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Analysis: Storm in a teacup over president's New Year speech

Local analysts said that Beijing, opposition parties and US political commentators had overreacted to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) New Year message, which contained "nothing new."

China has slammed Chen's remarks while the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) interpreted Chen's speech as an effort to "pave the way for a new discourse of Taiwan independence."

Meanwhile, Bonnie Glaser, a senior US government consultant on Asian affairs, said Washington breathed a sigh of relief because Chen did not mention anything about constitutional reform in the speech or endorse the "Second Republic" constitution proposed by former presidential adviser Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏).

Alan Romberg, a US expert on cross-strait issues, was also reported by the Central News Agency as saying that Chen's New Year message reflected his resolve to push constitutional reform before his term expires.

Chen's criticisms of the "one China" myth, the "1992 consensus" and the "ultimate unification" theory in the speech amounted to a direct attack on the KMT and its Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Romberg said. He added that Chen's calls for continued probes into the tragedies that happened during the White Terror period and the KMT's stolen assets amounted to much the same thing.

Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), director of Soochow University's department of political science, however, said Chen's New Year address had contained "nothing new."

"It is a rehash of what he has already said before," Lo said.

Lo did not think it mattered much that Chen did not touch on the issue of constitutional reform in his speech, saying what really mattered was whether Chen meant what he said.

"Action is better than words," Lo said. "What's more important is whether he will pursue constitutional reform and how he is going to achieve that goal."

Since the president's speech steered clear of constitutional reform and the nation's UN bid, Lo said that de jure independence was not an issue.

"I believe Beijing and Washington can tell the difference between rhetoric and policy," he said.

Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), a professor at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of National Development, agreed.

"It's apparent that opposition parties and Beijing don't have anything better to do but to find fault," he said.

Noting that the rivalry between the DPP's "four superstars" was heating up, Lo said President Chen had opted to avoid controversial issues because he realized that future presidential candidates were expected to dominate the headlines. The court case relating to Chen's controversial "state affairs fund" was bound to steal some of the limelight, however, Lo said.

Chen Ming-tong said that constitutional reform would continue to be a hot topic ahead of the presidential elections.

"That President Chen did not mention constitutional reform in his New Year message does not mean that he [has abandoned the idea]," Chen Ming-tong said. "He has made it clear that it is one of the three main tasks he will pursue during the remainder of his term."

As President Chen's influence will gradually wane, Lo said it would help the DPP if he refrained from pushing a radical agenda, thereby creating a stumbling block for the party's presidential candidates.

"In a bid to court moderate voters, DPP candidates must move toward the center," he said. "[President Chen] might not want to, but he must endorse his party's candidates."

Regarding the president's comments on national sovereignty, Lo said the public should realize that it was merely "political rhetoric."

Both analysts welcomed President Chen's denial that he differed with Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) on cross-strait economic policy.

It was unlikely that Su could forge ahead with his own cross-strait policy without the president's consent, Lo said.

Chen Ming-tong said that the so-called "modified Su path" was something cooked up by the pro-unification Chinese-language media and was aimed at dividing Su and President Chen.
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