Sun, Jun 10, 2007 page3

• `1992 consensus' is a `dead end': Chen

  CRITICISM Vice President Annette Lu slammed Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez for ending his country's 63-year-old ties with Taiwan for money from China

  • STAFF WRITER
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  Basing Taiwan's diplomatic policy on the so-called "1992 consensus" would only lead Taiwan to "a dead end," President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday.

  Chen made the remark while addressing a group of supporters in Tainan City.

  The "1992 consensus" refers to the idea of there being "one China" on each side of the Taiwan Strait, with both sides having their own interpretation of the situation.

  The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has said that the "1992 consensus" was agreed upon by the Chinese Communist Party and the then KMT government at a 1992 meeting in Hong Kong.

  Chen's Democratic Progressive Party, however, has adamantly denied the existence of a "1992 consensus."

  "[The idea of] basing diplomacy on the `1992 consensus' is tantamount to admitting Taiwan is part of China," Chen said. "[The consensus] is a policy of surrender, a dead end."

  While Chen did not elaborate, his remarks came as an apparent response to a proposal by KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) last week.

  Ma said he would use the "1992 consensus" as the basis to negotiate with China and to expand Taiwan's diplomatic relations with the international community if he were elected president next year.

  Chen also said yesterday that Taiwan will refuse to compete with China's "checkbook diplomacy" despite the latest diplomatic setback over Costa Rica.

  "Several days ago our former ally Costa Rica severed ties with us. There were many reasons for this, but the most important factor was China's offer of US$430 million to buy ties," Chen said.

  "Taiwan can not afford such an enormous amount and even if we could, our countrymen would not accept it because Taiwan refuses to spend money unwisely," he said.

  "China intends to snatch away all Taiwan's allies to block our participation in international politics and to eliminate all our bargaining chips so that Taiwan cannot survive in the international community," Chen said.

  At a separate setting yesterday while speaking at the opening of a Taipei symposium on Taiwan's ties with South Pacific states, Vice President Annette Lu said (呂秀蓮) China was trying to pressure Taiwan's South Pacific allies into severing ties with Taipei through Australia and New Zealand.

  China is trying to win Canberra and Wellington's cooperation against Taiwan, she said

  Furthermore, Lu said, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) had promised to offer US$400 million aid over three years to states in the South Pacific during a trip to the region last year in an attempt to attract states into China's fold.

  Lu also criticized Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, whom Lu said she had accompanied on a trip to Kinmen when he visited Taiwan in 2001.

  Noting that Arias was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987, Lu said Arias has brought shame on himself for terminating his country's 63-year friendship with Taiwan in order to receive money offered by China.

  Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Friday that a Chinese official's remarks that Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy was controlled by China indicated a "regression of Hong Kong democracy."

  MAC spokesman Johnnason Liu (劉德勳) was referring to remarks by Chinese National People's Congress Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo (吳邦國) in a seminar on Hong Kong Basic Law in Beijing on Wednesday.

  Wu said that "the high degree of Hong Kong's autonomy comes solely from the authorization of the central government" and is not "inherent."

  The amount of power the special administrative region of Hong Kong possesses is solely dependent on how much power the central government allows it, Wu said.

  Liu said that since the return of the former British colony to Chinese rule in 1997, the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime and what he described as the democratic system in Hong Kong have run contradictory courses.

  Even though China proposed that "Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong and have a high degree of autonomy," the contradictions of the "one country, two systems" policy are all too apparent and conflicts resulting from the system have worsened, Liu said.

  It has been a decade since Hong Kong reverted to China, but "the 10 years have passed in vain in terms of democracy," Liu said.

  The international community, including Taiwan, is willing to offer Hong Kong assistance, but the demand for freedom in Hong Kong has become weaker, he said.
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