Question Taiwan’s Tsai ‘must answer’
Print Edition
TAIWAN’S new leader Tsai Ing-wen must, without any equivocation, clarify her stance on cross-Strait ties, China’s mainland said yesterday.
Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said at a regular press conference that Taiwan must clarify this issue with “practical action.”
Ma said that Tsai, in her inaugural address, chose to be ambiguous, despite cross-Strait relations being of the utmost concern to the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Tsai did not explicitly recognize the 1992 Consensus and offered no concrete proposal to ensure the peaceful and stable growth of cross-Strait relations, he said.
“The issue is a question that must be answered. It cannot be evaded,” Ma said.
“I want to reiterate that the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China, and cross-Strait ties are not state-to-state relations,” Ma added. He said the mainland opposes all separatist activities advocating “Taiwan independence” in the name of “law amendments.”
“No one shall test our resolution and capability to safeguard our national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he said.
Taiwan’s new government has no timetable for restarting trade talks with the mainland, its economics chief Lee Chih-kung said yesterday, adding that the ruling party first wants to pass a law governing oversight of negotiations with the mainland.
The mainland has already condemned the Democratic Progressive Party’s proposed “supervisory law,” and critics in Taiwan say it could paralyze relations with the mainland.
The bill requires government officials to get legislative consent before, during and after any talks with the mainland and they can’t sign any agreements before all three stages of approval are completed.
“Trade talks need the oversight, so to hold trade talks would be of no use,” Lee told reporters.
Ma praised the years after 2008 as being the “best setting” for cross-Strait relations since 1949. With the common political foundation of the 1992 Consensus, cross-Strait affairs authorities from both sides had signed 23 agreements since 2008, when a regular communication mechanism was established, which had facilitated cross-Strait cooperation in all areas and benefited people from both sides, he said.
But Ma warned that only affirmation of the political foundation that embodies the one-China principle can ensure continued and institutionalized exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
He stressed that the one-China principle should also be safeguarded with regard to Taiwan’s participation in regional economic cooperation.
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