Taipei, July 28 (CNA) Vice President Lien Chan on Wednesday reiterated for the third time this week that Taipei's "three noes" policy toward Beijing still stands.
Lien statements this week are apparently an on-going effort by the government to make clear that there has been no change in Taiwan's approach to mainland China.
While meeting with a group of Japanese delegates attending a forum on peace and security in the Taiwan Strait, Lien repeated what he told Time Magazine last week as well as a group of US visitors on Tuesday -- that the Republic of China will neither seek independence, nor hasty reunification with mainland China, nor confrontation with mainland China -- the so-called "three noes" policy toward Beijing.
Instead, Lien said, Taiwan wants peace, exchanges with mainland China, and a win-win situation -- the so called "three yeses".
Citing President Lee Teng-hui's statement to a group of Rotary Club members on July 21 that "one China" is a vision for the future, Lien said the vision could be achieved only through exchanges across the Taiwan Strait based on peace, sensibility, parity and reciprocity.
Lien defended President Lee's statement on July 9 that the Taipei-Beijing relationship should be put on a "state-to-state" basis. Lien said the statement did not advocate Taiwan independence; rather it sought an equal-footing for Taiwan in future negotiations with mainland China. That equal footing could begin this autumn when Beijing's top negotiator with Taiwan Wang Daohan arrives for negotiations in Taipei.
Noting that the Republic of China has been a sovereign state ever since it was established in 1912, Lien told the Japanese dignitaries that "we will never accept Beijing's absurd claim that there is only one China headed by the People's Republic of China, with Taiwan a part of it. "
Lien also pitched for closer Taipei-Tokyo exchanges to the Japanese visitors, calling for more Japanese investment in Taiwan to address the long-standing trade imbalance between Taiwan and Japan.