Ma Ying-jeou’s Foundation Director Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) on Wednesday firmly rejected Premier Chen Chien-jen’s (陳建仁) call for Former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to advocate for Taiwan’s sovereignty. This was in response to the premier verbalizing his hopes that the former president would express to China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) that Taiwan is a sovereign independent country, should a meeting between the two take place.
The Ma Ying-jeou Foundation announced on Monday that the former president will lead a delegation of students to visit China from April 1 to 11. Although the director has stated that no arrangements have been made currently to meet with Chinese officials, local media reports have stated that Ma will meet with Xi during the trip.
Premier Chen urged Ma on Tuesday to be mindful of the Taiwanese people's views regarding the values of sovereignty, democracy, and the rule of law and added his hopes for Ma to defend Taiwan’s freedom and democracy to President Xi.
Director Hsiao asserts that it would be impossible for Ma to advocate for Taiwan's independence on behalf of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the premier. Hsiao emphasizes that promoting Taiwan's independence violates the constitution.
Hsiao points out that Taiwan’s constitution is actually a “One China” constitution and includes “unification” in its preamble. He adds that despite this, the DPP makes unconstitutional remarks like Taiwan being a sovereign and independent country but dares not amend the constitution. This only misleads the public and is detrimental to Taiwan in the long run. Hsiao emphasizes that Ma believes Taiwan’s biggest crisis now is the DPP's failure to abide by the constitution which splits and tears at Taiwan’s national identity.