Why doesn't the DPP participate in the KMT-CCP Forum in China?

In Taipei, where the conventional wisdom that floats through the city like swamp gas above a moor is little more than a collection of KMT talking points, there is much criticism of the DPP for "objecting for the sake of objecting" or "only being able to object." This tripe is nothing but a KMT talking point meant for unthinking repetition.

Here is a translation of the DPP statement on the issue whether to attend the cross-strait forum:

Regarding DPP Chair Tsai Ing-wen's proposal concerning the invitation sent by the Chair of the National Association of City and County magistrates to DPP officials to attend the KMT-CCP Forum, the Central Executive Committee unanimously mandated that DPP headquarters make it clear to all who might be rash enough to want to attend this KMT-CCP Forum that the DPP forbids any former DPP official who is still a DPP member and any present DPP official from attending this meeting. Any one who does attend will be disciplined according to Party regulations. This action is being taken in order to declare the DPP's position on support for Taiwan's sovereignty.

The deputy party spokesperson said that, in the Central Executive Committee meeting, Chair Tsai had said that it is clear to anyone who examines this issue that the KMT-CCP Forum is a private give-and-take between the two parties, and it damages and undermines Taiwan's democracy and our nation's institutional system. DPP members should not be associated with this United Front tactic. At a time when the CCP is undertaking a bloody crackdown on the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, a crackdown which has been universally condemned, our DPP members should not give people the false impression that we support the Chinese Communist regime.

What all this says is simple: the DPP is engaged in principled opposition to the sell-out of Taiwan's sovereignty. The reason it won't let its members go to the Cross-Strait Forum is because it is protesting the fact that the talks between "Taiwan" and "China" are actually talks between two political parties completely out of the public view. The entire process is both unprofessional and undemocratic. Talks between Taiwan and China should be handled by official diplomatic personnel trained in international negotiations -- indeed Taiwan has the institutional structure under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to carry this out -- under the aegis of the government, not the KMT, and overseen by the democratically elected representatives of the people, the legislature and the President.

None of this is happening. As the international media will never report, the whole process is a mockery of democratic governance.

One longtime analyst observed privately to me: "The DPP would simply be being used in this situation, if it chose to attend. "Squeezed like a lemon and then thrown away" is the term that comes to mind. Not unlike, of course, what the CCP did in its United Front tactics of the past with the KMT. One could see the 'blue' papers in Taiwan blaring the headline "DPP agrees with KMT-CCP Forum"/ "Full Steam Ahead Says the DPP" and the 'red' papers in China blaring, "Splittists Come to their Senses!" "We are all Chinese Now!" etc."

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