Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is “playing with fire” with her remark that the Taiwan Strait should “never be a chessboard for interference by external forces,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday.
Cheng on Friday made the remark during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing as she called for Taiwan and China to forge closer ties and avoid conflict.
The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway open to free transit and Cheng’s remark revealed an “erroneous” strategy that unilaterally panders to China, Cho said.
Photo: Hsieh Wu-hsiung, Taipei Times
Cheng’s stance puts Taiwan’s future, and its people’s free and democratic way of life at risk, he said.
She also deserves criticism for echoing Xi’s remarks about facilitating the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Cho said.
Her comments were a mistake, as they might have added fuel to China’s ambition to absorb the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan, he said.
Photo: CNA
The phrase “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” refers to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) goal to turn China into a great power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which includes making Taiwan officially part of the PRC.
China’s “national reunification,” which includes annexing Taiwan, is an “essential step toward national rejuvenation,” a white paper published in 2022 by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, and official speeches and other documents showed.
The KMT and the CCP “engaged in nearly 100 years of political struggle. Yet during Friday’s meeting, the KMT appeared to have completely lost confidence,” Cho said.
Cheng’s proposal of a cross-strait peace framework to “institutionalize peace” was another misstep, he said.
History has proven that in negotiations between the KMT and the CCP — and in China’s dealings with Tibet and Hong Kong — “peace without strength is bound to fail,” he said.
“Such peace can embolden aggressors and only peace backed by strength can serve as the foundation of national power,” he said.
In a statement later yesterday, the KMT rejected Cho’s comments, saying that his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is unable to handle cross-strait relations and is resorting to falsely calling the opposition pro-China.
The DPP government, despite years in power, has only escalated confrontations with and created hostility toward Beijing, the statement said.
Comparing the history of Hong Kong and Tibet to Taiwan’s situation “exposes the DPP’s helplessness on cross strait issues” and its inability to engage in dialogue with China, it said.
“Repeatedly using Taiwan’s security as a tool for political struggle is truly playing with fire, the statement said, adding that the DPP has “gone too far.”
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