Taiwanese Must Fight Independence As They Fought The Japanese: Official

TAIWAN NEWS

Taiwan's New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (R) waves during a visit in Guangzhou, southern China's Guangdong province, 07 July 2005. The third Taiwan opposition party delegation in little more than two months is visiting China, as the island's president said better defences were needed against a possible mainland attack. AFP Photo/STR/China Out.

Beijing (AFP) Jul 12, 2005
A senior Chinese official has called on Taiwanese people to fight "Taiwan independence" in the way they fought Japan when it invaded China 60 years ago, state media reported Tuesday.

Wang Zaixi, vice minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said the 1937-1945 war against the Japanese had taught Chinese people that "only a rich and powerful China can avoid being bullied by others."

"Escalating secessionist activities pose the biggest and most destructive threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits," Wang said told a forum attended by delegates from a minor Taiwan opposition party.

"Only by opposing and curbing Taiwan's secession from China can we safeguard cross-Straits peace and stability," he said, according to the China Daily.

He urged people across the Taiwan Straits that separate Taiwan from mainland China "to launch an all-out fight against secessionist forces".

Wang also said China had to achieve reunification to become powerful, the report said.

"Only a reunited China can really become a powerful country in the world."

Yok Mu-ming, chairman of the Taiwan opposition New Party that is touring China, said his party would work with Chinese people to oppose "Taiwan independence" and work for peaceful reunification.

Yok's is the third Taiwan opposition party to visit the mainland in barely two months. He is scheduled to meet President Hu Jintao later Tuesday.

The trip follows landmark visits by the main opposition Kuomintang and its ally the People First Party. All three have received blanket coverage in China's state-run media.

Critics in Taiwan have blasted Beijing for reaching out to the opposition to isolate and put pressure on the Taiwanese government headed by President Chen Shui-bian from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

China is opposed to Chen who insists that Taiwan is a sovereign state. They split in 1949, at the end of a civil war, but China still claims Taiwan as its territory.

Participants at the forum agreed that the DPP administration had been promoting "independence" for the island since taking power in May 2000, the report said.

Chen has been pushing for "independence" through a "constitutional re-engineering project", they said.

Chen has called for talks with Beijing but China says dialogue can only reopen under its "One China principle" which says Taiwan is part of its territory. Chen has categorically rejected the principle.

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SINO DAILY

Rice Says China Should Talk To Taiwan Government, Not Just Political Parties

Beijing (AFP) Jul 10, 2005
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday Washington was encouraged by the recent contact between China and Taiwan's opposition parties and called on Beijing to talk directly to the Taiwanese government.

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