Some good stuff in this article.Officials close to Chen say that the substance of meetings held in Beijing by their political rivals have been kept secret, and in many cases the identities of Chinese they met have not been disclosed.
"We asked for the official transcripts of the meetings, but we got no reply," stated Joseph Wu, head of Taiwan's mainland affairs council. "We debated whether our laws on treason apply in this case. But we decided charges would bring harm and greater chaos. We are a democracy so it is best we act like one."
Nelson Ku, a retired Navy admiral and senior People First Party legislator who went to Beijing, said that he had communicated the substance of his meetings through reporters in Taipei. But he would not be willing to brief the government on his meetings.
"I'm sorry, we can't share this with Chen Shui-bian. We don't trust him," Admiral Ku said, a point that observers say leaves the Taiwan opposition flirting with a nation pointing missiles at it, and unwilling to work with its own elected president.
Joseph Wu argues such distrust is common, and reveals a confusion about matters of loyalty to Taiwan among opposition figures: "They will fly 2,000 miles to Beijing and meet China's leaders. But they won't walk 200 meters to the president's office in Taipei to tell us what they talked about."
[Taiwan] [China]
4 comments:
Not a bad analysis, but Marquand still views Taiwan from China's eyes, since he works in Beijing and must toe the Beijing line if he wants to keep the newspaper bureau and his job there. So he erroneously refers to Mainland China in that article, but there is no MAINLAND China. The name is just China or PRC, but not Mainland China. That shows his ignorance of the issues.
Many KMT officials seem to agree, having long felt that the world built by the former Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek is destined to again play a role on the mainland.
Mr M,
There is no mainland to Taiwan. Taiwan is separate from China.
"anonymous", if you are so convinced about your ideas, why don't you post under your real name? My opinion of that article is opposite of that from "anonymous". This is my comment on the CS article, first posted on the blog of Sun Bin.
Robert Marquand is treating both sides as different countries and nations, and therefore he misses the point and could have answered/clarified the question/suggestion he raised if he would have been more objective in choosing his words. The overwhelming majority on the mainland sees both sides as one nation, country. The same is true for a significant portion on the other side. This clarifies why. Both the KMT and PFP and other smaller opposition parties support One China, and oppose Taiwan independence. They support the ROC, and may distrust and hate the PRC, but this does not sway them away of their belief that they are part of China. As the PRC does not equal China, but equals the mainland only. Or as the consitution of the ROC states, they are the "free" part of China. The distrust at Chen Shui-bian is only logical, as many Pan-Blue supporters believe he stole the elections by faking the shooting and because of his persistent flipflopping. Without the shooting, Chen Shui-bian would have been out of office for years and the dynamics in Taiwan and the mainland would have been different, e.g. better and more stable.
"persistent flipflopping" ROFL.
Several polls already showed Chen neck and neck or ahead prior to the shooting, zhj. It's OK that you guys on the Blue side live in a fantasy world, but nobody else takes the idea that Chen had himself shot seriously. Outside of the Blues, everyone else knows that Blue fantasies about the shooting are just compensation for Blue incompetence and inability to defeat Chen Shui-bian twice.
So go ahead. You guys keep fantasizing, and we'll keep laughing.
Michael
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