Taiwan: Doors to unification with China open

The two politicians have held widely diverging views on how to handle communist China, which claims this self-ruled, democratic island is part of its territory and threatens to go to war if Taipei declares formal independence. China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.

Chen has long been generally seen as rejecting the possibility of unification with the Chinese mainland, though he has been careful to avoid phrasing such a position directly.

China’s leaders have routinely berated Chen as a disingenuous traitor to China, bent on splitting the motherland. Beijing has said it considers unification with Taiwan a top political priority.

Soong has accused Chen of lacking a consistent China policy and of provoking Beijing, while the president has criticised the opposition as 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.” The wording clearly was chosen to include the possibility of eventual unification with China.

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

The president’s more ardent supporters want to drop the reference to China in the island’s name – a move that would likely infuriate China.

Chen was meeting with Soong in an effort to mend fences because Soong’s party is a key partner in the opposition alliance that controls the majority in the legislature.

Soong welcomed the president’s stance, but rejected the enthusiasm that many of Chen’s supporters have for independence.

“Taiwan independence will only bring war and disaster, so it’s not a political choice,” Soong said.

The two politicians also promised to co-operate on restoring full and direct transport links with China. Taiwan temporarily ended a 56-year-old ban on direct passenger flights, so Taiwanese who work on the mainland could more easily visit home for last month’s Lunar New Year holiday.

Currently, most flights must stop at a third point, usually Hong Kong – a rule seen as time-consuming and inconvenient.

Despite their political acrimony, Taiwan and China share vital trade links. Taiwan has massive investments in China, and the island’s tourists flock to the mainland in droves.

Taiwan has expressed the hope that the recent special passenger flights could form a model for talks on permanent cargo flights.

Chen and Soong’s People First Party also differed over plans to buy weapons from the United States worth 610.8 billion New Taiwan dollars (€13.6bn), but opposition MPs – particularly the PFP – have stalled 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 their meeting, Soong recognised the need for a strong defence, but indicated more negotiations were needed before his party could agree to the arms deal.

In a conciliatory move, the government has recently said it could spend less money on the arms buy.

Chen and Soong described their meeting as a new beginning after the confrontation of the past few years.

In presidential elections last March, Soong was the vice-presidential candidate on a ticket headed by Lien Chan, the leader of the Nationalist Party, the island’s largest opposition group. After Chen narrowly won the vote, the PFP took part in rowdy protests against the result.

But since the opposition alliance retained a slim majority in the December 11 legislative elections, political parties have indicated they want more dialogue and less confrontation.