Legislators across party lines yesterday downplayed the feasibility of the establishment of a cross-strait committee to replace Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) to pave the way for the negotiation of a cross-strait peace agreement.
Sun Zhe (孫哲), director of Tsinghua University’s Center for US-China Relations in Beijing, was quoted by the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday as saying that China has already begun preparations for a cross-strait peace accord.
These include establishing an official cross-strait committee to replace the SEF and ARATS, as well as studying the possibility of enacting a “Taiwan Act,” Sun was quoted as saying in Washington.
He added that China did not have any concrete timetable for the arrangement, but “as long as Taiwan is ready, we are ready.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), head of the Internal Administration Committee, yesterday said it is “impossible” for Taiwan and China to set up such an organization because both enjoy their respective sovereignty.
The SEF and the ARATS had worked smoothly on cross-strait negotiations and should not be replaced, he said.
“The time is not right,” KMT Legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) said. “People thought cross-strait relations had completely changed after the signing of the ECFA [Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement], but this is not necessarily so.”
“[The signing] is a plus for cross-strait relations, but [it would be premature] to jump into political or security [negotiations],” he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said the proposal would be completely unacceptable and would infringe on Taiwan’s sovereignty.
“This [proposal] goes against and will degrade Taiwan’s sovereignty,” he said. “It will be a tool for unification instead of proper cross-strait dialogue.”
Meanwhile, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) was low-key when asked for comment.
MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) declined to comment, saying that he did not have any information and that Sun’s comments were merely the opinion of a Chinese academic.
When asked whether the government was preparing for political exchanges with Beijing, Liu said Taipei wanted to focus on economic issues at the moment. Before the establishment of a comprehensive platform for tackling economic problems, the government would not venture into political issues, he said.
Another MAC Deputy Minister, Chao Chien-min (趙建民), said the council had conducted studies on various cross-strait issues.
Chao was skeptical on the proposed establishment of an official agency, saying the institutionalized negotiation system between the SEF and ARATS had accomplished much over the past two years.
Chao dismissed Sun’s remarks as the opinion of an “academic specializing in the US rather than cross-strait affairs.”
One thing for certain, however, was that more officials would participate in institutionalized cross-strait negotiations, Chao said.
Liu also declined to comment on whether it would make more sense for the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party to sign a peace agreement, if the two sides are to ink such a peace treaty at all, as the Chinese civil war was a matter between the two parties and had nothing to do with Taiwan.
“A lot of things can happen in the future and I don’t want to speculate,” Liu said.
Chao said private groups, such as political parties, cannot sign official cross-strait accords unless authorized by the government.
Any private group can ink cooperative agreements with its Chinese counterpart as long as it first obtains consent for the agreement and the agreement does not run counter to government policies, he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
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