No grounds for opposing accords

Almost three decades after Deng Xiaoping’s call for the establishment of the “three links,” meaning direct postal, transportation and trade links, it has finally been realized.

Chen began his five-day visit to Taiwan on Monday and the agreements were signed on Tuesday as scheduled. This means that the two ostensibly non-governmental bodies, the mainland’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), had reached agreement before Chen got off the plane.

Actually, much of the negotiating was done by the Chen Shui-bian administration but Beijing did not want him to get the credit and so delayed implementation until he had left office.

Chen Yunlin’s visit to Taiwan was marked by protests and violence. The pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, now in opposition, held massive demonstrations that turned violent to embarrass the Chinese visitor and the Ma administration.

On Wednesday, Chen was trapped in the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel after dinner there until 2 a.m. because the hotel was surrounded by thousands of protesters. And on Thursday, Ma had to bring forward his meeting with Chen to the morning so as to avoid encountering massive demonstrations.

But why the protests? Since the agreements are on economic topics, why did the DPP mobilize so many people, busing many of them from the south?

The simple answer is that they accuse Ma of “handing Taiwan over to China.” If this were really happening, their anger would be understandable. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Ma has been accused of giving up Taiwan’s sovereignty because he used the words “Taiwan region.” But this is in keeping with Taiwan’s laws and constitution, which refers to the “Taiwan region” and the “Mainland region.”

This legislation and the constitutional amendment were adopted during the presidency of Lee Teng-hui. That is and remains Taiwan’s constitutional framework.

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