Taiwan Open for Unification With China

02/24/2005

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian told an opposition leader Thursday that he would not shut the door on eventual unification with rival China if Beijing expressed goodwill.

Chen and People First Party Chairman James Soong signed a joint declaration at the end of the meeting, their first formal talks since Oct. 2000. Chen has been hoping to smooth over differences with Soong because his PFP is a key partner in an opposition alliance that controls the majority in the legislature.

The two leaders have held widely diverging views on how to handle China, which claims the self-ruled island is part of its territory and threatens to go to war if Taipei declares formal independence.

Soong has accused Chen of lacking a consistent China policy and of provoking Beijing, while the president has accused the opposition of being too accommodating toward the communist giant.

But in their joint declaration, they promised that they would “not rule out the possibility of any model of relationship evolving on the basis of goodwill.”

Chen repeated previous assurances that he would not declare independence, change the island’s official name of “Republic of China,” nor hold any referendums on those issues during his term, which ends in May 2008.

Chen’s more ardent supporters want to drop the reference to China in the island’s name, a move likely to provoke China.

Soong welcomed the president’s stance in favor of the status quo, but still rejected Chen’s supporters’ enthusiasm for independence.

“The Republic of China is our biggest point of agreement,” Soong said. “Taiwan independence will only bring war and disaster, so it’s not a political choice,” he said.

The two politicians also promised to cooperate on the restoration of full direct links with China. Taiwan temporarily ended a 56-year-old ban on direct passenger links with China to allow Taiwanese working on the mainland back for the Lunar New Year holiday over the past month.

Direct transport links were severed after the communists won a civil war and took over the mainland in 1949. Passengers have to stop at a third point, usually Hong Kong, before flying into Taiwan from the mainland.

Taiwan has expressed the hope that the experience gained by organizing the passenger flights could form the model for talks on having permanent cargo flights.

Chen and Soong’s PFP also differed over plans to buy arms from the United States worth $18 billion, but opposition lawmakers - and the PFP in particular - have held up a special budget for the weapons for months. They say that buying the submarines, Patriot missiles and anti-submarine planes could spark an arms race with China that would bankrupt Taiwan.

At the meeting, Soong recognized the need for a strong defense but indicated more negotiations were needed before his party could agree to the arms deal.