Leaders of the pan-blue camp were not impressed by President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) national day speech yesterday and labeled it an election gimmick.
While meeting with supporters and party candidates along the campaign trail in southern and central Taiwan yesterday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said that Chen's proposal for a cross-strait meeting was just an attempt to paper over the dire cross-strait situation.
"[Chen's] suggestion is unoriginal. It was made just because Chen needs to deal with the current situation," Lien said while viewing disaster areas in Taichung County.
"The KMT administration held a meeting with China in 1992 and an agreement was reached whereby both governments believed in the `one country, two systems' policy. However, Chen has been critical of the `one China' policy. Does his suggestion mean he now supports it?" Lien said. "Chen should make his position clear to the people."
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) was similarly unimpressed.
"Our suggestion for a Taiwan Peace Law is far more comprehensive and complete than Chen's [ideas]," Soong told supporters in Tainan yesterday while stumping for legislative candidate Supo Kao (高思博). Soong was referring to the PFP's recent announcement that it will propose a law establishing a framework for cross-strait negotiations by the end of the month.
The proposed law, which calls for the formation of a cross-party council to negotiate with China on nine issues ranging from opening China's market to Taiwan's agricultural products to a 50-year truce across the strait. The proposal has become the focus of the PFP's campaigning for the year-end legislative elections.
"How can Chen say that he supports all the previous promises made in his 2000 inaugural speech, including the `four noes' policy as he did in yesterday's Double Ten speech, and then shake hands with pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative candidates?" Soong said.
The "four noes" policy refers to, among other things, a promise by Chen not to seek Taiwan's independence.
"Chen has a credibility problem. He proposed [his ideas] because he knows that he cannot ignore the critical condition of cross-strait relations -- but what would he talk about [in negotiations with China]?" Soong said.
The KMT issued a response immediately after Chen's speech via party spokesperson Alex Tsai (蔡正元). Speaking from KMT headquarters in Taipei, Tsai told reporters that Chen's comments on cross-strait relations were "nothing new." In particular, many of the hopes Chen identified for cross-strait relations were copied "almost verbatim" from a statement released by China directly before Chen's inauguration this past March, Tsai said.
In the statement released by China's Taiwan Affairs Office earlier this year, China said that so long as Taiwan does not advocate independence and recognizes that there is only one China and that Taiwan belongs to that China, then it is willing to begin negotiations with Taiwan for establishing a mutually beneficial relationship. While the KMT supports Chen's statement that the Executive Yuan will be looking to convene a "conference on ethnic and cultural development," Chen himself must first repent for allegedly stirred up ethnic conflict, Tsai said.
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