TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Packaging unification with China as “peace” will cause immeasurable damage to Taiwan, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said Wednesday in his first comments on last week’s meeting between KMT Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Lai was speaking in his capacity as DPP chair at the party’s weekly leadership meeting, per CNA. The remarks were his first on the subject of the April 10 talks in Beijing.
Peace could not be achieved by making concessions on sovereignty, or by putting Taiwan into a “one China framework” while going along with a dictatorial regime, he added.
Lai also hoped that now the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party had finished their talks, the opposition party could turn its attention to reviewing and passing budget proposals. The KMT and the TPP have used their majority at the Legislative Yuan to slow down the passage of the government’s NT$1.27 trillion (US$40 billion) special defense budget.
Love, peace, and non-violence were among the core founding values of the DPP, with peace as the highest goal for the DPP government, according to Lai. Peace is an ideal, but you cannot have illusions about it, he told the party meeting.
Taiwan’s development over the past 10 years showed that leaving the one China framework and opening up to the world was the right choice, CNA reported the president as saying.
