TSU Becomes Lead Pro-Independence Voice

By LIU Weijun, China News Digest, 19 March 2002

[CND, 03/19/02] The seven-month-old Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) has recently been making the loudest pro-independence voice on the island’s political stage, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

With only 13 seats in the new 225-seat parliament, TSU has managed to keep itself on the spotlight by making several controversial proposals, including limiting the island’s presidency to those born on the island, making the local dialect a second official language and barring Taiwanese computer chip makers from investing in the mainland. It also asked Vice-Premier LIN Hsin-yi to resign for supporting such investments.

TSU said its members in the parliament would form a group to declare Taiwan’s territorial rights over several sensitive islands, including the Spratly group in the South China Sea.

Some political analysts believed that the tactics of TSU, which was created under the instructions of LEE Teng-hui to help the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), could hamper the DPP Government’s decision-making. It would be a liability rather than an asset to DPP in the long run, they argued. Some local media speculated that TSU and DPP were simply playing the bad guy/good guy game.