphasize at this point because we have a political competitor [Chen] who is painting you in red," he said.
"But I have to emphasize that the `one China' is the Republic of China," he said. "Taiwan is already an independent sovereignty and there is no problem of indepen-dence or reunification."
If elected, he said, he would engage the other side in dialogue on the opening of cross-strait transportation links, including shipping and air services.
"We can initiate direct services roughly in the neighborhood of one year," Lien said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods