Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday answered critics of his cross-strait initiative, which suggests Taiwan and China recognize each other’s constitutions, saying that the proposal was practical and was most likely to be accepted at home and in China.
The former Democratic Progressive Party chairman, currently on a trip to the US, has called for “constitutions with different interpretations” as the basis of promoting better ties between the DPP and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said the initiative would not be accepted by Beijing because it underlines the different constitutions across the Taiwan Strait and implicates a “state-to-state relationship.”
“The most important thing for Taiwan is not for China to accept its position, but for China to recognize the differences across the Strait, then both sides would be able to facilitate dialogue based on that recognition,” Hsieh said in a press release issued by his office.
Beijing did not accept the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) initiative of “one China, with different interpretations” because the KMT’s definition of the Republic of China includes People’s Republic of China territory, but the KMT and the CCP are able to conduct dialogue, he said.
He also addressed former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen’s (姚嘉文) criticism of Hsieh’s comments that the DPP’s presidential candidates in 2004, 2008 and last year had not made independence the central theme of their campaigns. Yao said the those candidates lost because they did not highlight independence.
Hsieh said Yao’s argument was inconsistent with almost every post-election analysis and opinion poll. He reiterated that supporters of independence and the Republic of China system should be able to accept each other’s position and seek a consensus so that there would be stable cross-strait relations.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
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