The Presidential Office is expected to finish by the end of this month a review of the fate of a number of non-institutional bodies, including the National Unification Council (NUC), officials said yesterday.
The review was launched in reaction to a resolution passed by the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan requesting that some non-institutional bodies set up under the Presidential Office be dissolved. Those named by the legislature were the preparatory group for the national human rights memorial museum, the gender mainstreaming advisory panel, the science and technology advisory committee, the constitutional re-engineering office and the youth corps.
Presidential Office officials noted that President Chen Shui-bian (
Although the legislature has not asked for the unification council to be dismantled, the Presidential Office is inclined to include the organization in the review process because it is also a non-institutional body, they said.
But they stressed that the Presidential Office will need to study the matter thoroughly, in light of the possible political impact of abolishing the council.
Chen first proposed in a Lunar New Year's Day speech on Jan. 29 that Taiwan should seriously consider scrapping the council and National Unification Guidelines, which were both established in the early 1990s by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government to further the KMT's goal of eventual unification with China.
Chen's recent proposal has raised concerns in Washington, with US State Department officials reiterating that the US does not support Taiwan independence and opposes unilateral changes to the cross-strait status quo by either Taiwan or China.
There has also been much debate about whether scrapping the council and guidelines would violate pledges that Chen made in his inaugural addresses in 2000 and 2004, in which he vowed that abolishing the council would "not be an issue" during his term as long as China had no intent of using military force against Taiwan.
On this issue, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials said that Chen's pledge -- and others including a pledge not to declare Taiwan independence -- were based on the precondition that Beijing renounce its intention to use force against Taiwan.
China's continuous military build-up indicates that it has the intention and capability to attack, and that it is preparing for an invasion of Taiwan, they noted.
They said the president's plan stressed the democratic value that "the people of Taiwan have the right to determine their own fate" and was aimed at clarifying the mainstream public opinion in Taiwan to Beijing and the international community.
KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said that unifying both sides of the Taiwan Strait remains the party's ultimate goal.
The remarks have drawn much criticism from the DPP, which believes that any change to the status quo in Taiwan should be decided by its people through a referendum.
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