The President's Advisory Group on Cross-strait Relations yesterday reached some consensus after a long meeting, stressing the people should have the right to decide Taiwan's future. However, the meeting still failed to reach consensus on how to interpret "one China."
"The `one China' issue is an important one, which we ... have to solve, but each member has their own interpretation," Hsiao Hsin-huang (
"Therefore the convener of the advisory group, Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), has asked 10 members to set up a sub-group to take charge of the `one China' issue," Hsiao said.
The group yesterday held its third meeting to discuss the formulation of a concrete statement on the "basic stance, principles and suggestions for dealing with cross-strait relations" (
After a five-and-a-half hour discussion, the group announced an initial version of its statement:
The "basic stance:"
To put the interests of the 23 million Taiwanese first and to respect the collective expectation of all Taiwanese for a peaceful cross-strait situation and positive development.
The "basic principles:"
1. To insist on the reality that the Republic of China is an independent sovereign country.
2. To insist on peaceful, rational, equal and mutually beneficial principles to deal with cross-strait relations.
3. To insist on the principles of democratic procedures and the people's right that any change in the current Taiwan Strait situation should be decided by all Taiwanese people.
Hsiao said that those four points of consensus were only the first part of the statement, and as to the "one China issue," further discussion was necessary for a final interpretation.
"Some members advocated defining a "one China" with each side free to have its own interpretation; some want a clearly defined "one China, one Taiwan," and some even want "two Chinas," so the meeting could not reach a final definition," Hsiao said.
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