(圖片來源：Wikimedia Commons, Information Technology Agreement parties.)
President Ma Ying-jeou is expected to meet Mainland China’s top negotiator on Taiwan affairs at the Taipei Guest House.Curiously enough, however, leaders of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party from its chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen on down are taking Ma to task for receiving Chen Yunlin, chairman of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).They claim Ma is denigrating the Republic of China as an independent, sovereign state.
Is he?
When one travels abroad, one has to carry a passport.The passport identifies the traveler and the authorities who issue it request “all whom it may concern to permit” its holder “to pass freely and in case of need to give all possible aid and protection.”Chen is a visitor to Taiwan, which is part of the Republic of China.The foreign minister in Beijing who issues Chen’s passport certainly requests “all whom it may concern” to help and protect the ARATS chairman, if necessary.
The ARATS chairman, who is a Mainland Chinese government official in fact, is in Taipei under the protection, which is needed because of threats from the violence-prone opposition party.Who helps him “pass freely” and protects him, “in case of need”?The government of the independent, sovereign state that is officially called the Republic of China.Incidentally, that government was inaugurated in Nanjing on January 1, 1912 and Chen headed the Taiwan Office of the State Council in Beijing until June this year when he was transferred to the ARATS, a government organization charged with conducting “non-governmental” relations between Taiwan and Mainland China.
Who heads that government?President Ma Ying-jeou.And he is receiving Chen in his capacity as president of the Republic of China.The audience he is ready to award the ARATS chairman does not in any way downgrade the dignity of the country as the opposition party leaders falsely but so vociferously claim.How Ma and Chen are going to address each other is a non-issue.The form of address really does not matter.The fact speaks for itself.
As a matter of fact, the People’s Republic has yielded a surprising and momentary concession by allowing its ARATS chairman to come to Taipei to sign four agreements with his counterpart P. K. Chiang, who heads the Straits Exchange Foundation.Chiang has met Chen before and signed an agreement in Beijing to make direct charter flights between Taiwan and Mainland China possible at weekends. Chen, in other words, is making a return visit.However, the People’s Republic still insists that Taiwan is one of its provinces.Is it necessary for a government to ask for help and protection for its official, who is touring an area under its sovereignty?Does Beijing need such help from the authorities in Hong Kong?Of course not.The fact that the People’s Republic lets Chen visit Taiwan signifies that Beijing acknowledges – tacitly and by action – Taipei is the capital of an independent, sovereign state on a totally equal footing.
That is a monumental concession Taiwan could demand under the existing circumstances.
（Courtesy of China Post, Taipei）
王順民
(
11月22日 15:13
)
劉新圓
(
2007年10月4日 15:04
)
