MAC Chairwoman Lai: Our Mainland Policy Is Based on the ROC Constitution

MAC Chairwoman Lai: Our Mainland Policy Is Based on the ROC Constitution

Source: Taipei newspapers            January 19, 2011

In a press conference yesterday, Lai Shin-yuan, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), said, “The biggest difference between President Ma Ying-jeou and the DPP’s Mainland policies is that the Ma government’s position is that our country is the Republic of China (ROC).”

Lai said, “Our Mainland policies are implemented under the structure of the ROC Constitution. The government’s discourse on the future of cross-Strait relations and Taiwan are predicated on the ROC Constitution.”    

When asked by the media about the differences between President Ma’s statement that “The future of Taiwan will be decided by the 23 million people on Taiwan” and “the DPP’s 1999 Resolution on Taiwan’s Future,” Lai replied, “The ROC is a sovereign state. We maintain the status quo of ‘no unification, no independence and no use of force’ under the structure of the ROC Constitution.”

Lai added, “Both sides of the Strait resumed institutionalized consultations based on the principle of ‘1992 Consensus/One China, Different Interpretations.’”   

Lai said, “Our government’s position is that, as President Ma has stressed, the future of our country and Taiwan shall be decided by the 23 million on Taiwan under the structure of the ROC Constitution.”  

When talking about cross-Strait relations, Chen Yun-lin, chairman of the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), told Taiwanese businessmen on the Mainland at a dinner in Beijing on January 13, “If one day opposition to Taiwan independence should disappear, or the ‘1992 Consensus’ should vanish, then all existing policies toward Taiwan would probably be reconsidered.” In response, Lai said, “It is the 1992 Consensus that enabled the establishment and stable operation of the cross-Strait institutionalized consultations.”

Lai said, “In the past two years and eight months, the operation mechanism and the accumulated foundation established by the institutionalized consultations across the Strait have served as the cornerstone for the closer development of cross-Strait relations. Both sides of the Strait need to cherish and safeguard these fruitful achievements. I hope that both sides of the Strait will accumulate mutual trust, step by step, in a gradual manner from reconciliation and cooperation to peace.”  

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