Taiwan: Lee Teng-hui Slams Ma's China Policy

Former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui rips into the current leader. Here's a piece of it (the article is from Sunday):

President Ma Ying-jeou turned his back on his country by defining relations between Taiwan and China as “special relations” instead of a “state-to-state” relationship, former president Lee Teng-hui said last night.

Speaking with Mexican newspaper Sol de Mexico last month, Ma defined ties between Taiwan and China as “special relations,” reversing a decade-long government position.

The text of the interview was released by the Presidential Office last Wednesday. The next day, the Office elaborated on the text, saying that under the 11th Amendment to the Constitution and the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area, the relationship between Taiwan and China is one between two regions.

“It is between the ‘Taiwan region’ and the ‘mainland region,’” Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi said on Thursday.

At a fundraising dinner last night in Taipei, Lee said that Taiwan is a de jure, independent country and that only the people, not the president, have the power to change the cross-strait “status quo” in a referendum.

“When I was president back in 1999, I at least advocated that Taiwan and China had ‘special state-to-state relations’ and that Taiwan certainly does not have an internal relationship with China,” Lee said.

“The people have elected Ma as their leader. But it does not authorize him to surrender Taiwan’s sovereignty. The decisive power lies in the hands of the people. If any changes were to take place, they would have to be through a referendum — to let the people determine their future,” he added.