San Diego.com > Chen is pushing Taiwan to war, says former ally

By Alice Hung REUTERS
4:39 a.m. August 3, 2004
TAIPEI – A father of Taiwan democracy and former ally of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian accused him on Tuesday of pushing the island to the brink of war with China and said he planned a new party to integrate with the mainland.
Hsu Hsin-liang, a former chairman of the president's independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said Chen's goal of adopting a new constitution by 2008 was certain to bring disaster to the island because it would push China to invade.
"Chen Shui-bian's fundamentalist view on Taiwan independence will bring disaster. It's a foreseeable tragedy," Hsu, 63, told Reuters in an interview.
"Under the leadership of President Chen Shui-bian, cross-strait relations will remain in deadlock and, eventually, a war will be inevitable," said Hsu, a political dissident when Taiwan was under martial law during Nationalist Party rule from 1949 to the late 1980s.
China, which views Taiwan as a breakaway province to be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary, has been enraged by Chen's vision for an independent nation and analysts say the standoff is the most dangerous flashpoint in in Asia.