Taipei - Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou on Tuesday called Taiwan's attendance at the World Health Assembly (WHA) a breakthrough in Taipei's effort to break out of its diplomatic isolation. Ma said Taiwan being allowed to attend the 62nd assembly, which opened Monday in Geneva, as an observer under the name of Chinese-Taipei "is not satisfactory but acceptable."
Regarding the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's criticism that such a status was humiliating, Ma asked: "If you refuse to attend the WHA unless they call us Republic of Taiwan or Taiwan, is it reasonable?"
"Safeguarding sovereignty should not be shouting slogans, but there should be action," he said.
Ma said he would never want to return to the time when his predecessor Chen Shui-bian was president between 2000 and 2008 because Chen had repeatedly triggered cross-strait tension and irked Taiwan's friends, including the US, with his pro-independence rhetoric.
"Because we had lost the past eight years, we have to do all we can to catch up in order to bring the cross-strait relations back on track in one year," he said, a day ahead of his first anniversary in office.
Ma said that since he took office in May last year, Taiwan has signed nine pacts and issued one joint statement with China but has never sacrificed Taiwan's sovereignty and has not accepted Beijing's "one China" policy.
He asked the DPP to specify what exactly he or his government had done to sacrifice Taiwan's sovereignty.
He said normal economic exchanges were beneficial to people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and to better improve bilateral economic ties he opted for the signing of an economic cooperation agreement similar to a free trade pact with China. He stressed such a proposed agreement had nothing to do with compromising Taiwan's sovereignty as the DPP had repeatedly claimed.
"It is just an agreement to settle tariff, trade and investment disputes, totally unrelated to sovereignty or political problems," he said.
But DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsan snubbed Ma for trying to use the news media to brainwash the public.
"Ma made these comments in an attempt to placate the public. Does he really listen to the voices of the public that they oppose his policy of kow-towing to China and belittling Taiwan?" Cheng asked.
He said many people also oppose Ma's proposal to sign the free trade pact with China as it would hurt Taiwan's economic interests, including hollowing out of the island's industry.
The president made his remarks to Taiwan reporters at a news conference marking his first year in office. He plans to hold another news conference for foreign reporters Wednesday on the anniversary of his May 20, 2008, inauguration.
