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2007-11-03: Ma still supports the idea of a single China that includes TaiwanTAIPEI, Taiwan: The presidential candidate of Taiwan’s main opposition party said Thursday he still supports the idea of a single China that includes Taiwan, despite a party decision to strike the plank from its annual platform. The comments by Ma Ying-jeou came amid efforts by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to emphasize Taiwan’s separateness from the mainland, from which it split amid civil war in 1949. On Wednesday a key Nationalist decision-making body struck out a reference to pushing the “1992 Consensus” from its list of core tasks for the coming year. The consensus, negotiated between Taiwanese and Chinese representatives in Hong Kong, holds to the idea of a single China — including Taiwan — but says the island and the mainland disagree on what it means. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Ma said he maintained his support for the consensus, which was agreed to one year after Taiwan’s Nationalist government renounced a 40-year long determination to retake the mainland by force. “The 1992 Consensus has always been my policy and I have never stopped saying so,” Ma said. Party spokesman Su Jun-pin said Wednesday’s decision by the Nationalists’ Central Standing Committee to scrap the reference to the consensus was technical in nature, and did not cancel out a provision in the Nationalist Charter in favor of eventual unification between China and Taiwan. “We are putting more emphasis on the charter, which includes the 1992 Consensus,” he said. The question of relations with China is fast emerging as the key issue in Taiwan’s presidential campaign, which culminates when Ma faces the DPP‘s Frank Hsieh at the polls next March 22. Hsieh supports strengthening Taiwan’s de facto independence, while Ma favors deepening commercial ties with the mainland, through the initiation of direct trade and transportation links, and the leavening of restrictions on the exports of Taiwanese high technology to companies in China. But his efforts have been largely drowned out by DPP charges that he identifies more with the mainland than he does with Taiwan. The charges have been given ballast by Ma’s opposition to a DPP campaign to gain a United Nations seat for Taiwan its own name, rather than its official title of the Republic of China, and his status as the son of a senior Nationalist official with mainland roots. Ma rejects the charges, saying he is a Taiwan patriot, and pointing to his frequent criticisms of mainland policies on human rights and other issues. The debate about Ma’s sympathies goes straight to the heart of Taiwan’s bitterly contested communal politics. Taiwanese identity is the rallying cry of hard-core DPP supporters, many of whom are descendants of people who came to the island from the Chinese mainland in the 17th and 18th centuries. By contrast, the Nationalists’ core constituency consists of the families of mainland Chinese who arrived on the island in 1949 after the Nationalists were defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists in a protracted civil war. |