SEF forum

Taiwan's Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) held a forum today and invited a number of speakers to discuss cross-strait relations and development. You can read about what some of the speakers said here in Chinese. Below is a paraphrased English version of that report.

Assistant Secretary of the SEF Ma Shao-chang (馬紹章), also a man in the KMT's think tank (the National Policy Foundation), said that he believes the 92 consensus is the foundation for trust across the strait. He believes there are various levels of trust and he hopes that the two sides of the strait can work together for the benefit of people on both sides. [Fluff!]

Yang Kai-huang (楊開煌), president of the Association for Mainland China Studies (中國大陸研究學會), and a man who has said the PRC should recognize the ROC's existence but who has also not been a fan of the referendums held so far in Taiwan, used his speaking time to mention that Hu's six points have become the center of Chinese policy toward Taiwan, and that it outlines a three-fold plan of economic cooperation, strengthening of cultural and educational exchanges, and finally the beginning of political dialogue.

Yang also believes that Hu, in his capacity as China's leader, managed to redefine what unification means as "the end of the political confrontation across the Taiwan Strait" (終止兩岸政治對立). He also believes China has put a huge emphasis on peaceful development as a replacement of constantly mentioning unification. [I find this framing of 'redefining unification' tempting to accept, and perhaps worth discussing with Beijing, but unlikely to be true.]

Yang suggested tri-partisan dialogue (CCP, KMT, and DDP) forums that would allow each side to make themselves heard, despite the difficulty of getting that started.

Du Jhen-hua (杜震華), professor at the NTU's Graduate Institute of National Development, had some more cautionary words; he does really follow Ma's vague stance toward unification, and believes that it will be difficult to really develop complete mutual trust between China and Taiwan or convince China to relax on political and economic promises unless Ma makes a direct, clear response to Hu's six points.

Central Police University professor Tung Li-wen (董立文) pointed out that since Hu's six points, Taiwanese political parties have been rather low key and he believes they have created a sort of strange atmosphere here in Taiwan. Tung said that Hu's speech was clearly aimed at beginning political dialogue on the point of unification with Taiwan, and therefore the Ma government's response would be very important.

Tung believes that Beijing will seperate the principles of signing a peace accord and Taiwan's participation in international bodies. For example, he believes Beijing will allow Taiwan observer status in the WHA first, but he that unless discussing the peace accord's terms could begin this year, he believes the mainland will change its policy toward the Ma government.