US embassy cable - 05TAIPEI2281

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 002281 
 
SIPDIS 
 
WASHINGTON PASS AIT/W 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/24/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, TW, Cross Strait Politics 
SUBJECT: TSAI YING-WEN ON STATUS AND PROSPECTS FOR 
CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS 
 
REF: TAIPEI 2213 
 
Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason 1.4 b 
 
1.  (C) Former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Tsai 
Ying-wen told the AIT Deputy Director that Taiwan-PRC 
relations are once again back where they were before the PRC 
Anti-Secession Law derailed earlier progress.  President 
Chen's harsh criticisms of Pan-Blue opposition leaders over 
the past week, however, complicate achieving cross-Strait 
consensus in Taiwan.  If the efforts at inter-party 
reconciliation undertaken by Premier Frank Hsieh in early 
2005 can be restarted, Tsai said, and there is a change of 
KMT leadership in July, there could be progress on 
cross-Strait relations before the December election campaign 
starts.  End Summary. 
 
2. (C) Following up on her statements at a small cross-Strait 
conference in Taipei on May 16 (reported reftel), former MAC 
Chairwoman and current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 
legislator Tsai Ying-wen discussed the cross-Strait situation 
and the ruling DPP with the Deputy Director on May 19.  Tsai, 
who describes herself as a moderate working to "educate" her 
DPP colleagues on cross-Strait issues in a more pragmatic, 
vice ideological, direction, said she is cautiously 
optimistic on the prospects for both party reconciliation and 
cross-Strait cooperation. 
 
Early Steps Derailed 
-------------------- 
 
3.  (C) Tsai told the Deputy Director that in January, 
following the ruling DPP's poor showing in the December 
Legislative Yuan (LY) election, Taipei authorities took a 
more pragmatic approach to cross-Strait relations and the 
call for Lunar New Year charter flights with Mainland China. 
The resulting January 13 Lunar New Year charter flight 
agreement, she said, was made possible by a "major 
concession" by Taiwan -- acquiescence to Beijing's demand 
that no Taiwan MAC or Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) 
officials participate in the charter flight negotiations, 
which occurred in Macao.  (NOTE: Officials from the Taiwan 
Ministry of Transportation and Communications were allowed to 
participate.  END NOTE)  During the 2002 negotiations in Hong 
Kong under her tenure as Chairperson, Tsai explained, Taiwan 
MAC and SEF officials not only participated in, but actually 
led, the negotiations for charter flights in 2003. 
 
4.  (C) The positive atmosphere generated by the Lunar New 
Year charter flights this year, Tsai said, set the stage and 
created expectations for further expansion of cross-Strait 
exchanges.  Passage of the PRC Anti-Secession Law on March 
14, however, derailed this process and brought cross-Strait 
relations to a standstill.  While most people had anticipated 
that the fallout from that law would last at least a few 
months, Tsai said, the back-to-back Mainland China visits of 
KMT Chairman Lien Chan and PFP Chairman James Sung in late 
April-early May had changed Taiwan,s political focus.  They 
had essentially made the ASL &yesterday,s news.8  These 
visits, she explained, were a direct political challenge to 
Chen's leadership and stimulated internal challenges within 
the DPP that Chen had to counter via public attacks on Lien 
and Soong.  Nonetheless they led to a much quicker return to 
discussion of next steps in the cross-Strait relations. 
 
Recovering Momentum 
------------------- 
 
5.  (C) After the May 14 National Assembly election and the 
DPP,s marginal victory, Tsai said, Chen moved to reassert 
his shaken control of the DPP and beat back fundamentalist 
opposition.  On May 18, Chen held the first of a series of 
meetings with small groups of DPP legislators, urging them to 
fall back into line with the party's "reconciliation" policy 
on both inter-party cooperation and cross-Strait issues. 
Tsai, who noted with some relief that she had been traveling 
 
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and therefore unable to attend this first meeting, stated 
that Chen had called on the legislators to "trust the 
President" and his leadership.  She noted, however, that Chen 
is also using PRC blockage of Taiwan cooperation with WHO, 
both observership and access to International Health 
Regulations (IHR), to criticize the Lien and Soong trips in 
order to reinforce his own DPP leadership. 
 
6.  (C) Tsai told AIT that the current situation probably 
requires a "cooling off period" before the earlier 
cross-Strait momentum can be restarted.  She noted that the 
upcoming change in the KMT Chairmanship could also facilitate 
KMT cooperation with the DPP by enabling the two parties to 
improve communication and work together again (COMMENT: 
presumably because the deeply embittered Lien, who claims he 
was twice "cheated" out of presidential elections, will step 
down. END COMMENT).  She said that she anticipates Taiwan 
will be prepared to return to the concession it made earlier 
this year to enable the Lunar New Year charter flights.  This 
would allow arrangements for additional passenger charters to 
be negotiated by ostensibly private delegations that include 
a government representative.  If that arrangement is 
successful, it could also be applied to cargo charters, tour 
groups from the PRC and Taiwan agricultural exports to China. 
 
Comment:  "Window of Opportunity" or "Breathing Space"? 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
7.  (C) The U.S. (Cornell Law School) and British-trained 
Tsai is an important observer of cross-Strait issues because 
 
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of her four years (2001-2004) as MAC Chairperson.  However, 
over the past week she has offered diametrically opposed 
prescriptions for a way forward on cross-Strait relations. 
She told the May 16 cross-Strait conference (reftel) that 
there is only a limited window for progress on cross-Strait 
relations before both Chen Shui-bian and Hu Jin-tao are 
hemmed in by their respective hardliners.  With the Deputy 
Director, however, she was not optimistic for the short term 
and focused on longer term prospects for inter-party dialogue 
in Taiwan leading to cross-Strait negotiation and reduction 
of tensions.  This revised assessment probably reflects the 
harder line that President Chen has taken publicly this week 
toward the Lien and Soong visits in the wake of Taiwan's WHA 
rejection, as well as Tsai's firsthand involvement in the May 
18 DPP legislators' meeting with Chen.  Her altered 
assessment likely mirrors the highly fluid state of Taiwan 
politics, of the cross-Strait issue, and even of the Defense 
Procurement Special Budget -- all of which are in limbo and 
will require the kind of constructive leadership rarely seen 
in highly politicized Taipei to move forward. 
PAAL