November 23, 2012
No. 100
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) issued the following stern statement today concerning the map and photographs used in the new version of Mainland passport, including photographs of Taiwan's Sun Moon Lake and Green Island:
1. Sun Moon Lake and Green Island in Taiwan are parts of the Republic of China (ROC)’s territory, and are not under mainland China’s authority to govern.
2. Mainland China's inclusion of photographs of Taiwan’s territory and landscape entirely ignores existing facts and provokes controversy, while at the same time not only harms the foundation of mutual trust established through efforts by the two sides over the recent years, but also hurts the feelings of Taiwan's 23 million people. The Mainland’s action is absolutely unacceptable to the ROC government.
3. The ROC is a sovereign and independent country. Under the ROC Constitution, the ROC’s territory has its existing national boundaries. The mainland Chinese authorities should squarely face the fact that the two sides are divided by the sea and governed separately, thus pragmatically and objectively face up to the ROC. It is believed that the Mainland side must "shelve disputes and face realities" on the existing foundation, and resolve disputes with wisdoms of self-restraint. Therefore, the MAC sternly reiterates that mainland China should avoid giving the outside world the impression of making a unilateral change to the status quo, which undermines the hard-earned achievements of cross-strait relations, and thereby hinders and sets back developments of cross-strait interactions.