Well, at least he's (almost) consistent

Reality be damned. President Regional Administrator Ma Ying-jeou clarified during an interview with Japanese media yesterday that the territory on which the PRC sits is in fact Republic of China territory. This is his first explicit statement to that effect, I believe.

UPDATE: Yeah.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said mainland China is the territory of the Republic of China (ROC) in an interview with a Japanese magazine, the first time Ma has made the official claim since he took office in May.

Ma said under the ROC Constitution, the ROC “definitely is an independent sovereign state, and mainland [sic] China is also part of the territory of the ROC.”

This position is in fact rather consistent with (the still vague) ROC constitution and is the only logical extension of Ma's earlier claims that Taiwan and China do not have a "state to state" relationship but rather are "two regions" of the same country.

During the interview Ma also engaged in some revisionist history while praising Chiang Kai-shek's legacy, saying his contributions were greater than his mistakes and he had three major accomplishments -- "returning" Taiwan to the ROC, protecting Taiwan and constructing Taiwan.

UPDATE: If the argument Ma is making is based purely on adherence to the borders originally outlined in the constitution, as it seems to, then recent statements by his cabinet that Mongolia is an acknowledged independent country seem to be contradictory to this position. (Actually, this is slightly complicated, and the argument can be made Ma need not claim Mongolia to claim China on these grounds.)

And it's in line with Ma's claims to Tibet.

This reversal of position also nixes Ma's previous statements that "The ROC is Taiwan." (「中華民國就是台灣。」) See this Monday, Sep 17, 2007 article for those:

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday welcomed his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) counterpart's statement that "Taiwan is the Republic of China [ROC]."