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Updated Tuesday, May 6, 2008 0:00 am TWN, The China Post news staff

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Leave Lai Shing-yuan alone

It looks almost like a witch hunt. Politicians of different stripes are blaming Ma Ying-jeou, the president-elect, for appointing Lai Shing-yuan the next chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council. She is being condemned as a turncoat or even a traitor by her former allies in the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party for espousing what is known as the consensus of 1992, under which both Taipei and Beijing acknowledge there is but one China, whose definition can be orally and individually expressed. Su Chi, a former MAC chairman, equates it with a tacit agreement on “one China with a different interpretation.” Kuomintang lawmakers, and their supporters, are up in arms against Lai, an independence activist who used to be a legislator at large of the Taiwan Solidarity Union, of which former President Lee Teng-hui is the spiritual leader.

Lee was labeled a “separatist” by Beijing after he proclaimed his “special state-to-state relationship” between Taiwan and China toward the end of 1999. It was considered a “two-China” doctrine, an anathema to Beijing, which vows to take Taiwan back to the Chinese fold by force, if necessary. Lai is Lee’s protege.

Kuomintang supporters do not have to fear Lai might spoil chances to improve relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. For one thing, she has promised to do everything within her power to get things going across the strait for the good of all the people. Moreover, Ma as president could rein her in if she were to do something against Taiwan’s national interests. She is a political appointee. That means Ma can hire and fire her as he wishes.

On the other hand, a political chameleon may turn out to be a capable politician. We understand why Lai’s former comrades in arms now detest her, but a sizable number of Democratic Progressive Party leaders are also turncoats and traitors to the Kuomintang that ruled Taiwan for a little more than five decades.

So why not leave Lai alone? Let her try her hand as Ma’s chief China policy coordinator. If she is found unable to deliver what she has promised, Ma can axe her without a moment’s notice.

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