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Home The News News Lu warns on ‘silent annexation’ by China

Lu warns on ‘silent annexation’ by China


Former vice president Annette Lu speaks at the founding ceremony of the Anti-One China Principle Union in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times

Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday described China’s political maneuvers and increasing economic ties with Taiwan as a “silent annexation” and warned of the gradual erosion of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

“The silent annexation is ongoing. The Democratic Progressive Party’s [DPP] loss of power might be tolerable, but the loss of sovereignty in our time would be an irreversible mistake that would jeopardize future generations,” Lu said in a speech during the founding ceremony of the Anti-One China Principle Union.

The group, co-founded by DPP Legislator Mark Chen (陳唐山), Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) and former DPP lawmaker Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), was established to monitor President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) perceived pro-China policies.

Taiwan does not oppose that there is only one China in the world, Lu said, but “that does not mean Taiwan is part of China.”

The former vice president warned that China has been using different measures to absorb Taiwan since passing an “Anti-Secession” law in 2005.

Ma’s policies since taking office in 2008 appear to have dovetailed with Beijing’s measures and have accelerated Taiwan’s dependence on China, she said.

In response to recent debates about the DPP’s pro-independence stance and a perceived collaborative anti-Taiwan independence campaign between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leveraged on the so-called “1992 consensus,” Lu reiterated the idea of a “1996 consensus.”

“We should never have a doubt about Taiwan’s independent status. Taiwan has been an independent and sovereign country since March 23, 1996, the day of its first direct presidential election,” Lu said.

The “1996 consensus,” which represents the collective will and decisionmaking of the nation’s 23 million people, is a better consensus than the “1992 consensus,” which is only an illusion fabricated by the KMT and the CCP, Lu said.

Chen also warned that Taiwan “has already entered China’s orbit” under the Ma administration.

As a reminder to his own party, which Chen said has “somehow lost faith in what it believed in,” the lawmaker said the DPP “should know who the enemy is and understand that an enemy will never help you to win power.”

On the desire of several DPP politicians to urgently facilitate closer engagement with Beijing, Chen cited former US president John F. Kennedy as saying: “Do not fear to negotiate, but do not negotiate out of fear.”

Source: Taipei Times - 2013/04/30



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Newsflash


Young people outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday call for a constitutional amendment to cut the minimum ages for voting and standing for election from 20 and 23 respectively to 18.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times

A group of people under the age of 23 yesterday called for an amendment to the Constitution to allow political participation by younger people and panned the electoral system for blocking the economically vulnerable from running for office by requiring a security deposit.

More than a score of young people, with an average age of 19, protested outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday against restrictions that they said discriminate against youth political participation by setting the minimum voting age at 20 and the minimum candidate age at 23.