Behind Lee Teng-hui's Farce Of Division

Carried on today's edition of People's Daily, the signed article said that persons in power in Taiwan have recently staged a farce in trying to divide the motherland, with Lee Teng-hui as its hero.

Lee on July 9 redefined the cross-Straits relations as "state-to-state or at least special state-to-state relations".
Some people, encouraged by Lee's remarks, have picked up on this and been clamoring about the remarks on "two states", the article says. According to some who worked for Lee, he encouraged his aides and staff members a year ago to form a special group to make a "breakthrough" in the "one China" principle and to redefine the cross-Straits relations.

The redefinition of the cross-Straits relations appeared after a year of planning, when Lee, interviewed by a German radio station, made it public. The article says, he took this opportunity, because he wanted to remind people of the two Germanys and to seek a "new legal framework" for the cross-Straits relations.

In a book he wrote, the legal framework is explained by saying that the cross-Straits relations are no longer a domestic matter, but one between two equal political entities with separate rulers. Then, he said that when the "one China" principle is accepted by the international community, Taiwan has to claim itself to be a " state" so as to safeguard the legal status of the "Republic of China" in the world.

After Lee's "state-to-state" remarks, the Taiwan authorities got busy making changes in certain laws.

The farce about splitting China was designed to continue to undermine the cross-Straits relations and affect the political situation in Taiwan, the article says.

The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits saw Lee' s nature more clearly as he made an uproar with his "two states" redefinition and have become indignant about his separatist remarks.

Lee should bear the responsibility for his words and deeds in trying to split the motherland, the article says, emphasizing that the "one China" principle is the foundation and prerequisite for the development of the cross-Straits relations and the reunification of the motherland.

Lee has destroyed this foundation for contacts, exchanges, and dialogs between the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation, and this runs directly counter to the fundamental interests of compatriots across the Straits, the article says.

It says the Chinese people from across the straits expect to develop the cross-straits relations and reunify the motherland, and anyone who attempts to hinder this trend is over-estimating his ability and is doomed to fail.