Taipei, Feb. 26 (CNA) Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian said Tuesday that consolidating Taiwan's democracy will be his administration's next goal. "In an effort to advance Taiwan's politics, economy and society, my administration's primary work is to actively promote government re-structuring," Chen said in a teleconference speech to 20-plus professors and graduate students from several noted U.S. universities, including Harvard University.
Chen said his administration will do its utmost to "streamline government's structure, improve administrative efficiency and enhance its ability to handle international political and economic crises in order to establish a small, beautiful and highly capable government."
Noting that last December's legislative election was by nature a vote of confidence by the people of Taiwan for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and himself, /chen said the increased number of votes and seats has made the DPP the largest party in the Legislature. "It represents the public endorsement and willingness to give the DPP a chance to govern the country," Chen said.
To live up to the public's expectations, Chen said, his administration will actively promote political reforms through legislation on the Political Contribution Law, the Conflict of Interest Law, the Political Party Law, the Lobbying Law, and electoral reform laws. "We'll faithfully implement these laws so that the goal of an honest government and clean elections can be achieved," Chen pledged.
Turning to the economic front, Chen said, Taiwan's economy has live through the bitter winter of recession and a ray of sunlight has gradually dawned. "However, we are not content with these achievements," Chen said, adding that his administration has come up with a plan to "deeply cultivate Taiwan with a global perspective" as the vision for Taiwan's national economic development in the new century.
On Jan. 1, Chen said, Taiwan became the 144th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) -- the "economic United Nations." "In fact, Taiwan's accession to the WTO is an important step in returning to the international community," Chen noted. "Like any democratic country, Taiwan expects to receive equal treatment and respect from the world."
Chen said the people of Taiwan hope that the United States and other countries around the world can understand their common aspirations to fulfill their international obligations and extend greater support to Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization and other international bodies.
Stressing that normalizing relations across the Taiwan Strait has been one of his most important tasks since he took office, Chen said Taiwan is willing to resume dialogue with mainland China, provided there are no preconditions. "Now that both sides are members of the WTO, we should be able to utilize its international mechanism to establish dialogue on economic and trade issues, which would not only facilitate normalization of bilateral trade and economic relations, but also reduce cross-strait tensions," he added.
The teleconference was organized by the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University. In addition to delivering a 20-minute speech, Chen also took questions from U.S. scholars and graduate students.