ROC is country: KMT presidential candidate
ROC Central News Agency
2007-08-31 19:58:12
Taipei, Aug. 31 (CNA) The Republic of China is certainly a country from the viewpoint of the ROC, Ma Ying-jeou, the presidential candidate of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), said Friday.
There are more than 20 members of the international community that recognize the ROC as a country, and it is regarded as a "foreign country" according to the law of the United States, said Ma, who holds a doctorate in law from Harvard University.
Ma made the comment in response to media inquiries on public remarks made a day earlier in Washington, D.C. by Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs of White House's National Security Council, regarding Taiwan's bid for membership in the United Nations.
Wilder pointed out that membership in the United Nations requires statehood and said that "Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a state in the international community." "The position of the United States government is that the [status of the] ROC is an issue undecided and has been left undecided... for many years," he said.
Ma said that since the United States severed diplomatic ties with the ROC in 1979, it has held fast to this viewpoint.
Ma said the U.S. is concerned that Taiwan's plan to hold a referendum on its U.N. bid under the name of Taiwan will result in a unilateral change to the cross-Taiwan Strait status quo, triggering a cross-strait crisis.
However, a KMT proposal to hold a referendum on "the Republic of China's return to the United Nations" will not raise such concerns because the ROC was one of the founders of the international organization, Ma said, predicting that such a "flexible and pragmatic" proposal will not lead to cross-strait tension.
(By Elizabeth Hsu)
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