The chances of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) abolishing the National Unification Council and guidelines are high, because he is seeking to establish a legacy for his eight-year presidency, academic commentators said yesterday.
Director of the Taipei-based Institute for National Policy Research (INPR) Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said Chen is seeking to leave his mark on the state of cross-strait relations after his eight-year term, and that if he can't push for Taiwan's independence he wants to at least rule out the possibility of unification.
"On the cross-strait issue, although Chen is not able to declare independence, at least he can reduce the possibilities of Taiwan unifying with China so that Taiwanese will understand that unification is not the only option for the future," Lo said during a forum titled "New Cabinet, New Politics," jointly held by the INPR and the Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation.
Lo said "it won't be a calm year for cross-strait relations," as a number of major cross-strait events are due to occur.
These include the 10th anniversary of the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, the first anniversary of China's passage of the "Anti-Secession" Law in March, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) China-policy conference at the end of March, the meeting between US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in April and the large-scale US military exercises in the Pacific this summer.
Commenting on recent remarks by the country's top cross-strait affairs official Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) that Taiwan's national unification guidelines are similar to China's "Anti-secession" Law, Lo said he agreed that such a comparison is relevant as both documents assume unification as the end result of the development of China-Taiwan relations, and even stipulated it as an obligation for the people of both sides.
Another panelist, Chao Chien-min (趙建民), chairman of The Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities of National Chengchi University, said that Chen's cross-strait policy has shifted from a middle-of-the-road position back to a more radical stance for reasons including his quest to leave a presidential legacy, and his wish to gain control of the issues platform to consolidate his power to eradicate a "lame duck image," following a series of political defeats of his DPP administration.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
PROCEDURE: Although there is already a cross-strait agreement in place for the extradition of criminals, ample notice is meant to be given to the other side first Ten Taiwanese who were involved in fraud-related crimes in China were extradited back to Taiwan via Kinmen County on Wednesday, four of whom are convicted fraudsters in Taiwan. The 10 people arrived via a ferry operating between Xiamen and Kinmen, also known as the “small three links.” The Kinmen County Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that four of the 10 extradited people were convicted in Taiwan for committing fraud and contravening the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法), and were on the wanted list. They were immediately arrested upon arrival and sent to Kinmen Prison to serve their sentences following brief questioning, the office said.
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VIGILANT: Enterovirus activity remains in the epidemic phase, with the CDC urging caregivers of infected children to be on the lookout for signs of severe illness Influenza activity is rising in neighboring countries, and, with temperatures forecast to drop this week, flu cases are expected to increase in the next two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Hospitals reported 87,162 visits for flu-like illnesses between Nov. 23 and Saturday, which remained about the same level as the previous week, but nine deaths and 24 cases with serious flu complications were also confirmed last week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. Flu activity reached a peak in late September before declining for eight consecutive weeks, CDC Deputy Director-General and spokesman Lin Min-cheng (林明誠)
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