Lu open to signing peace agreement with China

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said that she would be willing to sign a 50-year peace agreement with China if she were elected as Taiwan's president next year.

The pact, however, must be agreed upon without preconditions, she said in an interview with Hong Kong-based Chinese-language Oriental Daily News, which published the interview yesterday.

First proposal

Because she first proposed the idea of signing a peace accord with China under the supervision of the international community in 1988, Lu said that she has been an advocate of such an agreement for longer than former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who made a similar proposal last year.

When asked to comment on China's demand that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) give up its pro-independence stance before further cross-strait talks can be held, Lu criticized China as being insincere.

"They are insincere and try to impose too many preconditions," Lu said.

"It is better for China not to set out any prerequisites," she said.

Abiding by pledges

Lu said in the interview that she will abide by President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) "four wants and one without" pledges made early last month, which promise that Taiwan will say yes to independence, Taiwan will be correctly named, Taiwan will have a new constitution, that Taiwan will develop and that there is no left-right political axis in Taiwan, just the question of independence or assimilation.

"The independence pledge among the four imperatives does not mean that Taiwan will declare independence because Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent state," Lu said in the interview.

Strange `nouns'

"As for the name-change campaign, we are only trying to correct some strange `nouns' and normalize Taiwan," she said.

Lu is currently competing with DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) for the DPP's nomination for next year's president.