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CROSS-STRAIT POLICY SHOULD BE RELAXED: KMT CHAIRMAN

ROC Central News Agency

2005-12-04 19:11:40

    Taipei, Dec. 4 (CNA) The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government should relax its cross-Taiwan Strait policy for Taiwan's own good, opposition Kuomintang (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday.

    In a TV interview after his party's landslide victory in Saturday's "three-in-one" local government elections, Ma said he did not pay too much attention to President Chen Shui-bian's threat made before the elections that the cross-strait policy would be tightened if the "pan-blue alliance" of the KMT and the People First Party won overwhelmingly because the president's logic did not make sense.

    The KMT chairman, who is also Taipei mayor, pointed out that Taiwan is ideally located at the center of East Asia and next to China -- the world's largest consumer market and factory -- and that Taiwan should make good use of this advantage.

    He said the "three direct links" between Taiwan and China in trade, post and transportation are necessary and should be implemented as soon as possible so that Taiwanese entrepreneurs can gain a foothold in China's emerging market and have access to its resources.

    Asked whether the president should be blamed for the DPP's humiliating defeat in the elections, Ma said that because the president involved himself so deeply in the elections, he is of course responsible for the consequences.

    He explained that the DPP lost the people's trust mainly because of a series of corruption scandals involving several senior officials at the Presidential Office and that the president's presence at every rally to boost the campaigns of DPP candidates was bound to remind the voters of those scandals.

    Asked again whether the president should acknowledge the faults of his government and apologize to the nation, Ma said that doing so would be helpful not only to the president himself but also to reconciliation between the "pan-green camp" and the "pan-blue alliance."

    On whether the KMT has in mind any hopefuls to be named as candidates for the mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung late next year, Ma said the nomination issue will be left to the party primaries.

(By Han Nai-kuo)

ENDITEM/Li