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MAC slams former UMC chairman over `peaceful' proposal

Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) yesterday slammed former United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) chairman Robert Tsao (曹興誠) for urging lawmakers to introduce legislation on a "cross-strait peaceful coexistence."

Chen said Tsao's vision was strikingly similar to the ideas laid out in China's "Anti-Secession" Law and was detrimental to the nation's identity and democracy.

Chen made the remarks in response to Tsao's front-page ad, published in Chinese-language newspapers this month, urging Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rival Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to jointly promote such a law, which Tsao envisioned as a legal basis for maintaining freedom and democracy.

In his ad, Tsao proposed a law banning any referendum on independence on the basis that the nation is already independent.

Commenting on Tsao's suggestion, Chen said at a Taiwan Thinktank seminar that it was unthinkable to legislate a law that would let China hold a "unification referendum" but ban Taiwan from holding a referendum.

Chen said it was sad that Tsao envisioned legislation that would downgrade Taiwan's status from that of a sovereign nation to a "highly autonomous region" of China similar to Hong Kong or Macau.

Such a law violated the Constitution and would effectively be a "suicide law," Chen said.

Tsao's proposal echoes the "Anti-Secession" Law enacted by Beijing in March 2005, Chen said, adding that the "unification referendum" proposed by Tsao was tailor-made to the specifications of the Chinese law.

Chen said that the Republic of China is a sovereign state that now consists solely of Taiwan and is both de facto and de jure independent of the People's Republic of China.
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