Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday panned President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) over his remarks that more than half of Taiwan supports his “one China” policy.
“I really wonder which marketing research company conducted the poll that yielded the result with more than 50 percent of people supporting Ma’s ‘one China’ policy. Is it from a poll that Ma and [National Security Council] Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) did in private?” DPP caucus whip Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) asked during a press conference at the legislature yesterday morning. “The so-called ‘one China’ principle that Ma has followed in the past six years since he took office has encouraged China to downgrade Taiwan’s sovereignty.”
“Taking poison as medicine is the largest crisis that Taiwan faces now,” Tsai added.
He went on to say that after six years of upholding the “one China” principle, China has not shown any friendliness to Taiwan; instead, this year, as the host of APEC meetings, China did not send an envoy to deliver the invitation to Ma in person, and addresses Ma as “the Honorable Mr Ma Ying-jeou.”
“Besides, with the ‘one China’ principle, we have been cutting our diplomacy and national defense budgets, threatening national security and sovereignty,” Tsai said.
DPP Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) agreed, saying that the US has doubts about weapons sales to Taiwan “because it’s worried that China will get its hands on its weapons technologies through Taiwan.”
DPP spokesperson Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) accused the president of seeing only what he wants to see in opinion polls.
“In past years, opinion polls by the Mainland Affairs Council and the National Chengchi University have shown growth in support for independence and a decline of support for cross-strait unification, with the majority of the people preferring the ‘status quo,’” Huang said. “This actually shows that people are growing anxious about Ma’s China-leaning tendency.”
In addition, Huang said that past opinion polls have also shown that most people agree that Taiwan and China are two different countries, but that Ma has been saying that the two sides of Taiwan Strait are not in a state-to-state relationship.
The DPP figures were responding to an exclusive interview with Ma by German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur, which said that “citing opinion polls conducted by the government, Ma said that more than 80 percent of people surveyed support the ‘status quo’ for the past 20 years and his ‘one China’ principle receives more than 50 percent support.”
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