Thu, May 18, 2000 page17

• New MOTC chief ready for `small three links'

  CROSS-STRAIT CONNECTION Once she gets the go-ahead, incoming MOTC chief Yeh Chu-lan will be able to implement direct links with China

  • By Richard Dobson / STAFF REPORTER
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  The Ministry of Transport and Communications (交通部) is prepared to implement "small three links" with China as soon as the new Cabinet approves the measure, the agency's incoming head, Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭), said yesterday.

  Speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Taiwan Unified Alliance (台聯會), a group of KMT and People's First Party lawmakers, Yeh said that she had been briefed by the related departments and that all the preparatory work for opening the "small three links" had been completed.

  "As soon as a decision is made on the issue, the ministry will be ready to implement the policy," Yeh said.

  The opening of the "small three links" was approved by the Legislature after the presidential election and allows for direct trade, transport and communication links between Taiwan's outlying islands of Matsu, Penghu and Kinmen and China.

  While the legislature has passed the Outlying Islands Development Act, effectively opening the links, the Cabinet has held off on signing the act into law, leaving the final decision to the incoming administration.

  Kinmen lawmaker Chen Ching-pao (陳清寶) proposed a variation of the plan, suggesting the incoming minister consider what he described as a "breakthrough" concept that would bring lasting peace between the two sides.

  "A bridge could be built between the two islands of Kinmen and then on to Xiamen," Chen said. "Across this bridge, cross-strait ties could improve."

  Although Chen's bid to pass the proposal for a bridge to Xiamen failed last year in the Legislature, he reiterated his belief that the physical link could facilitate peace across the Taiwan Strait.

  "From the initial planning stage of the Kinmen-Xiamen bridge, lasting cross-strait peace would slowly begin to grow," Chen said.

  Chen supported the proposal to open "small three links" and agreed that it would likely help bring peace across the Taiwan Strait, but that implementation was still some way off.

  "The most likely method of opening up links to China would be through the `small three links' model, but the plan will still require much more work and, in the short-term, it is unclear how far the new Cabinet can develop such a plan," Chen said.

  Yeh responded by saying that such a plan would be of "even greater significance" than just simply opening the links, and a decision was not the transportation ministry's to make.

  In announcing the ministry's readiness to implement the new cross-strait policy, Yeh made it clear that the ministry was not in the business of deciding policy matters for the new government, but instead is simply the working arm of the new administration when it comes to transportation and communications issues.

  "The ministry implements policy, it does not decide on it," she said.

  Yeh's comments follows President-elect Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) remarks Tuesday that policy suggestions by incoming administration members should not be taken too seriously before they are sworn in.

  Indeed, Chen publicly rebuffed incoming Minister of Finance Shea Jia-dong's (許嘉棟) suggestion that taxes may have to be hiked to supplement campaign pledges made by the president-elect.
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