In response to a proposal that the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) should change around its official policy to be more friendly toward China, the TSU's spiritual leader, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), yesterday demanded that the party insist on defending Taiwan's sovereignty and promoting identification with Taiwan's local culture, otherwise there would no meaning in its continued existence.
TSU Secretary-General Cheng Cheng-lung (程振隆), who talked to Lee about the proposal on Tuesday, said yesterday that Lee was greatly concerned about the possible policy change and asked TSU Chairman Shu Chin-chiang (蘇進強) to demonstrate the TSU's resolve to maintain its original policy.
"Former president Lee said if the TSU cannot hold on to its ideals of protecting Taiwan's sovereignty and advocating identification with local cultures, then there would be no meaning in the party's existence," Cheng said.
The originator of the proposal, Lee Hsien-jen (李先仁), director of the TSU's department of policy studies, yesterday announced his resignation in a bid to counteract the uproar his proposal has generated.
Lee Hsien-jen first proposed the idea that the TSU should reconsider its policies and attitudes toward China at an internal meeting held on Monday.
He suggested that the TSU might want to alter its tactics, since the party would eventually have to deal with China.
Lee Hsieh-jen yesterday declined to talk about the issue, saying only that his letter of resignation contains everything he has to say on the matter.
In the letter, Lee Hsien-jen said that he was sorry and felt guilty about causing a misunderstanding of the TSU among the public, as well as supporters' strong objections and former president Lee's apprehension as a result of his proposal.
He had triggered the whole incident and was willing to step down from his office immediately to take responsibility for suggesting the idea without first studying and researching it carefully, Lee Hsien-jen said in the letter.
In response to questions whether the TSU will also send a delegation to China, Cheng said that is was impossible for the TSU to have any interaction with China until Beijing recognizes Taiwan as an independent, sovereign nation.
"If any of our party member privately contacted Chinese officials in violation of the TSU's basic principles, we will expel them from the TSU and will not forgive them," Cheng said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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