POLITICAL FALLOUT CONTINUES OVER KMT-CCP ACCORD

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 001625

SIPDIS

STATE PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/01/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR CH TW
SUBJECT: POLITICAL FALLOUT CONTINUES OVER KMT-CCP ACCORD

REF: TAIPEI 1572

Classified By: AIT Deputy Director David J. Keegan, Reason: 1.4 (B/D)


1. (C) Summary: The Chen administration has heightened its
criticism over the KMT's recent rapprochement with Beijing,
accusing the opposition party of undermining national
sovereignty and warning of legal sanctions. KMT officials
tell AIT they will not be deterred in their effort to
overturn what they consider the Chen administration's
obstructionism over cross-Strait policy and say that further
KMT-CCP initiatives will be announced in the weeks leading up
to the visit of KMT Chairman Lien Chan. While both sides are
claiming the mantle of public benefit, both are clearly
aiming for partisan advantage. Opinion surveys suggest that
the Taiwan people remain disinterested in the recent partisan
gamesmanship. While the People First Party (PFP) is pressing
the Chen administration to authorize party Chairman James
Soong to pre-empt the Lien visit to Beijing, Chen
administration officials remain adamant that they will not
allow opposition pressure to determine pace and direction of
cross-Strait policy. End Summary.

Saviors...
--------------


2. (C) The March 30 agreement between KMT Vice Chairman P.K.
Chiang and PRC/CCP Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Chen
Yunlin (Reftel) and subsequent announcement of plans for KMT
Chairman Lien Chan to visit Beijing later in the Spring
continue to fuel partisan discord. KMT Spokesman Chang
Jung-kong defended the trip as an opportunity to "build a
bridge" to the Mainland, and warned that if the Chen
administration did not agree with what the KMT works out with
Beijing, the opposition would use its legislative majority to
force the government to comply.


3. (C) KMT Legislator Alex Tsai, a member of the party's
working group on the KMT-CCP contacts, told AIT that the
ten-point agreement reached on March 30 was actually the
result of discussions between the two sides begun nearly a
year ago, and marked only the first in a series of KMT-CCP
initiatives that will be unveiled in the coming weeks. Tsai
said that the culmination of this process could be an
announcement by Beijing that would "be seen by people" as a
renunciation of the use of force. While Tsai acknowledged
that Beijing is not prepared to give up the military option
completely, the KMT would work out language with the PRC that
would persuade the Taiwan public that this was more likely to
be the case.


4. (C) Tsai said the KMT's goal is to demonstrate to the
Taiwan public that reaching out to Beijing can bring real
benefit to their lives, and to remind them that the Chen
administration has failed to do this after five years in
office. Tsai said the KMT is confident that those groups --
students, farmers, business people -- who stand to gain from
initiatives worked out between the KMT and CCP will pressure
the Chen administration to implement them.

...or Traitors?
--------------


5. (C) The Chen administration rejects KMT's claims to
represent the public interest and has stepped up criticism of
the KMT for forging an alliance with Beijing against Taiwan.
Quoting Abraham Lincoln's warning about "a house divided
cannot stand," President Chen Shui-bian on April 1 denounced
the KMT for facilitating PRC attempts to undermine Taiwan's
sovereignty. Chen dismissed the KMT-CCP agreement as
"meaningless" and characterized the KMT's attempts to
unilaterally resolve cross-Strait barriers as "wishful
thinking." In an April 3 newspaper interview, National
Security Council (NSC) Secretary General Chiou I-jen warned
that if KMT Chairman Lien Chan were to sign a peace accord
with PRC leaders as had been reported in the Taiwan media, he
would be committing a felony under Article 113 of Taiwan's
criminal code.


6. (C) Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Jospeh Wu told
AIT that the Chiang visit had already violated Article 5 of
the Cross-Strait Relations Statute, but insisted the
government would not file any charges against KMT leaders.
"We're not authoritarians like the KMT," Wu stated, "but we
do need to remind the public that what the KMT is doing with
China is illegal." He appealed again for Washington not to
make public statements that could be seen as supporting
KMT-CCP contacts as cross-Strait dialogue (Reftel).
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) China Affairs Director
Tung Li-wen told AIT that the ruling party is confident that
the KMT would pay the price at the ballot box, so legal
measures were unnecessary.

Dueling Polls
--------------


7. (C) Both sides of the partisan debate are citing public
support for their positions, and point to conflicting polling
data to prove their point. A DPP-leaning Institute for
National Policy Research (INPR) poll (with 1,072 respondents)
released on April 3 reported that 66 percent said that China
was insincere about improving cross-strait relations in the
wake of the Anti-Secession Law (versus 26 percent who said
Beijing is sincere). The INPR survey cited 51 percent of the
public opposed to Lien's proposed trip to Beijing. In
contrast, a poll released on April 1 by the pro-unification
United Daily News (with 803 respondents) reported that only
28 percent of the public opposed to a Lien visit, with 42
percent in support. Most other media polls found high levels
of public apathy over the impact -- positive or negative --
of the KMT-CCP rapprochement

All Politics is Local
--------------


8. (C) Former MAC Vice Chairman and Tamkang University
Professor Alex Huang told AIT on March 30 that Beijing's main
goal for the Chiang visit was to drive a wedge between the
Pan-Green and Pan-Blue camps. Huang added that the PRC
appears to have already achieved its objective. When pressed
by AIT about whether the Chen administration might try to
pre-empt Beijing by taking ownership of some of the
initiatives in the KMT-CCP ten-point program, MAC Chair Wu
was categorical that Taipei would not.


9. (C) While Taiwan officials continue to insist that they
will keep their own cross-Strait initiatives on hold until at
least after the May 14 National Assembly election, PFP
officials close to party Chairman James Soong tell AIT that
they want the government to authorize the PFP to start
contacts with Beijing on specific economic initiatives, such
as agriculture, sooner. However, MAC Chief Secretary Jan
Jyh-horng told AIT that the government views the PRC's offer
to accept Taiwan agricultural products duty free as another
"united front" attempt to isolate the Chen administration.
Soong indicated on April 3 that he is willing to accept a
reported invitation from Beijing to visit, either in his role
as party Chairman or (preferably) as an authorized government
envoy. However, unnamed KMT officials scoffed at Soong's
statement, telling reporters that what Soong had to offer
Beijing was akin to a street vendor wares compared with the
products of a major corporation (the KMT).

Comment: Divide-and-Delay
--------------


10. (C) Beijing is clearly the big winner in the aftermath of
the March 30 KMT-CCP rapprochement agreement. Just days
after the Chen administration attempted to use the March 26
Taipei mass rally to portray Taiwan as united against
Beijing's Anti-Secession Law, the PRC managed to deepen every
domestic political fault line on the island. For its part,
the KMT gained a tactical victory by using its CCP card to
effectively block DPP efforts to move to the political center
on cross-Strait policy. The challenge for the KMT will be to
ensure that the upcoming Lien visit adds to the momentum
created by the March 30 accord without giving the DPP
ammunition to cast the KMT as traitors in upcoming elections.
The KMT move has at least temporarily setback President
Chen's attempts to use his February 24 meeting with PFP
Chairman Soong to recast himself as Taiwan's premier
conciliator. What is a setback for Chen could be a
existential crisis for Soong, unless he manages to convince
the DPP government to let him upstage Lien by traveling to
Beijing first as Taipei's "legitimate" envoy. Of course, the
biggest losers may be those in Taiwan who had hoped that
political parties would put aside their petty posturing after
the 2004 elections and craft a cross-Strait policy agenda
that could bring real benefits to Taiwan's economy and
society.
KEEGAN