CNA Quotes: Taiwan Affairs Office / SEF Secretary General Kao Kung-lian, re Dalai Lama Visit

Faxed statement by the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman, quoted by CNA (Taiwan):

Statement by State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office [the link for this article (http://www.cna.com.tw/ReadNews/FirstNews_Read.aspx?magNo=4&magNum=8858&pageNo=1) is apparently no longer available – JR, July 14, 2010] on August 27, concerning some forces within Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party [in the following: DPP] inviting the Dalai to Taiwan, a spokesman for the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office stated:

The Dalai is no mere religious personality, he conducts activities to split the state under the banner of religion. No matter under which circumstances and in which capacity he goes to Taiwan, we are resolutely opposed (我們都堅決反對).

While all walks of life on the mainland offer a helping hand and support Taiwan in overcoming the typhoon and to rebuild their homes, some people of the DPP actually take the opportunity to plan for Dalai visiting Taiwan, clearly not for disaster relief, but for trying to harm the hard-earned good cross-strait relations. This sinister intention will meet with opposition from compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

CNA reporter Liu Zhengqing (劉正慶) – same source as above:

As the statement [by the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office] didn’t accuse [the link for this article (http://www.cna.com.tw/ReadNews/FirstNews_Read.aspx?magNo=4&magNum=8858&pageNo=1) is apparently no longer available – JR, July 14, 2010] president Ma Ying-jeou or the KMT at all, Strait Exchange Foundation (海基會) Vice-Chairman and Secretary-General Kao Kung-lian (高孔廉) says one can understand the mainland position, as its stance concerning the Dalai has always been this way (可以理解大陸的立場，因為大陸對達賴的看法一向如此). [Given the referrals to the DPP in the statement] Kao Kung-lian believes that the mainland acknowledges that the invitation to the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan is clearly just an action by the DPP (大陸已認知到，其實邀請達賴喇嘛訪台，明顯的就是民進黨在操弄).

[“操弄” may also stand for “manipulation”.]

Won’t the Dalai’s visit on August 30 have an impact on future cross-strait exchange, and even on the fourth meeting between the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS, )海峡两岸关系协会) and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), planned for the end of the year? Kao Kung-lian says that at the moment, this is hard to tell. But she he also said thatnews and cultural exchange, the SEF’s purpose, are temporarily suspended because of the typhoon anyway, and if they are going to be continued isn’t related to the question of the Dalai’s visit, because from the Taiwan Affairs Office’s statement, the influence on the cross-straits relations isn’t that big.

Will the Dalai’s visit have an impact on the fourth meeting of the ARATS and the SEF (Jiang and Chen)  [Jiang Pin-kun (江丙坤), Chen Yunlin (陈云林)]? Kao Kung-lian indicates that this will be evaluated from what the Dalai Lama is going to do and to say.

[In this last line of the CNA article, the Dalai Lama is actually referred to as Dalai Lama.]

Tags: Buddhism, China, communication, Communist Party of China, cross-strait relations, Dalai Lama, diplomacy, DPP, international, Ma Ying-jeou, media, national minorities, natural disaster, negotiations, religion, sovereignty, Taiwan, Tibet