Two former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairmen are at odds over whether the party needs to draft a new resolution on its China policy.
On Thursday, former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said the party needed to draft a new resolution that would honor the political system of the Republic of China and replace the party’s 1991 Taiwan Independence Clause (台獨黨綱).
Hsu added that the party’s supplementary 1999 Resolution on Taiwan’s Future (台灣前途決議文) needed to be revised because it was “too passive.”
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Hsu proposed that the party draft a new resolution that respects the framework of Taiwan through its National Party Congress and add a statement made by the party’s former chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) during her presidential campaign — “Taiwan is the Republic of China [ROC] and the Republic of China is Taiwan.”
The party should also demonstrate its sincerity and amity across the Taiwan Strait, Hsu added, by referring to the other side of the Taiwan Strait as “mainland China” rather than as “China.”
Hsu’s proposal was opposed yesterday by another former DPP chairman, Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃).
Yu rejected Hsu’s claim that the DPP would lose another presidential election in 2016 if it maintained its cross-strait policies.
“If the DPP were to abandon its stance on cross-strait issues, I doubt it could guarantee the party a win for the top leadership role in the Office,” Yu said. “Such abandonment would only cost the party a chance in the presidential election in 2016.”
Yu said the core problem facing the DPP’s cross-strait policies was a lack of elaboration, because both its stance on Taiwan’s sovereignty and its interpretation on the country’s political status on the basis of the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty conformed to international law.
In the past, the party failed to clarify its cross-strait stance and policies, and that was the heart of the problem, he said.
“The DPP didn’t require any additional drafting of resolutions because it had already passed the Resolution on Taiwan’s Future in 1999 and it was not the cross-strait policies or political stance of the party that contributed to its loss in the 2012 presidential election,” he said.
Even if the DPP were to take a pro-China stance as the KMT had, China would support the KMT candidate, Yu said, while the party’s abandonment of its pro-independence advocacy could lose Taiwan its sovereignty.
“Taiwan is an independent country, and that is the common belief of its people,” Yu said, adding that the party would fail its supporters if gave up its long-standing pro-independence position.
“The core value of the party is to safeguard this nation, and that is also the key mission of the party,” he said.
In related news, DPP spokesperson Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) described his current China visit as a “necessary process” to promote understanding between the two sides of the Strait.
Lo was attending a two-day seminar on cross-strait relations held in Tengchong County, Yunnan Province, in his capacity as an associate professor at Taiwan’s Soochow University. The event was organized by a Beijing think tank.
In Taiwan, another DPP spokesperson, Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲), said his party has never opposed conducting exchanges with China and has always believed that the two sides should increase mutual understanding through interaction. However, the DPP says that such interactions should not be conducted according to any predetermined model, because that would mean an imposition of artificial restrictions, Lin said.
Additional reporting by CNA
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
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