Chen's 'Beijing memo' sparks row over mainland ties

The president revealed for the first time the hand-written note relaying a message from Beijing to him almost four years ago to prove that he had tried his best to improve the relationship across the Taiwan Strait.

In his televised “national affairs report” in the form of interview Sunday evening, President Chen flashed the note from his pocket and said it came from Beijing through “an influential person” before he took oath to assume presidency on May 20, 2000.

He said the content of the note urges him to mention the following in his inauguration speech:

“We people from both sides of the (Taiwan) Strait are descendants from the Huang (Yellow) Emperor and have the lineage from the dragon. I believe that people of the two sides will be certain to utilize the wisdom of the dragon to handle well the future one China issue under the premises of mutual respect and mutual equality.”

Chen stressed that he did not polish his speech at the suggestion of the memo. He said further he was not pretentious in handling cross-strait problems.

The president added he set up an impartial task force with members from various political parties and factions with Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh serving as chief of the panel to build up internal consensus for dealing with cross-strait issues.

However, he said, the panel was boycotted by the opposition camp on grounds that Lee at that time was also a member of the “national affairs advisory corps,” which was organized to provide advice to the new administration.

Elmer Fung, former legislator of the New Party, said that he received a phone call yesterday from “an important figure in China” alleging that the memo note shown by President Chen could have been forged.

Although it did not necessarily prove that Chen is lying, Fung said, Chen could have been fooled so that he took the fake message as a real.

According to Fung, the memo note shows at least four questionable signs proving it did not come from Beijing.

The note was written in standard Chinese characters prevailing in Taiwan rather than the simplified version used on the mainland, he said. He also pointed out that Beijing never adopted the “future one China” concept as it always uses the present tense for its “one China” principle.

Su Chi, former chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), also cast doubt on the genuineness of the notes because there are limited channels and level of contact for Chen to get in touch with Beijing.

He doubted that Chen has the ability to distinguish the genuine memos from fake ones.

Su said the president made the note public — regardless its genuineness — now because he wants to shift all the blame to Beijing for the lackluster development in cross-strait relations.

Huang Chih-fang, chief of public affairs at the Presidential Office, clarified that the memo note was not directly handed to the president but was passed to him through certain channels. But he declined to comment on the credibility of the note because he still had no opportunity to check with the president.

MAC Vice Chairman Chen MIN-tong said the presentation of the note by the president is to show his goodwill to improve the bilateral ties with the mainland.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email