Taiwan: Officials Rebuffs China Warning
Taiwanese authorities rebuffed Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's warning against the island's independence movement saying Taiwan's future should be decided by the people here rather than Beijing.
'It was nothing new at all. We are not surprised,' Huang Wei-feng, deputy chief of Taiwan's China policy decision-making body Mainland Affairs Council, told reporters when asked to comment on Wen's remarks.
'They have been doing this all the way. Didn't they say they have hinged their hope on Taiwan people? But as a matter of fact, they have no idea what Taiwan people are thinking and what they want,' Huang said.
Wen issued the warning while addressing the opening of the National People's Congress annual session at Beijing, pledging that 'we will uncompromisingly oppose secessionist activities aimed at Taiwan independence.'
Tensions spiked last week after Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian, defying pressure from Washington and Beijing, formally scrapped an advisory council and guidelines set up to look at eventual reunification with the mainland.
The Taiwanese government has defended the scrapping of the advisory council and guidelines insisting that they were not decided by the people but by the former Kuomintang (KMT, or Nationalist) government in 1990.
'Taiwan is already a democratic society. It's natural in such society to have various opinions on the issues,' Huang said.
Against the backdrop, 'Taiwan's future should be decided by
the 23 million Taiwan people,' he said.
