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Frank Hsieh returns
to mixed reviews
NO CONSENSUS: Most within the DPP lauded Hsieh’s
efforts, but critics accused him of a lack of transparency, and his cross-strait
formula has yet to win over the party
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Former premier Frank Hsieh,
holding a bouquet of flowers, shakes hands with supporters greeting him at
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after returning from a five-day visit to
China yesterday.
Photo: Yao Kai-shiou, Taipei Times
Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday
returned to Taipei from a five-day visit to China and described the trip as
fruitful, despite Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members giving the landmark
trip mixed reviews.
“We’ve achieved so much more than we expected. And we safeguarded Taiwan’s
values and dignity during the trip,” Hsieh told reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan
International Airport on his return from Beijing, where he met three senior
Chinese officials in charge of Taiwan affairs over the weekend.
Hsieh, who visited China in a private capacity, became the most senior member of
the former DPP administration to meet with high-ranking Chinese officials.
During his stay in the Chinese capital, the former DPP chairman met with Taiwan
Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅), Association for Relations Across the
Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) and State Councilor Dai
Bingguo (戴秉國).
Hsieh said he proposed to replace the so-called “1992 consensus,” which the DPP
says never existed, with his initiative of “one Constitution, two
interpretations” (憲法各表) and urged Beijing to give Taiwan more international
space during his meeting with Dai, who oversees China’s diplomatic affairs, on
Sunday afternoon.
Those meetings ended with no consensus because both sides found it difficult to
accept each other’s position, Hsieh said, “but we recognized each other’s good
will to engage in dialogue.”
The veteran politician said his meetings with Chinese Communist Party officials
were impromptu and not pre-arranged.
He said that it has been his belief that the cross-strait situation should “be
positioned by the Republic of China [ROC] Constitution,” but acknowledged that
DPP members remained divided over the proposal.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) did not
directly address Hsieh’s trip, but said: “The DPP’s position [on its China
policy] remains unchanged despite there being different opinions in the party.”
“The international community always encourages Taiwan and China to work out
differences through dialogue ... The DPP always insists that engagement between
Taiwan and China should be open and transparent,” Su told reporters.
Su reiterated that Taiwan should actively engage China with confidence because
dialogue is essential for smoothing out differences and Taiwan would win out in
the end because of its democratic values, openness and diversity.
While most DPP members and pan-green supporters recognized the trip as a
positive step toward the DPP’s reconciliation with China, some of them
criticized Hsieh during the past few days, accusing him of a lack of
transparency in meeting with the officials.
Former DPP chairman Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水)
and Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) were among the
strongest critics of Hsieh’s visit and proposals, saying that his initiative was
not workable because the ROC Constitution remained highly controversial in
Taiwan.
DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said yesterday morning that people should not
read too much into the significance of Hsieh’s visit and that the DPP’s
position, which supports the normalization of trade relations with China while
safeguarding Taiwan’s identity and sovereignty, remained unchanged.
DPP Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) lauded Hsieh’s effort to promote better ties
between the party and Beijing, but said that Hsieh’s initiative would not be
able to replace the “1992 consensus” because “consensus and ‘different
interpretations’ are contradictory and not interchangeable.”
Hung Chih-kun (洪智坤), a member of the DPP’s Central Executive Committee, said
Beijing took Hsieh’s visit seriously by sending three senior officials to meet
him.
However, Hung said Hsieh probably still had to persuade DPP members and
supporters by clearly explaining the evolution of his proposals over the past
decade — from “one country, two cities” (一國兩市) in 2000 to the “Constitutional
one China” (憲法一中) in 2006 and the “one constitution, two interpretations” and
“Constitutional consensus” last year, Hung said.
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