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Party leaders urged to unite against anti-secession law

DPP legislative caucus whip Lai Ching-teh yesterday holds a poster saying ``Jiang Zemin ordered China's Central Military Commission (CMC) to dispatch troops to take over Taiwan right before he resigned as CMC chairman.'' PHOTO: WANG MING-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES

The leaders of the nation's political parties should hold a summit to forge a united front against China's planned "anti-secession" law, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus proposed yesterday.

"While the proposed legislation is expected to define Taiwan issues as a domestic affair [of China] and portray cross-strait tension as the legacy of the civil war between the Nationalist and Communist forces, we think it is necessary for our political leaders to meet and hammer out a counter-policy in response to the soon-to-be-passed law," DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-teh (賴清德) said.

Lai said that he plans to take up the proposal with Legislative Speaker and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) when Wang convenes the next round of cross-party talks, possibly sometime next week.

"We'd like to see other legislative caucuses support the proposition and reach a consensus after the law is enacted," Lai said.

He said that once a consensus has been reached among the legislative caucuses, he would like to see caucus leaders going back to their individual parties to convince their party leaders to attend a summit.

Or better yet, Lai said, the summit can be proposed in the second legislative resolution scheduled to be made after the anti-secession law is passed by China's National People's Congress (NPC) on Monday.

Likening China's leadership to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Lai called on Beijing to cancel the enactment of the anti-secession law immediately.

He said China's leaders should rein in their horses before they commit a serious blunder.

Peter Lin (林進興), another DPP caucus whip, said that if China is serious about using peaceful means to resolve the cross-strait issue, it should resume talks with Taiwan rather than enacting the anti-secession law.

Lai's proposal of a leaders summit received mixed responses from other party caucuses. Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative whip Lo Chih-ming (羅志明) said that his caucus supports the proposal, although he doubts that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) would attend such a summit.

Lo said it sounds like a good idea for political leaders to sit down and hammer out counter-measures after the law has been enacted.

However, People First Party (PFP) caucus whip Chen Chih-bin (陳志彬) said that it would have made more sense if President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had invited political leaders to discuss the matter, instead of letting the lawmaking body take the initiative.

"I don't have any problem with the political leaders summit, but I thought it would make more sense for the president to call the meeting, because it would be more time-consuming for the legislature to reach a consensus than having the president extend the invitation," he said.

KMT caucus whip Chen Chieh (陳杰) gave an evasive response.

"Although it sounds like a good idea and I am not averse to it, I don't think it is necessary, because the legislature has already passed a resolution to condemn the law and will make another one after the law has been enacted," he said.
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