Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that China's "Anti-Secession" Law has critically altered the "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait and he urged Beijing to make contact with Taiwan and stop engaging in brinkmanship.
Yu made the remarks yesterday morning at a forum sponsored by the DPP's Department of China Affairs. Experts on cross-strait relations discussed post-law interaction between political parties on both sides and the limits of such interaction.
Noting that Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), the chairman of China's People's Political Consultative Conference, had recently urged Chinese officials to contact Taiwan's "pan-green hardliners," Yu said he hoped this was not just another empty idea.
"We are happy to see that China has the intention of understanding Taiwan's public opinion, but we also hope that Jia's words were not just blank cartridges," Yu said.
Judging from China's insistence that "Taiwan is the inseparable and sacred territory of China," he said, it's obvious that Beijing means to degrade and bully Taiwan.
"The people of Taiwan will never accept such a view," Yu said. "But the DPP will not stay in the same old rut either. We are still willing to take an open attitude to cross-strait affairs."
Yan Jiann-fa (
"China has been taking a two-sided strategy toward Taiwan -- coupling threats with promises. It keeps blocking and freezing Taiwan's national status and the `Anti-Secession' Law is the means it uses to tell the US that it has rights and powers to interpret the so-called `Taiwan issue,'" Yan said.
"There is no doubt that China's eventual aim is to annex Taiwan," Yan said.
Lo Cheng-fang (
"As soon as DPP legislators proposed a group of `pan-green hardliners' visit China, Wang said that such contacts could not involve any official interaction. This showed that Beijing's soft sell is just another unification battle strategy," Lo said.
DPP Legislator Julian Kuo (
Meanwhile, Yu said that the large-scale parade the pan-green camp is planning for Saturday is aimed at demonstrating Taiwan's determination to defend its democracy and freedom and make the world understand that the people of Taiwan have been living in the shadow of China's military threats.
He also criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) rally yesterday as an effort to protest the scrapping of the National Unification Council disguised as a protest for people's livelihoods.
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