Comparing the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) China policy under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the party’s current policy is hard because of the rapidly changing dynamics of international politics, but there is no doubt that cross-strait policy during the Chen era was more than “eight lost years,” as some say, DPP members and academics said yesterday.

“The years between 2000 and 2008 were not lost years, but eight legendary, glorious years,” You Ying-lung (游盈隆), deputy executive director of the DPP’s think tank, told a forum in Taipei.