Secretary General to the president Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) yesterday said that the content of President Shui-bian's (陳水扁) defensive referendum will not just be a simple "appeal" to protest China's military threats against Taiwan, but will propose "concrete" suggestions to allow the government making policy in the future.
"The United States government said that we should not make great efforts to just implement a meaningless referendum," Chiou said yesterday.
"Therefore, we must find a solution to make the referendum concrete and significant," he said.
Chiou invited local media to a year-end tea party at the Presidential Office, where he talked about US-Taiwan relationships that were disturbed by Chen's defensive referendum plan.
He said that communication between Taiwan and the US is making progress and "now the US government's concern is a `whole referendum package,' which includes the defensive referendum on March 20 and the new Constitution movement in 2006."
"The present mission for President Chen's administration is to assure the US government that neither the March 20 defensive referendum nor the future new Constitution will hurt the US' interests," he said.
He said that what the US opposes is not the referendum itself but any movement to change Taiwan's status quo.
"If the US and the entire international community understand that Taiwan must create a new Constitution because over 120 articles -- two thirds of the Constitution -- have to be amended, then they may accept that President Chen does not aim to touch on Taiwan's independence," he said.
However, if more than half the Taiwanese people ask to change Taiwan's name, territory and flag while legislating the new Constitution, Chen will follow the trend and violate his "five noes" promise, Chiou said.
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