Print

Mail

wiki links

Ma urges China to review Tiananmen, push democracy

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called on Chinese leaders to launch democratic reforms, as the Taiwan quietly remembered the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Ma said that the Chinese Communist Party should review the incident and launch democratic reforms in order to pacify the anger of Chinese people.

"Given Taiwan's experience, democracy would not influence China's economic development," Ma said.

He made the comments while attending a seminar attended by a number of Chinese dissidents.

"It would help the public vent their resentment," Ma said.

In a meeting with journalists at the Taipei Foreign Correspondents' Club earlier this week, Ma said that despite his party's increased contacts with the Chinese Communist Party, his position remained unchanged, and that unification with China would be impossible unless Beijing reviews the Tiananmen massacre.

However, the Chinese government made it clear last week that it would not change its position on the "incident."

It says its stance was necessary to prevent a counter-revolutionary uprising.

"The political incident happened last century. We have already reached a conclusion on that, I have nothing new to add," China's foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) said.

Hundreds, or possibly thousands, of protesters were killed when the People's Liberation Army used tanks to put down six weeks of democracy protests in Tiananmen Square 17 years ago yesterday.
This story has been viewed 2359 times.