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Ma’s ‘two nations’ comment a mistake: PO
INFALLIBLE: President Ma’s rhetorical ‘faux pas’ was
attributed to an error by a rookie employee at the Presidential Office and was
immediately ‘corrected’ on its Web site
By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Feb 19, 2010, Page 1
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would not address the two sides of Taiwan Strait as
“two nations” in describing cross-strait relations, the Presidential Office said
yesterday.
“According to the Constitution, the Republic of China [ROC] is a sovereign
nation, and mainland China is an ‘area’ under the structure of the ROC
Constitution,” Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said.
“We do not recognize the Chinese communist authorities’ sovereignty. We only
hold a non-denial attitude toward its existence in the ‘Mainland area,’” Wang
said.
Wang made the remarks in response to a report by the Chinese-language Liberty
Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) about changes made by the Presidential
Office to Ma’s wording after a meeting with US Representative James
Sensenbrenner Jr on Wednesday.
Meeting the US congressman in the Presidential Office, Ma discussed the
government’s signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with
China and called on the US Congress to supports Taiwan’s efforts to sign a
bilateral extradition agreement with the US.
A press release the Presidential Office issued to media at about 12pm on
Wednesday quoted Ma as saying that his administration expected the signing of an
ECFA to “institutionalize the more than NT$100 billion [US$3.1 billion] trade
volume between the two nations.”
In a press release on the Presidential Office Web site later in the day,
however, the term “two nations” was replaced with “two sides.”
Wang said the phrase had been used by “mistake” by a new employee and that the
Presidential Office made the correction immediately after discovering the
mistake. The president would not make such a mistake, he said.
Wang said the term used by the government reflected the “status quo” across the
Taiwan Strait under the Constitution and that such a constitutional structure
was revised by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and followed by the
Democratic Progressive Party government.
“It also reflects the political reality of the Strait. [The description] shows
no signs of weakness. Instead, it highlights the sovereignty of the ROC,” Wang
said.
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