Forum, Lien-Hu Talks Hide China's Evil Aims: Chen

Forum, Lien-Hu talks hide China's evil aims: Chen

The China Post Staff

556 words

15 April 2006

The China Post

English

(c) 2006 The China Post. All Rights Reserved

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday lambasted China, saying it was using a Beijing economic cooperation forum attended by a former opposition leader to create a false impression of peace.

His remarks came as former Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan attended a two day seminar on economic relations between Taiwan and China. Lien is scheduled to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao tomorrow.

Chen said Beijing was using Lien's visit to mislead the outside world. "Lien's meetings with Hu are only a cover for the Chinese government to hide its evil intentions," he said in a meeting with a U.S. delegation headed by the former American ambassador to China Winston Lord.

The president said he believed Hu had timed the seminar just ahead of his trip to Washington next week to defuse eventual U.S. criticism of China's aggressive stance toward the island, which Beijing still claims as Chinese territory.

"This is the Chinese leadership's deliberate attempt to mislead the international community," Chen said.

"The Chinese leadership also wants to reduce pressure it is facing from Washington to hold talks with Taiwan's elected government and leader," Chen said.

The KMT originally was a mainland Chinese political party. It fled to Taiwan after it lost a civil war in 1949.

Last year Lien made history by becoming the first KMT leader in over half a century to visit the mainland and hold talks with a Communist leader, Chinese President Hu Jintao.During that time, Lien made a number of agreements, such as a six-point consensus, with the Beijing authorities.

During his meeting, Chen angrily pointed to a cover story on the latest edition of a local magazine The Journalist. The magazine, reviewing Lien's historic visit to China with a year's hindsight, said Lien's agreements with Beijing -- including an agreement to resume stalled talks -- amounted to nothing more than empty promises.

"Now, Hu and Lien are meeting again. Are they just going to issue another bad check?" the magazine said.

Chen said the magazine's conclusions underscored the reasons why the U.S. government and American President George Bush felt it was so important for Beijing to talk directly to Taiwan's elected leaders.

"Business leaders and political parties are good but they can never replace the government or public authority," Chen said.

Chen said Beijing used the same tactics with its historic meeting with Lien last year. He said last Lien-Hu meeting came after Beijing passed a law authorizing the use of force if Taiwan moves towards independence and was intended to soften the impact of the law internationally.

The KMT's director of its mainland affairs section Chang Jung-kung retorted that Chen was "flying into a rage out of shame".

"In the entire six years of President Chen's administration, absolutely nothing has been achieved in the field of cross-strait relations," Chang said.

"The KMT is working for the interests of the people of Taiwan... we hope that reconciliation between the KMT and CCP can promote cross-strait peace," he said.

Beijing has threatened military action if Taiwan moves towards independence and has more than 700 missiles aimed at the island. However, the two sides have thriving trade and business ties.