Reading the text of Lien Chan's
Much will be made during the rest of the election campaign of Lien's 10 points and Lien himself will be painted as a statesman visionary of Woodrow Wilson-like proportions. What will probably not be emphasized, however, is that the 10 points are dependent on "mainland leader Jiang Zemin
Lien's 10 points, then, represent a wish list about the things that Taiwan and China might be able to do, if only Jiang Zemin would do something -- though, like King Lear, what that something is we don't know, but it should be something pretty special.
Actually, the kind of thing Jiang might do is laid out quite tersely in the Guidelines for National Unification: namely, recognize Taiwan's government as an equal, allow Taiwan its own international space and renounce the use of force. It is interesting and worrying, therefore, that Lien didn't use any of these to establish what "concrete actions" might be, but did talk of promoting "mutual trust and cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait" in accordance with the mid-term phase of the Guidelines for National Unification.
What all this appears to suggest is that Lien is prepared to move to the second stage of the reunification guidelines based on his interpretation of the actions of Jiang as to whether any of the conditions laid down in the first stage have been met -- and up to now, none of them have.
Some might think this is a good thing. After all, the formal statement of policies which subsequently tie the hands of any would-be negotiators has contributed much to the stagnation in cross-strait relations. But it leaves so much up to Lien that the question has to be raised of whether he can be trusted to cope with it.
What is particularly worrying about Lien's statement yesterday was its emphasis on reunification. True, Lien says "no Taiwan independence, no immediate unification," but he also talks about prospects for merging "in the distant future." It is simply outrageous that, as desire among the electorate for reunification is falling rapidly, a KMT candidate can still look upon reunification as something that is inevitable -- not even going so far as to suggest that Taiwanese would have to approve it by referendum before it is considered. On top of this, Lien says that "if the Beijing authorities give us a friendly response to my proposals ... and do not insist on `one country, two systems' in advance, we are also willing to enlist the wisdom of all the world's Chinese people to consider the model of lasting political merging between the two sides."
This sounds rather like letting outsiders decide for the Taiwanese what is good for them. Yet wasn't that the "tragedy of being Taiwanese" that President Lee Teng-hui
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