The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to stop flattering China by sacrificing Taiwan's sovereignty and the legal rights of its people.
“KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) addressed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as ‘Mr. Ma’ during a banquet with Chinese Communist Party [CCP] officials on Monday night. This kind of behavior has me worried that he may have forgotten about Taiwan and its 23 million people,” Legislative Whip William Lai (賴清德) told a press conference.
He said the DPP was opposed to the KMT-CCP’s party-to-party communications because the rights of Taiwanese could easily be sacrificed.
PHOTO: AFP
“Any decision-making that concerns a country and its people must be supervised by the public,” the caucus whip said.
Lai’s comments were echoed by DPP Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), who said the US would never assign a party chairman to negotiate with a foreign country on behalf of the government, because a political party’s concerns could never reflect all US citizens’ concerns.
Meanwhile, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), another a DPP member, voiced her concern about Wu’s trip, saying he had made a “hasty” decision to visit China before the new government had had the opportunity to fully assess public opinion. She urged the KMT to insist on Taiwan’s sovereignty while protecting people’s interests during the KMT delegation’s trip.
However, Deputy KMT caucus Secretary-General Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) downplayed the implication of Wu Poh-hsiung referring to Ma as “Mr” on Monday night.
Wu Yu-sheng said the KMT chairman’s comments reflected his intention to “put aside controversies and ensure mutual respect” for both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Wu Poh-hsiung paid homage at Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) Mausoleum in Nanjing yesterday, saying both the “mainland” and Taiwan belong to the Chinese nation and are “closely tied by blood,” which no one could obliterate. He said the KMT has promised to make the welfare and interests of the people of Taiwan its top priority because the people gave the KMT its election victories.
Wu Poh-hsiung said his delegation chose Nanjing as their first destination in China because it was the former seat of the KMT government and therefore had unique significance to the KMT historically and emotionally.
Noting that Sun was respected on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the KMT chief said that every KMT delegation visiting China goes to Sun’s mausoleum.
He said that he had gone there when he visited as KMT vice chairman after the party lost power to the DPP in 2000.
“I felt really ashamed in front of Sun [then],” he said.
Sun’s soul should be comforted by the KMT’s return to power, he said.
He said it would be easier for KMT members to visit Nanjing in the future, hinting that they would be able to take direct flights from Taipei.
Wu Poh-hsiung invited Nanjing residents to travel to Taiwan after his visit to Sun’s mausoleum attracted a lot of local attention — and shouts of “Go” and “Peaceful unification.”
He laid a floral wreath next to the statue of Sun and observed a minute of silence.
Later in the day Wu flew to Beijing, where he is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) today.
Wu said yesterday he hoped the vision shared by former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Hu during their meeting in 2005 could become reality.
The two planned to facilitate the resumption of bilateral negotiations, end the state of hostility, sign a peace accord and establish a mechanism for economic cooperation.
Wu said it was his party’s responsibility to the peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to materialize these five wishes.
He made the remarks while meeting Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), head of the People’s Political Consultative Conference, in Beijing yesterday evening.
He thanked Jia for attending the past three cross-strait economic forums and making an effort to push the peaceful development of cross-strait ties.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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