Taiwan must become independent: Chen

Chen made the strongly worded declaration at the 34th annual World Taiwanese Congress of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (WFTA) held in Osaka, Japan through video conferencing.

The president’s remarks were met with shouted slogans such as “Taiwan independence!”, “Set up a Taiwan nation!”, and “Join the U.N.!” from more than 600 people taking part in the conference.

Chen said he first brought up the concept of “one country, one side” to describe Taiwan and China across the Taiwan Strait during the WFTA annual conference held in Tokyo Aug. 3, 2002.

Since then, he pointed out, he has never deviated from that stance despite strong pressure from different quarters in the past five years because what he said is a historical fact and the genuine status quo across the Strait.

Chen asserted that the notion of “one country, one side” has now become the mainstream public opinion of the Taiwan people.

Recent survey results show that 74 percent of those polled think Taiwan is an independent sovereign state, far ahead of some 11 percent that consider Taiwan to be part of China, he said.

Taiwan is neither a province of the People’s Republic of China nor part of China, and its sovereignty belongs to its people, he said.

He continued that the cross-strait status quo must not be changed rashly so as to preserve the common interests of Taiwan, Japan, the United States and most other Asian countries.

He added that he feels a little more comfortable toward Taiwan people with the development after having been in power for seven years.

Chen said only the 23 million brave people in Taiwan can decide their own future.

He revealed that the Central Election Commission of the Cabinet will soon announce that a few national referendums will be held at the same time when voters take part in new elections next year.

The referendum on the government’s efforts to retrieve the ill-gotten national assets by other political parties will coincide with the election of new lawmakers in late January.

This will he the second-ever referendum to be undertaken by Taiwan voters, he said.

The referendum on Taiwan’s joining the U.N. under the name of Taiwan will be held on March 22, the same day a new president is to be elected, he announced.

He said holding referendums is part of democratic values.

Chen urged the public to have confidence in Taiwan and bravely take the right path until the goals have been fulfilled.

Opposition presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou, who is currently experiencing firsthand the life of farmers and banana growers in southern Taiwan, said that as a president of a nation, Chen should pay more attention to people’s immediate livelihood instead of channeling all national resources into distant issues like joining the U.N.

Ma lamented that he has been staying with people in rural areas since July and discovered that Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration has totally ignored the plight of the farmers.

He said that democracy is certainly important, but the livelihood of the people deserves greater attention from the people.

Legislator Kuo Shu-tsun of the opposition Kuomintang said that Chen is using his old tricks of binding referendums with elections in order to garner ballots from Taiwanese voters.

This shows that Chen only wants to become an emperor and cares nothing about the life and death of the people, she said.

She questioned why Chen never used such tough words when issuing English statements.

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