Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) younger generation have sought to redefine the party's rationale regarding Taiwan's cultural and political relations with China -- which will lead to the party acknowledging itself as the ruling party of the "Republic of China," a DPP legislator said yesterday.
Legislator Luo Wen-jia (
The new rationale will be based on the DPP's 1999 "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" (
Any changes regarding this independent status must be collectively determined by the people in Taiwan through a referendum.
Luo said the resolution was formulated in 1999 when the DPP was still the opposition party; however, as the party has been in power for about five years, it was time to reinterpret this stance.
The new rationale will emphasize that President Chen Shui-bian (
"There is no need to abandon the nomenclature of `ROC,' and now the priority is to let society recognize that the DPP is the ruling party of the ROC," Lo said.
Some of the party's younger lawmakers met on Thursday to discuss the new interpretation of Taiwan's political and cultural stances towards China.
The lawmakers directing the discussion included Luo, Chen Chi-mai (
The discussion was intended to resolve the "ethnic conflict" exacerbated by the presidential election.
The lawmakers asserted that politically, Taiwan doesn't belong to China, but culturally Taiwan includes aspects of China.
The deputy director of the DPP's Information and Culture Department, Cheng Wen-tsan (
Cheng said the party's "Resolution on Taiwan's Future" and President Chen's "one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait" policy were proposed based on equality between China and Taiwan.
"The party is open to challenges that could bring together people of different ethnic backgrounds. After all, most of the people in Taiwan have the same identity, inasmuch as they all love Taiwan," Cheng said.
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