Taiwan’s Ma vows to maintain status quo with China

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Taiwan’s main opposition leader and
potential presidential front-runner vowed on Wednesday to
uphold the status quo with China, rejecting both independence
and early unification with the communist-ruled mainland.

Ma Ying-jeou, chairman of the Nationalist Party and mayor
of Taipei, said if his party wins the presidency in the 2008
election, he would reopen talks with China on mutually accepted
terms.

“We will not pursue Taiwan’s de jure independence, nor will
we pursue the policy of immediate unification,” Ma told Reuters
Television in an interview in Washington.

“This is a policy that really fits the needs of the United
States, Japan, mainland China and the Taiwanese people,” said
the 55-year-old Ma, seen by many as the opposition’s best bet
for victory in the 2008 polls.

“We think we should maintain the status quo so that
mainland China would have no excuse to use force against Taiwan
and if they do, I think it would not be legitimate and the U.S.
would have much more legitimacy to help us.”

China views Taiwan as a breakaway province and has
threatened to attack if it pushes for formal statehood.

Taiwan’s relations with China have been strained since
February when pro-independence President Chen Shui-bian
scrapped the National Unification Council, a dormant but
politically significant body aimed at one day reuniting China
and Taiwan.

Ma’s Nationalist Party, also known as the Kuomintang,
favors closer ties with China and has criticized Chen’s move.

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in
Washington, Ma vowed to resume talks that have been frozen
since before the election in 2000 of Chen, whose Democratic
Progressive Party champions an independent Taiwan identity.

“If the Kuomintang is able to come back to power in 2008,
we certainly will resume the interrupted negotiations based on
the 1992 consensus, namely one China, different
interpretations, this has been accepted by mainland China,” Ma
said, referring to a formula agreed 14 years ago in Singapore.

The United States recognizes the “one-China” policy, but in
a deliberately ambiguous piece of foreign policy it is also
obliged by law to help Taiwan defend itself.

U.S. President George W. Bush has offered what would be the
biggest arms sales to Taiwan in more than a decade. But the
Nationalist-led opposition, which controls a slim majority in
parliament, has repeatedly blocked the deal.

Ma was cautious when asked about the stalemate over the
package of advanced weaponry offered by Washington in 2001,

“We support reasonable purchase of arms from the United
States, we need adequate defense capability (and) we want to
demonstrate our determination to defend ourselves,” he said.

The Nationalists once ruled all of China and fled to Taiwan
after losing the Chinese civil war in 1949. The party enjoyed
uninterrupted rule of the island until 2000, when it lost to
Chen’s party.