- Title: TAIWAN: PREMIER LIEN CHAN CALLS FOR PEACE WITH CHINA
- Date: 24th March 1996
- Summary: TAIPEI, TAIWAN (MARCH 24, 1996) 1. GV TAIWANESE PRESIDENT LEE TENG-HUI IN KARAOKE VICTORY CELEBRATION 0.10 2. SCU PREMIER LIEN CHAN SPEAKING ABOUT PEACE AGREEMENT WITH MAINLAND CHINA BUT IT TAKES TIME (ENGLISH), PRESS CUTAWAYS 0.46 3. LV LIEN AT PODIUM, PRESS ASK QUESTION 0.49 4. SCU LIEN SAYING IT IS A VERY STRONG MANDATE AND TAIWAN SH
- Embargoed: 8th April 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: TAIPEI, TAIWAN
- City:
- Country: Taiwan
- Reuters ID: LVAAFIJLDC626YPRHDKLAU3IHXG5
- Story Text: INTRO: Taiwan Premier Lien Chan says he wants to consider a peace agreement with China after the convincing presidential election victory for Lee Teng-hui.
-------------------------------------------------- Taiwan Premier Lien Chan said on Sunday (March 24) he wants serious consideration of a peace agreement with China to ease tensions in the wake of elections on the island.
Taiwan's President Lee Teng-hui became the island's first directly-elected leader on Saturday with a towering mandate despite intimidating Chinese war games in the run-up to and straddling the historic elections.
Lee said on Sunday: "The egg of democracy has hatched after 5000 years and there's no going back." The premier called for a policy of detente to pave the way for an eventual summit between Taiwan and China.
"On the question of a peace agreement (with China) we are interested in seriously thinking about it and a lot of preparations need to be done for that," he told reporters after a reception.
"We should pursue a policy of detente...based on the principles of equality and goodwill," Lien said. "I am basically optimistic, but I think it takes time.
"My opinion is that negotiations are needed at many levels in a step-by-step way, and only then can leaders meet face to face to make the final confirmation" on a peace accord, he said.
But President Lee Teng-hui, speaking at the same reception on Sunday, suggested that Taiwan would continue its policy of pushing for a more prominent role in international affairs.
This is the very policy that has angered China and convinced it to stage intimadatory war games near the island.
In a departure from the official practice of refusing to recognise the legitimacy of Taiwan's elections, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang used the word "election" to describe what Beijing in the past had called "activities to change the leadership".
But Shen said the election could not change the fact that Taiwan was an inseparable part of China and that Taiwan's leader was merely one of China's local leaders.
Lee has never publicly said he favours independence, but Beijing suspects he is only paying lip service to the Nationalists' avowed goal of reunification and is secretly pushing the island toward independence.
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