Set up republic now: Wang

Pro-independence advocates yesterday urged President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to cooperate with former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to establish the "Republic of Taiwan," and scrap the country's obsolete Constitution and official title as soon as possible.

The leader of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign, Peter Wang (王獻極), as well as national policy advisers Huang Tien-lin (黃天麟) and Yang Ching-chu (楊青矗), who are known as pro-independence stalwarts, yesterday together held a news conference at the Ambassador Hotel to commemorate Chen's declaration of "one country on either side" of the Strait (一邊一國) three years ago.

Wang said that Chen's "one country on either side" declaration articulated the reality of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Chen should work with Lee, the most influential leader of Taiwan's independence movement, he added.

"The good news that Japan has agreed to waive the visa requirement for Taiwanese tourists shows that Japan recognizes Taiwan as a nation," Wang said. "It also shows that our promotion of correcting the country's official name and writing a new constitution has made some preliminary achievements."

Yang called China a "bloodsucker" for absorbing enormous capital and techniques from Taiwan, saying the reputation that Taiwan deserves has been gradually stolen by China.

"Most of China's foreign exchange reserves were contributed by Taiwanese businessmen's investments and Taiwan has to establish its own country and quit partnering with China," Yang said.