|
Ma wants a return to use of ‘mainland’
WHAT’S IN A NAME?In a bid to turn back the clock, the
administration wants to stop people from following the DPP government’s practice
of referring to the PRC as China
Staff writer, with CNA
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wants to change the common practice in Taiwan of
calling the other side of the Taiwan Strait “China” in favor of the term “the
mainland,” Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said
yesterday.
Hsieh, the secretary-general of the KMT caucus, said Ma made the suggestion at a
tea party with leading government and legislative officials yesterday.
Hsieh quoted Ma as saying that under the principle of “one China, with each side
having its own interpretation” — the so-called “1992 consensus” which the KMT
believes was reached during cross-strait talks in Hong Kong in 1992 — Taiwan
should not refer to China by its name, but should instead call it “the mainland”
or simply “the other side.”
The KMT defines the “1992 consensus” as an agreement according to which it
interprets “one China” as the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, while Beijing
defines it as the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The ROC was founded in 1912 in China, but relocated to Taiwan in 1949 after
losing the Chinese Civil War to the Chinese communists.
The practice in Taiwan of calling the other side of the Strait “China” was
started during the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) eight years in power
from 2000 to 2008, as part of a policy to emphasize Taiwan’s existence as
separate from that of China.
According to Hsieh, Ma asked government officials yesterday to be more cautious
when referring to China, either verbally or in written documents.
The DPP says the “1992 consensus” does not exist.
In 2006, then-KMT legislator Su Chi (蘇起) admitted he made up the term in 2000,
when he was head of the Mainland Affairs Council, before the KMT handed over
power to the DPP. Su said he coined the term to encourage both sides to keep up
cross-strait exchanges.
At the closed-door spring tea party at the National Defense University, Ma also
urged officials to be “on alert at all times” and to place wealth distribution
high on their policy agenda.
Ma addressed a wide range of issues, among them economics, flood control,
cross-strait development and public communication.
The government’s task in the coming year is not only to maintain the economic
recovery, which was felt by the public last year, but also improve the
distribution of wealth, the president said.
The development of cross-strait relations since his inauguration, including 15
agreements signed between Taiwan and China, has been rapid “because the
stagnancy of bilateral relations during the previous administration jeopardized
the interests of the people of Taiwan,” Ma was quoted as saying.
|
