Several pro-unification advocates yesterday urged Taiwan’s major political parties to stop reacting to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) calls for unification with fear and passiveness, saying that the nation should submit its own version of the “one country, two systems” formula.
Ger Yeong-kuang (葛永光), who is director-general of the Grand Alliance for China’s Reunification Under the Three Principles of the People, said it was a shame that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party responded to Xi’s remarks on Wednesday with a passive attitude.
“In his speech, Xi talked about plans to explore the issue of peaceful unification and a Taiwan version of the one country, two systems formula. Exploration is the emphasis of his remarks, which means his proposals are open to discussions ... even the two systems concept,” Ger told a news conference in Taipei.
Photo:Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
While the “one country, two systems” model implemented in Hong Kong places the special administrative region in a subordinate position to Beijing, Ger said that he seeks equality: a cross-strait “merger, rather than an acquisition.”
A system where both sides of the Taiwan Strait unify under a federal system — which could be called the “United States of Zhonghua” or the “United States of China” — would have the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China assigned appellations of equal status, Ger said.
Zhonghua (中華) is short for Zhonghua minzu (中華民族), which generally refers to people of Chinese ethnicity.
“Such a system would be similar to the one country, two systems concept and we should have our own interpretation of what the two systems should be like,” he said, adding that Taiwanese did not need to fear unification talks.
Alliance secretary-general Lin Chung-shan (林忠山) said it was time that Taiwan stepped out of the conundrum of whether to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” and move toward the process of peaceful cross-strait unification.
The alliance plans to collaborate with two other pro-unification groups to organize eight events before August that would invite people from different political parties and sectors of society to explore the best plan for unification, Lin said.
The events could be in the form of seminars, speeches or forums, Lin said, adding that six would be held in the special municipalities, with the other two planned for eastern Taiwan and one in the outlying counties.
Asked whether unification was a long way from mainstream public opinion, Lin said polls have shown that 40 percent of the nation’s young people would be willing to study or work in China, which indicates there is a tendency for people to think about unification, but not talk about it.
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