DPP Presidential Candidates -- Striking that Moderate Tone

The local media reported yesterday that DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun, currently hoping to become the DPP Presidential candidate, said yesterday that he would scrap the Four Noes (Taiwan News):

Democratic Progressive Party Chairman Yu Shyi-kun (游錫<方方土>) said yesterday that he would drop the so-called "four noes" pledge of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and press for Taiwan's "normalization" if he wins the March 2008 presidential election as the Democratic Progressive Party candidate.

In his May 20, 2000 inaugural address, Chen declared that "as long as the Chinese Communist Party regime bears no intention to use military force against Taiwan," he would not declare independence, change Taiwan's official name or promote a plebiscite on independence or unification.

However, in an interview with Formosa Television yesterday evening, Yu, said the "four noes" were "a product of the Cold War era" in which the United States held to a "one China policy" founded on the contesting claims by the CCP regime and the then ruling Kuomintang in Taipei that they represented "China."

Yu said that the 12 years of rule by Taiwan's first native born president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was devoted to the task of "political democratization" and that, after the transfer of political power to the DPP in May 2000, the two terms of President Chen administration had been devoted to "the Taiwanization of the state."

"The historical mission after 2008" will be "normalization of the country, for which we need full governance, full reform and full independence," said Yu, who is who is running against Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) for the DPP's nomination.

Virtually all Greens are pro-independence; that is by definition what being Green is. Appealing to that base means stoking Taiwan nationalism. This applies to anyone who runs on a Green ticket and chooses to play the identity politics game. Yu was one of the original conveners of the DPP; it was he who formally opened the Yilan chapter of the tangwai ("outside the party") Public Policy Research Organization in 1984 that helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of the DPP in 1986.

[Taiwan] [2008 Presidential Election] [DPP]