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Public rejects ‘one
country, two areas’
PANNED BY POLL: A survey this week showed about
60 percent of people rejected the ‘one country, two areas’ formulation put
forward by Wu Poh-hsiung
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Taiwan Republic Campaign founder
Peter Wang, right, accompanied by members of the organization, protest outside
the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday about the “one country, two areas”
proposal. Wang spray-painted a cross over the message on the sign, which says:
“Taiwan Area Government, Area Governor Ma.”
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
yesterday reiterated its demand for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to apologize
for the ruling party’s “one country, two areas (一國兩區)” proposal after nearly 60
percent of the respondents in an opinion poll said they disagreed with the
initiative.
The survey, conducted by the DPP on Monday and Tuesday, polled respondents for
their views on the controversial proposal, which was touted by former Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) during his meeting with
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) on March 22 in Beijing.
The poll found that 59.7 percent of the respondents disagreed with the proposal;
with 89 percent of people who identified themselves as pan-green supporters and
59 percent of people who identified themselves as independent voters saying “no”
to Ma’s proposal, DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) told a press conference.
More than half of respondents who identified themselves as pan-blue supporters,
or 55 percent, said they accepted the proposal, the poll showed.
In the poll, 77.9 percent of respondents said Taiwan and China are not the same
country, with 66 percent of pan-blue supporters saying both sides of the Strait
are independent countries.
“With these results, we demand President Ma apologize for this unpopular
proposal and withdraw it,” Lin said.
While Ma said in a statement that the “one country” represents the Republic of
China (ROC), 68.3 percent of the people participating in the poll said the
international community interprets the “one country” as the People’s Republic of
China (PRC).
The survey results and the comments of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office
spokesperson Yang Yi (楊毅) on Wednesday, which only mentioned “one China” and did
not make reference to Ma’s proposal, showed that the initiative was neither
accepted by Taiwanese nor by Beijing, Lin said.
“We have had a hard time figuring out why Ma decided to submit the proposal,
which created internal division and did Taiwan no good at all,” he said.
“Judging from recent controversies over US beef imports and the ‘one country’
proposal, it seems to us that President Ma always chooses to stand on the
opposite side to public opinion,” he added.
Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), another DPP spokesperson, said Taiwanese, regardless of
their political preferences, appeared to be reaching a consensus on the status
of the country, with 67.3 percent of the respondents saying they do not agree
with Hu’s recent comment that Taiwan and the PRC belong to “one China” and there
is no separation in China’s territory and sovereignty.
In the poll, 81.2 percent of respondents agreed that Taiwan is a sovereign
country and any change of the “status quo” would require a national referendum,
which matches the DPP’s longstanding position of its resolution on Taiwan’s
future in 1999, Lo said.
The survey collected 1,333 samples and had a margin of error of 2.73 percent.
In response, KMT spokesman Yin Wei (殷瑋) yesterday dismissed the DPP’s latest
poll as another attempt to manipulate the issue.
“We regret the DPP continued to distort President Ma’s stance, which is to
develop cross-strait relations consistent with the constitutional structure, and
that structure hasn’t changed for the last 20 years,” Yin said.
Yin also shrugged off the DPP’s demand that Ma apologize, challenging the DPP to
first demand an apology from former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
“Tsai, during her term as Mainland Affairs Council chairperson, proposed a
similar ‘one country, four areas,’ approach in handling cross-strait relations,
and if the DPP challenged such a concept, why don’t they ask Tsai to apologize
as well?” he asked.
Wu, who returned from his China trip late on Wednesday night, defended his
comments and reiterated that the “one country, two areas” concept referred to
“Taiwan and mainland China under one country, which is the ROC.”
While Ma has clarified the concept on several occasions, he did so only through
the Presidential Office and the KMT. At the KMT’s Central Standing Committee on
Wednesday, Ma said the “one country” refers to “the ROC,” adding that such an
idea had been put forward before by Tsai and by Taiwan Solidarity Union chairman
Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝).
Both Tsai and Huang, in response, said on Wednesday that the concept was
intended at the time to explain domestic laws governing interaction among people
from Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and Macao, and that nowhere did it pertain to
cross-strait political relations.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
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