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New body to focus on ASEAN ties

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to establish a foundation focusing on relations with the 10 ASEAN member countries in the near future, Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday.

"Now is a very crucial time for Taiwan to forge closer relations with the ASEAN countries, because many Taiwanese businesses are pulling out of China and relocating to Southeast Asia after Beijing passed stricter laws on taxation and labor welfare," he said in his report to the Diplomacy and National Defense Committee in the Legislative Yuan yesterday morning.

Huang said although Taiwan was not a member of the regional community linking Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in the economic, security and political sectors, Taipei has maintained "low-key" contacts with the member states.

During yesterday's meeting, opposition lawmakers said President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) should be held responsible for a deterioration in the nation's diplomatic strength.

They lauded the diligence of ministry staff, but said that most of their efforts to boost the nation's international image in the last eight years had been in vain because of a "hyperactive" and "stubborn" president.

"When it comes to foreign policy, the buck stops at the final decisionmaker. But his [Chen's] radical behavior has made it very difficult for our diplomats to promote Taiwan's interests abroad," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said.

Lin was one of six KMT lawmakers present at the meeting. None of the three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) committee members attended yesterday's meeting.

Huang responded to the charges by saying that Beijing's relentless oppression of Taiwan was the biggest cause of the nation's difficult diplomatic situation.

"China will not stop crushing Taiwan's international space until it has completely emptied out the nation's pool of allies and erased all chance of Taiwan's participation in international organizations," the minister said.

KMT Legislator Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文) said the ministry was "downgrading itself to the level of a subsidiary of the National Security Council and the Presidential Office."

In any democratic country, Cheng said, the foreign affairs ministry has to be open to bipartisanship and resist being dictated to by the ruling administration alone.

KMT Legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) joined in the criticism, saying that the DPP's proposed referendum on applying for UN membership using the name "Taiwan" had no benefits in terms of shoring up ties with allies and non-allies.

"Instead, the referendum has already incited many objections from Taiwan's crucial friends and major international power players," Chiang said.

Huang responded by saying that referendums are a necessary component of a democratic nation, and the government had to allow voters to voice their opinion on important issues, such as participation in the UN.

The minister said that the ministry did not rule out other approaches to joining international organizations.

Despite the recent friction in relations with the US, ties between Washington and Taipei remain solid, Huang said.
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