Lai Ching-te's "lectures" are disrupting, harming Taiwan: mainland experts

BEIJING, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Several leading experts on the Taiwan question have criticized Taiwan leader Lai Ching-te's "10 lectures on unity," debunking his remarks that aim to disrupt and jeopardize Taiwan.

"Seen from their overall viewpoint and argument logic, the so-called lectures are a representation of the cliche that has been advocated by 'Taiwan independence' forces, with the new 'two states' theory at its core," said Wu Yongping, head of Tsinghua University's Institute of Taiwan Studies.

Such provocative separatist remarks will only end up harming Taiwan by intensifying social confrontation across the region and escalating tension across the Taiwan Strait, according to experts.

In the latest installments of his planned series of speeches, Lai attempted to rationalize his separatist scheme under the pretext of a "constitutional government system."

Experts have refuted Lai's biased remarks concerning constitutional governance. Wang Yingjin, director of the cross-Strait relations research center of the Renmin University of China, slammed Lai for fabricating selective narratives with the aim to sever the historical connections between Taiwan and the mainland, and to try to legalize "Taiwan independence" separatism.

"Lai intentionally played up constitutional governance and democracy, advertised 'citizen power,' and promoted the idea of an 'external threat.' Such acts are in fact political manipulations promoting separatism instead of unity," said Han Bing, an associate research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Taiwan Studies.

In his recent speech, Lai once again overstated the "mainland threat," defining the mainland as an "external hostile force." This, however, laid bare Lai's real purpose of stopping and restricting cross-Strait exchange for the sake of political profits, according to Wu.

Han added that Lai has not only slandered and misinterpreted mainland measures that punish and deter separatist forces, but also relentlessly increased Taiwan's defense budget and colluded with foreign forces in pursuit of external support for his political scheme -- at the expense of the interests of the people of Taiwan.

The so-called "10 lectures on unity," which are untenable from both legal and historical bases and have nothing to do with reality or common sense, are doomed to be abandoned as "text junk," experts have said. Enditem