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Mutual non-denial the best solution to cross-strait dispute: Ma

ROC Central News Agency

2008-04-18 19:38:09

    Taipei, April 18 (CNA) President-elect Ma Ying-jeou reiterated Friday that "mutual non-denial" is the best approach the dispute with Beijing over Taiwan's sovereignty and said the two sides should first deal with issues more urgent than their political differences.

    While China sees Taiwan as a renegade province, Taiwan's constitution treats China as part of the Republic of China's territory, Ma said. To solve the stalemate, the two can either recognize each other or deny each other's existence, but that would be "either unnecessary or impossible.¡¨ "The best solution is something in between -- mutual non-denial," he said during a discussion with 2007 Economics Nobel Laureate Eric S. Maskin, who is on a three-day visit to Taiwan to attend a forum co-organized by the global investment company Allianz, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research and a local newspaper, the Economic Daily News.

    Ma added that it was better to shelve issues which could not be solved at the moment and first deal with other more urgent ones that could generate more good will and friendship.

    Maskin described such an approach as "clever and constructive."

    The incoming president, who is to take office May 20, also said that he does not want to continue arguing with China over the legitimacy of Taiwan's status. "Our idea is to combine security, prosperity and dignity. In other words, if they continue to squeeze us, obviously it is not a friendly signal to Taiwan's people, " Ma said, referring to China's past use of of its political and economic clout to suppress Taiwan in the international community.

    During his campaign, Ma set out the "three noes" -- no unification, no independence and no use of force -- and "three yeses" -- prosperity, security and dignity -- to be the guiding principles for cross-strait relations.

    However, he admitted that it is not known whether Chinese authorities are ready to think about his proposals and whether they have such perception.

    Asked whether his world-renowned "mechanism design theory" can be applied to solve the cross-strait dilemma, Maskin said that while he is not an expert on cross-strait issues, he is confident that the theory is applicable to the still unresolved dispute between Taiwan and China. "I think mechanism design can definitely be used to help us to think about the relationship between Taiwan and mainland China," the mathematician from Princeton University said. "But again, that all depends on the particular circumstances and details."

    The 57-year-old American scholar, who recently attended the Boao Forum for Asia, arrived in Taipei Thursday.

    Maskin won the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Leonid Hurwicz and Roger Myerson, for establishing the foundations of "mechanism design theory, " a study of designing incentives or institutions to achieve specific outcomes.

    Initiated in the 1960s by Hurwicz, the theory combines the application of game theories and social choice theory and is considered the most notable economic theory on the study of information asymmetry.

(By Rachel Chan)

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