President-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will not follow President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) line on China as an academic has suggested, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said on Monday night.
DPP spokesman Wang Min-sheng (王閔生) said in a statement that there is no question of Tsai toeing Ma’s line after academic Shao Zong-hai (邵宗海) wrote in an article in the Chinese-language China Times, part of the Want Want China Times Group, that the new government’s cross-strait policy would follow Ma’s.
Tsai has clearly said that she would follow the public’s will, abide by democratic principles and insist on safeguarding Taiwanese people’s options for their future, Wang said in the statement, calling the declaration the biggest difference between the new government and the Ma administration.
“The DPP will not follow the established approach,” Wang said.
He said that the public’s will and democracy should be the government’s two pillars in formulating a cross-strait policy and that if the party deviates from the two pillars, it cannot expect its platform to be stable for very long.
In her visit to the US in June last year, and also during the presidential campaign, Tsai said her support for “maintaining the ‘status quo’” referred to promoting cross-strait policy under the Republic of China’s constitutional system and in accordance with the public’s will.
The new government is to continue to promote cross-strait peace and stability on the foundations built through cross-strait consultations and exchanges over the past two decades, Wang said, adding that Tsai has pledged that cross-strait ties would be consistent, predictable and sustainable.
Tsai is to be inaugurated on May 20.
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