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Ma accused of ‘lying’
about relations
FLIGHTS OF FANCY? Nan Fang Shuo said that Ma and
the KMT have been distorting the Constitution, while Ma dismissed concerns about
his portrayal of cross-strait ties
By Chris Wang and Mo Yan-chih / Staff reporters
Commentator Nan Fang Shuo speaks
to the press yesterday on the sidelines of a Democratic Progressive Party China
policy forum in Taipei.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Political analysts and Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) politicians yesterday criticized President Ma Ying-jeou
(馬英九) for describing cross-strait relations as not international and
cross-strait flights as domestic flights.
“What Ma has been doing in the past five years, in terms of external relations,
is lying. He lied to the Taiwanese, the US and Beijing, hoping to reap benefits
and personal gains,” political commentator Nan Fang Shuo (南方朔) said on the
sidelines of a DPP-organized forum in Taipei.
At the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) weekly Central Standing Committee
meeting on Wednesday, Ma, noting that domestic flights in the US have been more
profitable than international flights, said that Taiwan’s airline companies
would not have been profitable if they were not operating cross-strait routes.
“The relations between Taiwan and China are exactly like that,” Ma was quoted as
saying.
His comment was interpreted to mean that cross-strait flights are domestic
flights.
Ma also drew fire with his Double Ten National Day speech on Oct. 10 when he
said the cross-strait relations were not international relations.
The Ma administration’s handling of diplomatic affairs has failed to maximize
Taiwan’s gain and minimize potential damages, Nan Fang Shou said, adding that Ma
assumed his deceit would win him an opportunity to meet Chinese President Xi
Jinping (習近平) at next year’s APEC summit in Beijing.
Asked if Ma’s recent comments underlined the necessity for a constitutional
amendment, Nan Fang Shuo said that the true problem did not lie in the
Constitution, but in the way Ma and the KMT distorted the Constitution.
“If someone could distort the Constitution like that, amending the Constitution
would not be meaningful,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ma yesterday tried to dismiss concerns about his defining
cross-strait ties as “not international relations.”
“The Republic of China [ROC] is a sovereign country, and mainland China is part
of our territory according to the Constitution. Therefore, our relations with
the mainland are not international relations. It is a special relationship,” he
said at a meeting with a US delegation led by Wyoming Governor Matt Mead at the
Presidential Office.
The president also reiterated his “three noes” policy of no unification, no
independence and no use of force in handling cross-strait relations, and said
that the government continued to promote cross-strait development under the
so-called “1992 consensus.”
He said that cross-strait air routes are neither international flights nor
domestic ones, shrugging off concerns about his comparison of US domestic
flights to cross-strait flights.
“We’ve defined that the cross-strait air routes are not international ones or
domestic ones. They are special flights,” he said.
“Such a definition allows the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to enhance their
relations and bring profits to the people from both sides that they did not
enjoy in the past,” he said.
Ma cited the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and
the service trade agreement, and said the cross-strait relations are the most
peaceful and stable they have been in the past 60 years.
He also said the nation will continue to seek cooperation with the US in
maintaining a sustainable defense force to protect public safety.
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