The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is willing to revise a proposed sovereignty-defending resolution on efforts to safeguard the sovereignty of Taiwan in an attempt to facilitate a consensus between the DPP and the opposition, a DPP legislator said yesterday.
Legislative whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), said the DPP leadership will meet today to work out a revision to the proposed sovereignty-defending resolution based on the principles of seeking cross-strait peace, maintaining the status quo and upholding Taiwan's sovereignty.
The DPP will then fax copies of the revised draft bill to the major opposition parties in the hope that the resolution will be passed soon and be an effective counterattack to Beijing's proposed anti-secession bill, Tsai noted.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), in his New Year address, condemned Beijing's attempt to enact an anti-secession law, calling it an effort to seek justification for a military invasion of Taiwan, and therefore constitutes a unilateral change of the status quo and posing the biggest-ever threat to regional stability and world peace.
The DPP submitted the proposed resolution to the Legislative Yuan for debate last week, but it was ignored by the opposition parties.
Tsai said that a revised resolution draft will be submitted again next Tuesday to the Legislative Procedure Committee for debate and screening.
Tsai noted that opposition lawmakers are welcome to jointly author the content of the resolution so long as three principles -- seeking cross-strait peace, maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and upholding the nation's sovereignty -- are observed.
In the original copy, the DPP says that Taiwan is a sovereign state existing as a separate political entity to China, that this status quo should not be changed unless approved by all the people of Taiwan via a nationwide referendum, and that the existence of Taiwan should be respected by the international community, including China.
Attempts, particularly attempts to use force, by any country in the world to challenge the above-mentioned reality -- regardless of whether by legislation or policy-making -- will be relentlessly condemned and opposed by the people of Taiwan, the resolution says.
Responding to Tsai's call for support from the opposition parties, Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘), a party whip of the legislative caucus of the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), an ally of the ruling DPP, said the TSU will temporarily withhold its support until the DPP has clearly defined the nation's sovereignty.
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