JULY 2012

PAGE 1

DEMOCRACY & PROGRESSDPP opens National Party Congress with theme: Let’s March Forward, Taiwan!

On Sunday, July 15, the DPP opened its first Na-tional Party Congress of 2012 with the theme Let’s March Forward, Taiwan! The theme was based on the current political situation in Taiwan, showcasing the DPP’s resolution to lead Taiwan out of its current problems of unemployment, government inefficiency and the people suffering from failed economic policies.

DPP Chair Su Tseng-chang chaired the Na-tional Party Congress. Below are his opening re-marks:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Twenty-six years ago, the DPP was founded during a period of martial law, and the law at that time threatened our party founders to face arrest, persecution and even execution. However, DPP activists were fearless because we listened to the voices of a society that yearned for change, bravely calling for the abolishment of martial law and the ban of political parties. Just after 10 months the party was founded, 25 years ago on July 15th, 38 years of martial law was lifted, and

JULY 2012

PAGE 2

the DPP was able to break through obstacles to lead Taiwan into a new era.

After 26 years, the current government just like in the past, has chosen to neglect the voices of so-ciety and its people. Therefore, the DPP must once again, with the same spirit as before, break through the current difficulties and respond to the people’s expectations, breaking Taiwan out of its stagnation and help steer it forward.

In today’s Taiwan, the people’s expectations are simple, which is to have a steady income, enough to support their families and to buy their own homes. However, in these past years, young people are having more difficulties finding jobs and are faced with the declining salaries of univer-sity graduates, all of which are causing them to have less desire to get married and have children, not to mention the ability to purchase their own home. When the people are facing tremendous challenges, the government not only has failed to

produce solutions, but they have also added more pressure with the raise of electricity and oil prices. Regretfully, the people have stopped dreaming of a future with a better life.

The public also wishes to see a clean govern-ment, but in the past years, the government’s effi-ciency has reached to new lows, loosing the sense to understand the people’s misfortunes. Just re-cently, we have seen the corruption scandal of a high official, which has made the people lose all confidence in this government.

Furthermore, the people have hopes to see Tai-wan become a part of international society. With the aim of getting closer to China, our government has avoided emphasizing our country’s dignity in front of the international community. Their “dip-lomatic truce” has turned into a diplomatic break-down. China continues to discuss One China in-ternationally, and they still find ways to bully

JULY 2012

PAGE 3

Taiwan. The people of Taiwan have started to feel anxious about the denigration of our sovereignty.

Taiwan belongs to the people across the board. This is the major consensus of Taiwan, and the DPP’s unwavering pledge to the people of Taiwan. Confronting a government that has lost the peo-ple’s support, the DPP has no power or benefits, but after all, the collapse of the nation and people suffering are bipartisan issues that we must all face. For this very reason, the DPP must maintain higher expectations in order to assume greater re-sponsibilities.

Twenty-five years ago, we broke through the barrier or martial law with the will of the people. Today, we must break through Taiwan’s current stagnation with open participation.

The future for the DPP must be one of open-ness, and it must represent itself as a political party that people identify with. The DPP must be a party of participation - grassroots operations should not be limited to party affairs, and they must cross over all aspects of society to be closer to our land and to our people.

For the DPP to actively participate in society, the most important task is to at-tach importance to the strength of each party mem-ber through contact, organiza-tional training and publicity. The DPP must be a party that is open and participatory, ca-pable of combining diverse voices in society so to attract exceptional talents. More im-portantly, we must have the ability to really do more for

Taiwan and to do more service for the people.

Looking back at history, the DPP has played a crucial role in Taiwan’s national development. Whether trying to achieve freedom, democracy, protecting the interests of the disadvantaged and ensuring our sovereignty, the achievements made by our fellow DPP members are evident.

Today, confronting a more competitive global environment and complex issues surrounding our domestic governance, Taiwan is facing newer challenges. The DPP’s mission is to resolve the problems of the people and to break new ground for Taiwan as this is an inevitable responsibility that we must all face.

Taiwan cannot afford to regress in progress or sink any lower. Fellow party members, let us combine our forces together in unity and reach every part of society. Let us have the humility to listen to the voices of the people, let us move for-ward together, let us march Taiwan forward!

JULY 2012

PAGE 4

Chair Su Tseng-chang: DPP taking first steps to establish dedicated unit for China affairsDPP Chair Su Tseng-chang hosted a press confer-ence to announce the establishment of the De-partment of China Affairs after reaching the ap-proval of the Central Standing Committee on July 25th.

Chair Su said that the DPP was taking a first step to establish a dedicated unit for Chinese af-fairs responding to the people’s appraisal and ex-pectations. He also announced that the DPP will seek more advice and support from external sources in the future.

How to build stability in Taiwan’s national in-terests, help build peace in the Taiwan Strait and achieve regional stability in cross strait relations founded on the best China policy have always been issues that he deeply cared about, Chair Su said. He noted that this has also been an important topic in which the people evaluate the DPP on since being in government to being in opposition, and now preparing to return to power. He ex-plained that for these reasons, he issued the idea of establishing a China affairs department and a committee as part of his campaign promise during the DPP chair election.

“The world is changing and China is changing too,” Chair Su said. “Taiwan and the DPP must follow this trend and adjust its China strategy, but at the same time adhering to both its values and standpoints.”

Chair Su mentioned that the DPP must, in par-ticular, focus on three important levels:

1. Domestic - seeing the loss of confidence by the Taiwanese people in President Ma Ying-jeou’s

Administration and their way of negotiating with China, which is “politics through busi-ness”, the problem remains on how to preserve Taiwan’s sovereignty. The DPP must issue a policy standpoint that is more in line with the people’s expectations. The DPP must also strengthen dialogue in order to understand both sides, and this must be based on peace to guar-antee democratic development and a Taiwan Consensus that employs democracy to decide Taiwan’s future and that is near to Taiwan’s democratic trend and public opinion.

2. International - China’s rise has brought com-plex opportunities and challenges to the world. As a democratic country, we expect China to become a responsible stakeholder that is capa-ble of promoting democratization, have trans-parency in its military affairs, practice open economy, and lessen its military threats to other countries. So far, China has not been able to achieve these goals. In the past few years, the U.S. has turned from soft to hard in its policy towards China, for example, guiding the South China Sea and creating the Trans-Pacific Stra-tegic Economic Partnership (TPP). Addition-ally, the U.S. announced after the Shangri-La Dialogue that it would deploy 60% of its navy fleet to Asia Pacific, and seeing this transforma-tion, countries in the Pan-Pacific Rim are trying to find a balance between two strong powers. Under these circumstances, we cannot adopt a policy that is based on just China or do it for our own election gains. Even more, we cannot formulate policy just based on the cross straits. Alternatively, we must adopt a strategy based on the viewpoint of regional stability.

JULY 2012

PAGE 5

3. Cross Straits - with the lack of interaction be-tween the DPP and China, China’s understand-ing of Taiwan only comes from the biased opin-ion of the KMT. As a result, Taiwan overall will fail to comprehend China completely. We un-derstand that China is not just a communist country growing economically, and we foresee that it will go through more rapid changes in the future. As Taiwan is next to this giant na-tion, we must adopt a cautious approach be-cause Taiwan is unable to bear any losses if China suddenly chooses to turn in the wrong direction.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed Chair Su re-garding the DPP’s Department of China Affairs and China policy. For the full article, please visit http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443687504577562264020633628.html.

Chair Su Tseng-chang expresses DPP standpoints at end of special legislative session, thanks DPP legislatorsAfter the special session at the Legislative Yuan concluded on July 27th, DPP Chair Su Tseng-chang issued a statement expressing his views re-garding the legislative amendments passed.

1. The issue of allowing imports of beef contain-ing ractopamine has reached to a conclusion. President Ma Ying-jeou and the Executive Branch must fulfill the promises made to the people. The DPP will ensure it fulfills its role of checks and balances on the government.

2. Passing the law on capital gains tax reflected inauthentic actions by the KMT towards finan-cial reform. A sound financial plan for capital gains must reflect social fairness for all the people of Taiwan.

3. The hasty passage of personnel nominees for the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the Want Want media purchase shows nothing but disrespect to the Legislative Yuan. It is concerning for the DPP that such move by the KMT will cause the public’s loss

of confidence in the NCC, as well as damaging the free media environment in Taiwan.

4. The vote of no-confidence is permitted by the Legislative Yuan’s constitution, and it surpasses the law on the Legislative Yuan’s power to ex-ercise. In failing to deal with the no-confidence motion, the legislative power is imposing ille-gal restrictions.

Lastly, Chair Su offered his appreciation on behalf of the DPP for the hard work of DPP legislators in the first session of 2012. He also congratulated the DPP Legislative Caucus for pushing through six initiatives proposed by the DPP. These initiatives will be considered first priority in the next legisla-tive session, which are: the Plan on Financial Di-vision of Capital Gains Act, the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expen-ditures, the Assembly and Parade Act, Nuclear-Free Homeland Promotion Act, the Act Governing Relations Between the Taiwan and Mainlands Ar-eas and the Offshore Islands Development Act.

JULY 2012

PAGE 6

DPP issues statement concerning recent corruption scandals by KMT officials On July 4th, after holding its weekly Central Standing Committee, the DPP issued a statement making five appeals to President Ma Ying-jeou in regards to handling the corruption scandal of KMT’s former legislator and Executive Yuan’s secretary general Lin Yi-shih.

The statement reads:

1. The government must immediately apolo-gize to the public and start the process of self-review.

2. President Ma Ying-jeou must respect the constitutional system and re-appoint the cabinet, restoring public confidence in the government.

3. The administration must allow the case to be investigated to a complete conclusion and immediately carry-out its own adminis-trative investigation. Lastly, they must pro-vide a clear and transparent report to the public.

4. The government must start reviewing re-form on state-owned enterprises, eliminat-ing structural corporate malpractices.

5. The KMT must return ill-gotten party assets to the state and eliminate a system of cor-ruption within the party, setting a right track for democracy.

In regards to the wide public attention on the recent corruption case, DPP Chair Su Tseng-chang commented, “Lin Yi-shih was hand-picked by President Ma Ying-jeou, and at a young age, he served as the KMT’s vice chair, and then pro-moted to Secretary General of the Executive Yuan

after his loss in the legislative election. This type of appointments were done recklessly, without regard for the appropriate regulations, therefore, it is not surprising that mishaps occurred.”

Chair Su further said, “The DPP has already passed a resolution making official demands, and even though the DPP is in opposition, we sin-cerely hope that President Ma Ying-jeou takes immediate action in response to this political windstorm of decay and the government loosing its deep care for the people. The DPP, whether in the Central Headquarters or in the localities, must reflect public opinion upon seeing the KMT’s pre-sent conduct, fulfilling with greater responsibility the duty of checks and balances as an opposition in order for the DPP to become an even bigger and better political party capable of fulfilling pub-lic expectations.”

JULY 2012

PAGE 7

DPP Chair Su Tseng-chang met with Jon Hunts-man, former governor of Utah state and former candidate for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination, who paid a visit to the DPP Headquar-ters on July 17. Having previously lived in Taiwan and also serv-ing as U.S. ambassador to China during the Obama Administration, Mr. Huntsman spoke mostly in Mandarin Chinese with Chair Su, including some sentences in Taiwanese. The topics discussed at the meeting were democratization in China, cross strait relations, U.S.-Taiwan relations and global eco-nomic policy. Chair Su greeted Mr. Huntsman by saying that it was great honor to invite the former governor to pay a visit to the DPP Headquarters and to Taiwan again. Chair Su further added that he would like to

take the opportunity to ask Mr. Huntsman’s advice and suggestions for various issues that Taiwan was concerned about. Mr. Huntsman first discussed global economic policy, stressing the importance for world countries to focus on economic development. “This is a time when we need to be looking at our economic fundamentals and looking into our ability to compete globally because today it is more important than ever before for the young people coming up to be properly trained, properly schooled and for our economies to be prepared for the fu-ture,” Mr. Huntsman said.

Chair Su said that the DPP believed in Taiwan to have an open economic policy accompanied with government efficiency and finding more opportuni-

Chair Su Tseng-chang meets Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman

JULY 2012

PAGE 8

ties for innovation. He also emphasized the need for Taiwan to develop a “green economy” with concen-tration on better developed technology in order to provide higher skilled employment.

In regards to cross strait relations, Mr. Huntsman said it would benefit both sides to have a “sensible policy”. He also asked Chair Su whether he would pay a visit to China.

Chair Su replied that the DPP’s current stand-point involves conducting more exchanges with China, and he also said that if given the opportunity and with no preconditions attached, he would visit China to establish dialogue between the CCP and the DPP.

Chair Su further said that he wished for CCP as well as members of party and the academia to visit Taiwan more frequently and carry exchanges with the DPP instead of only hearing the opinions given to them by the KMT.

When asked by Mr. Huntsman on the biggest threat Taiwan faced from China, Chair Su replied that the sovereignty issue is currently Taiwan’s big-gest concern. Chair Su said that the DPP followed the guidelines highlighted in the DPP’s 1999 Reso-lution regarding Taiwan’s Future, where it states that Taiwan is already a sovereign and independent country and that any changes in the status quo must be decided through a referendum by the people of Taiwan.

“Many public opinion polls have shown that the majority of people in Taiwan believes that Taiwan is not a part of China,” Chair Su said. “But, I also believe that Taiwan must conduct economic ex-changes with China because this is also reflected in the polls. The most important aspect of these ex-changes, however, must lie on preserving democ-racy, freedom and respect for human rights as China is still a country without transparency or human rights guarantees.”

Chair Su said it was regrettable that President Ma Ying-jeou during his campaign highlighted the importance of Taiwan’s sovereignty, but after his re-election, he issued the idea of “one country, two areas”, and this has caused concerns among the Taiwanese people. Chair Su also discussed the inci-dent surrounding the Diaoyutai Islands involving a Taiwanese official boat dispatched by President Ma Ying-jeou’s Administration to protect a private boat carrying the Chinese flag.

Chair Su said that the Taiwanese people are also concerned about the current conflict over the South China Sea because Taiwan, like China, Vietnam and The Philippines, has claims over the Spratly Is-lands, but it is unable to participate in the negotiat-ing multi-lateral framework. He emphasized that the DPP’s standpoint over the South China Sea is not to hold bilateral discussions with China regard-ing this issue and to insist on the use of peaceful dialogue instead of resourcing to military means.

In regards to U.S.-Taiwan relations, Chair Su said the DPP hoped to establish better relations with the U.S. during his upcoming leadership of the DPP. Chair Su updated Mr. Huntsman on his initiative to re-establish an office in Washington, D.C. because he believed that the U.S. continues to be Taiwan’s most important ally. He expressed high hopes that besides the viewpoints of the KMT in Washington, D.C., many U.S. friends were also able to under-stand the DPP’s viewpoints.

“It appears that Taiwan is disappearing on the radar in the U.S.,” Chair Su said. “There has even been new discussions about abandoning Taiwan, and for this reason, the DPP hopes to strengthen its relations with the U.S., and we hope the U.S. con-tinues to assist Taiwan in issues like international participation.”

JULY 2012

PAGE 9

DEMOCRACY & PROGRESS

PUBLISHED BY:

Department of International Affairs Democratic Progressive Party

9F, No. 30, Pei-Ping East Road, Taipei, Taiwan

Tel: 886-2-2392-9989 ext. 306Fax: 886-2-2393-0342

Email: foreign@dpp.org.tw

Website: http://www.dpp.org.tw