|
Hu Jintao eager for
Taiwan legacy
SILENCE IS GOLDEN: The US embassy said the lack
of a response from President Ma Ying-jeou to Hu’s proposal on cross-strait
relations is a concern to China’s leadership
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporter
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), scheduled to retire in 2013, is apparently
keen to make a breakthrough on Taiwan his legacy, the US embassy in Beijing
learned from its sources in the Chinese capital, according to a cable recently
released by WikiLeaks.
The cable, issued by the US embassy in Beijing on Feb. 27, 2009, showed that the
US has learned from at least two sources that Hu believes that his Taiwan
policy, and not China’s Scientific Development Concept (SDC), should be his
-primary political legacy.
As early as 2006, Hu established a “research team,” which was still active when
the cable was sent, staffed by leading Chinese academics and other experts to
develop a “new way forward” on Taiwan, the cable said, based on information
which came from “an Embassy contact with access to the Chinese leadership.”
The group’s goal was to find a path that lay somewhere between the “one country,
two systems” approach that remained unacceptable to Taiwan and anything that
smacked of “special state-to-state relations,” which remained anathema to China,
it said.
The cable showed that the US embassy learned from its contact that Tsinghua
University Law School Dean Wang Zhengmin (王振明) was a member of this study group.
In the cable the US embassy quoted its contact as saying that Hu wanted to “do
something big” on Taiwan, just as the agreement to return Hong Kong to the
People’s Republic of China is part of the legacy of former Chinese leader Deng
Xiaoping (鄧小平).
According to the cable, the embassy’s contact dismissed Hu’s -signature domestic
policy as “rubbish” and reiterated that in his view, a breakthrough on Taiwan
would be far more important than anything Hu might accomplish through his
promotion of the SDC.
The US embassy said the lack of a substantive response from President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九) to Hu’s six-point proposal on cross-strait relations is a concern to
China’s leaders.
Hu’s six points include: firm adherence to the “one China” principle and
enhancement of mutual political trust; strengthening economic ties and promoting
joint development; cultivating Chinese culture and stressing cross-strait
spiritual links; promoting personnel visits and broadening exchanges; allowing
Taiwan’s “reasonable” participation in global organizations under the principle
of national sovereignty and ending cross-strait hostility and reaching a peace
agreement.
Meanwhile, another cable recently released by WikiLeaks, dated Jan. 6, 2009,
also from the US embassy in Beijing, offered insights from Clark Randt, US
ambassador to China from July 2001 to January 2009, on the US-China
relationship, to mark the 30 anniversary of diplomatic relations. Randt said
that Taiwan was the most vexing issue holding up the establishment of relations
30 years ago and remained the toughest issue for US-China relations despite
significant improvement in cross-strait ties since the election of Ma.
“It will remain a delicate topic for the foreseeable future. We should continue
to support Taiwan and Mainland efforts to reduce tension by increasing Taiwan’s
‘international space’ and reducing the Mainland’s military build-up across from
Taiwan,” Randt was quoted as saying in the cable.
The US should be cautious about predicting that the People’s Liberation Army’s
long-term objectives are modest, he said.
“In the years to come, our defense experts will need to closely monitor China’s
contingency plans and we will need to use every diplomatic and strategic tool we
have to prevent intimidating moves toward Taiwan,” the cable said.
|
