- TAIPEI (Reuters) - In comments
likely to alarm China, Taiwan opposition leader Lien Chan has referred
to the island as a separate country in a campaign statement echoing independence-leaning
President Chen Shui-bian.
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- Lien said at the weekend he saw nothing wrong with the
view that Taiwan and China were "one country on each side" --
a formula Chen used last year that drew angry denunciations from Beijing,
which sees the island as part of its territory.
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- Analysts chalked up the comments by Lien, the Nationalist
Party chairman seen by Beijing as more moderate than Chen, as politicking
to steal votes from the incumbent president ahead of a March 20 election.
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- But they said Lien's comments would be sure to worry
China, which fears the Nationalists may be drifting away from their platform
of eventual reunification with the mainland.
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- "It is not a problem to simplify it as 'one country
on each side'," Lien, whose party was routed by Chen in the 2000 presidential
elections, told a campaign rally.
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- Facing a tough re-election battle, Chen has made a campaign
cornerstone of an aggressive claim that China and Taiwan are separate countries,
aiming to consolidate support from pro-independence voters.
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- Chen repeated a warning on Monday that any missile tests
would be considered an attack which could drive the island further toward
independence.
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- He said he was willing to back down from holding what
he described as a "peace referendum" alongside the March 2004
election if China agreed to remove hundreds of ballistic missiles aimed
at Taiwan and drop military threats.
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- "We cannot give in further or make more concessions.
Our humble attitude has failed to draw the attention of the opposite side,"
Chen said in comments broadcast on local news networks.
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- Beijing considers self-ruled Taiwan a breakaway province
-- not a sovereign nation -- and has threatened to attack the democratic
island of 23 million if it formally declares statehood.
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- The two sides split at the end of China's civil war in
1949.
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- Chen infuriated Beijing last year when he described Taiwan
and China as "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait.
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- Lien's campaign statements have aroused growing concern
in China.
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- "We used to pin our hopes on the Nationalists, but
there is no more hope if the Nationalists are changing their tune,"
a Chinese military source told Reuters in Beijing.
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- Last week, the Nationalists' top China policymaker, Su
Chi, told Reuters Lien was playing down the party's policy of eventual
reunification with China to avoid hurting his presidential bid.
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- But Su dismissed media reports that the Nationalists,
or Kuomintang, had abandoned their reunification plank altogether.
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- Chen has accused the Nationalists of being pro-China
and "selling out Taiwan."
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- With elections just months away, two media polls released
on Monday showed Lien out in front.
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- A survey by the daily China Times showed Lien leading
Chen by five percentage points with 36 percent of support. A separate poll
by the cable news network TVBS had Lien ahead with 45 percent to Chen's
34.
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