As the DPP congress meets later this month to endorse President Chen Shui-bian’s party leadership, a solution is also urgently needed to let the head of state off the hook.

Chen will find himself caught between two mutually contradictory charters — the nation’s constitution, binding him to the Republic of China, and the party’s charter, binding him to the yet-to-be “Republic of Taiwan.”

As soon as it swept into power in 2000, the DPP started pondering ways to circumvent the pro-independence clause in the charter, adopted while the party was in opposition.

They took what they thought to be a pragmatic stance, both to keep their backing from fundamentalists and to assure the Taiwan populace, as well as Beijing, that the island would not formally declare independence.

Its first attempt was the passage of a “Taiwan Resolution,” stating the island is already a sovereignty state, and there is no need to formally establish a “Republic of Taiwan.”

The resolution was meant to set aside the charter’s independence clause without having to erase it entirely.

Taiwan people’s reaction to the DPP’s pragmatism remains mixed. But Beijing clearly disapproves of it, analysts say.

Beijing’s message is clear. Kuomintang Legislator John Chang yesterday quoted Chen Yun-lin, the mainland’s top Taiwan Affairs official, as maintaining that Beijing will never talk to the DPP until the charter’s independence clause is gone.

Chen said unless the DPP congress takes out the clause later this month, the party’s plan to send a delegation to the mainland in August will be snubbed, according to Chang, who last week returned from a mainland visit, during which he met with the official.

President Chen said earlier this year that he would send a delegation from the party’s China affairs department across the strait after taking the DPP chairmanship.

Unofficial visits by DPP lawmakers to the mainland have increased recently in apparent attempts to pave the way for the resumption of talks with Beijing.

But Chen Yun-lin dismissed such trips, saying DPP lawmakers are either visiting doctors or relatives, sightseeing or attending academic conferences on the mainland, and Beijing leaders will not grant them official meetings.

While the message is clear, the DPP has never really tried to take the Beijing-dictated course, hoping still that some wordplay will be sufficient enough to satisfy the communist rivals, analysts say.

A Young Turk group of lawmakers, the “Six Zero Club,” within the ruling party has proposed recently that campaign platforms officially adopted by the party should be as good as the charter.

Their idea is the campaign platforms will definitely call for better cross-strait relations, in particular the “three links” — direct trade, mail and transportation with the mainland — without touching on the thorny issue of independence.

The group has been active traveling across the strait to probe Beijing’s reaction, but their proposal still follows the basic line of the DPP logic: the independence clause can only be sidelined, but not deleted, analysts say.

Chen Zau-nan, a member of the DPP Central Standing Committee, yesterday launched a proposal to reaffirm the “Taiwan Resolution.”

He wanted to recall DPP members to the basic idea behind the resolution that Taiwan is already a sovereign state and therefore there is no need to establish a Taiwanese republic.

He did suggest a change to the independence clause in the charter: the vow to build a “Republic of Taiwan” should be rewritten as a “vow to defend Taiwan as a sovereign state.”

The change, however, is unlikely to satisfy Beijing, analysts say, as it is just another wordplay.