In an interview with Time magazine this week, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen, who is featured on this week's Asian edition of Time, is shown cuddling a large-sized A-Bian doll next to a headline which blares "No Joke."
In the interview Time asks Chen what he would say to China's president Jiang Zemin (
"We would want Jiang to understand that Taiwan is a true democracy and that our legislature, media and society are democratic and diverse," Chen said. "We hope Jiang would understand that the `one country, two systems' policy they advocate has no market in Taiwan."
In addition to touching on democracy and the "one country two systems" -- Chen also talked about religious freedom, an idea China is still struggling to understand.
"We would make Jiang understand that Taiwan practices true religious freedom. While in China the Falun Gong movement has become a problem, in Taiwan it poses no problem whatsoever."
When asked if he thought his upcoming stayovers in the US were unnecessarily provocative, Chen told the magazine that the "US is a sovereign and independent country ... Why should they have to consult with anyone else?"
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