The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) should make former KMT chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) meetings with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) transparent to ease people’s doubts over secretive cross-strait engagement, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.
Lien is set to lead a delegation to China tomorrow and become the first senior Taiwanese politician to meet Xi since the presidential designate was named General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in November last year.
Before his departure, the former vice president held a meeting with Ma yesterday.
“The DPP has always maintained that all cross-strait engagement should be conducted transparently and it opposes any secret deals between the KMT and Beijing,” DPP spokesperson Ho Po-wen (何博文) told a press conference.
The KMT is obligated to tell the public what message, if any, Ma has asked Lien to relay to Xi, what Lien and Ma talked about in their meeting and what Lien plans to discuss with Xi, Ho said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) urged Lien to relay Taiwanese mainstream opinion, in particular their opposition to a peace agreement of any form, to Xi, rather than only conveying Ma’s messages.
Huang denounced Lien’s “one-upmanship” of always trying to be the first in cross-strait engagement and said the meeting with Xi would be more symbolic than substantial because Beijing’s Taiwan policy had already been affirmed.
A three-point agenda has been set regarding China’s cross-strait policy, Huang said, which includes a cross-strait political relationship before eventual unification, military confidence-building measures and negotiations on a peace agreement. The meeting between Lien and Xi would not be able to change that agenda, he added.
In other news, the DPP yesterday said a press release issued by the KMT on Thursday which said DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) was ridiculous for demanding that the new Cabinet achieve 5 percent GDP growth this year and should be held accountable if it fell short, was “absurd.”
The press release was based on a blog entry written by former Council for Economic Planning and Development minister Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘).
“A ruling party that has a legislative majority is asking the opposition to be held accountable for that party’s governance. It is crazy,” Ho said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift