Commentary: Mainland trips fruitful, but euphoria premature

Though the highly fruitful mainland trips of two Taiwan opposition party leaders did bring the "breeze of the spring" to the Taiwan Straits, it is too soon to be convinced of the prospects, peaceful or otherwise, for cross- Straits ties.

Partly in response to demands from their constituencies, Lien Chan, chairman of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) Party, and James C. Y. Soong, chairman of the People First Party (PFP) set their feet on the mainland for the first time since the KMT fled to Taiwan in 1949 after it lost a civil war to the Communist Party of China ( CPC).

During the landmark visits by the two Taiwan opposition party leaders, Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and his Taiwan party counterparts have demonstrated much willingness to and wisdom in pushing forward reconciliation and promoting stability across the Straits, which also has a bearing on security in the Asia-Pacific region.

In addition to agreements on ending hostility and building mutual trust, the mainland also offered a series of measures to boost cross-Straits economic exchanges and trade, and promised more benefits to Taiwanese ranging from farmers on the island to students and business people working on the mainland.

In his speech at the prestigious Beijing University, Lien said he has taken a "historical bus" to embark on a "journey of peace". Lien and Soong undoubtedly complied with the historical pattern of peace and common prosperity upheld by the people both in the mainland and Taiwan.

Almost all the people in the mainland and many on the island province support reconciliation, and should welcome further accommodations from both sides across the Straits.

The mainland visits of the two major opposition party leaders not only echoed Taiwan compatriots' aspiration for lasting peace, but also set a new paradigm for the varied political forces in Taiwan to communicate with the mainland and contribute their wisdom to solving the Taiwan issue.

Contrary to the accusation of "selling out Taiwan" launched by stalwart supporters of independence against Lien's rapprochement with the CPC, the visits by the heads of Taiwan's opposition parties have worked for the benefit of people in Taiwan.

The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its political allies are now at a crossroads -- will they choose to ride on the right tide or resist this new strong current?

"Eating too fast makes people bite the rice bowl," according to an adage in the local Taiwanese Minnan dialect. Playing down the complexity of the Taiwan issue is not only at odds with the current cross-Straits reality but disrupts the peaceful solution of a thorny problem.

To win partisan interests, some Taiwan politicians have taken advantage of "Taiwan consciousness", or the Taiwan people's sense of national identity gained from the love for their land and the care for the economic fruits they've achieved after much effort.

Using the welfare of the Taiwan people as a gambling chip, those politicians do not hesitate to distort the gestures of goodwill from the mainland, from a pair of giant pandas presented to Taiwan people to the no-tariff policy on a dozen special fruits imported from Taiwan.

In some minds, the election victory of the DPP weighs much heavier than maintaining peace across the Straits. They need cheer squads for their rash and ill-advised political rhetoric and moves.

In order to mislead their constituency, they have spared no efforts to defend their own beliefs while demonizing their adversaries and snubbing any consensus reached by these political opponents and the CPC, branding them illegitimate and informal, with no regard to the fact that their consensus prioritizes the welfare of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Straits.

More and more Taiwan people have been fed up with the rigid stance of the DPP, evidence of which can be seen in the latest opinion polls on the island. Support for the DPP has sharply declined while that for the KMT and the PFP grew by a large margin.

In the latest Taiwan legislative election in last December, the anti-independence Pan-Blue Alliance, networking the KMT, the PFP and the New Party, secured 114 seats out of the total 225, overriding the pro-independence Pan-Green Coalition by 13 seats, indicating an aggregated political support for a mainland policy that maintains the status quo and promotes common prosperity across the Straits.

Both the KMT and the PFP chairmen said they would try hard to implement the concrete measures they agreed to in Beijing after returning to Taiwan.

"If there's nothing wrong," Lien said in Beijing, "I hope the authorities would not place any obstacles." And James CY Soong said after talks with Hu Jintao Thursday that "the PFP will not hesitate in working together with the KMT to supervise the authorities and to defend the fundamental interests of the Taiwanese."

The volatility of Taiwan's ruling party was shown explicitly. While still being reserved about materializing proposals agreed to by the two opposition parties in Beijing, the Taiwan authorities lowered their tone in criticizing the mainland trips of the two opposition parties.

US President George W. Bush called the visits of Lien and Soong "historic" and encouraged the Chinese mainland to conduct dialogue with the Taiwan authorities. The Bush Administration welcomes the two visits and sticks to the one-China policy.

It is the Taiwan authorities that President Bush should push to re-open cross-Straits dialogue for reconciliation.

The Chinese mainland has been insisting that any political party in Taiwan will be welcome to the mainland for talks only if it recognizes the one-China principle and gives up pro- independence stance, "no matter what it ever said or did."

It is the right time for the Taiwan authorities to return to the one-China track, take concrete measures to strengthen the cross-Straits ties and promote the common welfare across the Taiwan Straits.

The time is also ripe for testing whether Taiwan has the sincerity to respond to the call for peace and development from the people on both sides of the Straits and the wisdom to steer the island province in the right direction.