CHINA, TAIWAN AND 1911

'ACCEPT HISTORY' TAIWAN'S MA URGES BEIJING

Lawrence Chung

South China Morning Post, Oct 11, 2011

Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday urged Beijing to pursue democracy and "face the existence of the Republic of China", as the island celebrated its national day and the centenary of the revolution that was a precursor to both governments.

Stressing that the 1911 revolution launched by Sun Yat-sen to overthrow the Qing dynasty was a shared memory on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Ma urged Beijing to remember the ideals of Sun, who was later honoured as the founding father of the Chinese republic.

"The aspiration of our founding father Dr Sun Yat-sen was to establish a free and democratic nation with equitable distribution of wealth," he told thousands of local and foreign dignitaries in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei.

He asked the mainland to "courageously move in that direction", saying it was the "only way for the two sides to shrink their gap".

Ma called on Beijing not to "deliberately cut out certain parts of history", but to take note of the "actual facts of history and face the existence of the Republic of China head-on".

"The Republic of China's existence is referred to not in the past tense, but in the present," he said, adding the republic had "continued to flourish in Taiwan for more than six decades" and would continue to flourish and radiate vitality.

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