Presidential Office Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山) said yesterday that the US had not upgraded the reception accorded Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), while the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) legislative caucus said the friendly reaction in the US for Ma was simply aimed at pushing passage of the arms procurement bill.
DPP caucus secretary-general Yeh Yi-ching (
"The Taiwanese media is exaggerating when it said that the US had raised its reception standards for Ma during his visit. Chen said that as far as he knew there was no such thing," Yeh said.
Arms bill
As far as the caucus is concerned, Yeh said, the reaction in the US to Ma was based more on his role as KMT chairman with the power to order the KMT legislative caucus to pass the arms bill than because he is seen a top contender for the 2008 presidential election.
The reports that the US had upgraded its receptions standards were based on Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick holding a closed-door meeting with Ma that lasted about two hours.
Yeh said the government should ask the US to brief it on the Zoellick-Ma talk.
`No idea'
"We have no idea what they talked about and according to conventions, we can always find out the content of such discussions," Yeh said.
During yesterday's meeting Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) questioned Ma's arguments that attempts to blur Taiwan's sovereignty is to echo the bylaws in China's "Anti-Secession" Law.
Meanwhile, DPP spokesman Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun will hold a news conference tomorrow, the day Ma returns from the US, to review all the comments that Ma has made during his trip.
"Ma proposed a lot of arguments and theories on cross-strait relations and the definitions of Taiwan's legal status.
However, many of his remarks were not only ambiguous but contradictory and inconsistent," Tsai said. "Therefore, we will lay out what he said on this US and European trips to see whether his remarks cater to Taiwan's voters for the 2008 presidential election or to the US."
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