Ma ‘unsurprised’ with United States opposition to bid

Ma said Washington is well aware of the motives behind Chen’s proposed referendum, which he said is designed to boost the election prospects of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

He claimed that the DPP itself knows that a bid to use the name “Taiwan” to join the United Nations will not succeed, but it is still bent on promoting it for election purposes.

“The U.S. is well aware of the DPP’s motives. Therefore the U.S. official has made such a response. I’m not at all surprised,” Ma said.

He was speaking in the wake of remarks made by Thomas Christensen, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, who on Tuesday detailed Washington’s opposition to Chen’s proposed referendum.

Christensen said the United States does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state and considers the call for a referendum on its U.N. bid a “needlessly provocative” step towards changing its status quo.

“While U.S. opposition to Chinese coercion of Taiwan is beyond question, we do not recognize Taiwan as an independent state and we do not accept the argument that provocative assertions of Taiwan independence are in any way conducive to maintenance of the status quo or peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” Christensen said.

But Ma claimed that the U.S. instead does not object to the KMT’s call for a referendum to decide whether the “Republic of China” should rejoin the U.N.

He said the U.S. is raising no objection to the KMT plan because it does not involve any change to the country’s name, and that the KMT is an opposition party.

Su Chi, a former chairman of the Cabinet’s Mainland Affairs Council under the KMT administration in the 1990s, reported that Christensen spent half an hour detailing the U.S. position during his speech, according to the United Evening News.

Christensen was addressing the Defense Industry Conference organized by the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council in Annapolis, Maryland on the topic, “A Strong and Moderate Taiwan.”

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