Pressure has been mounting on Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou since his emissary to Beijing proposed that relations with the mainland be redefined as 'one country, two areas'.
To many, it sounded like capitulation to Beijing and the end of the dream of Taiwanese independence. A poll released by the opposition party several days ago showed 60 per cent of respondents disagreed with Ma's surprise initiative.
But Ma's party, the Kuomintang (KMT), insists the 'one country' in the formulation would be Taiwan, not that much larger and more powerful land mass across the strait, and says the island would be on equal footing with the People's Republic of China .
Wu Poh-hsiung, KMT honorary chairman, stirred a hornets' nest when he told President Hu Jintao during a meeting in Beijing on March 22 that cross-strait ties were not a 'country to country' relationship, but rather a 'special' relationship that should be defined as 'one country, two areas'. Wu later told reporters this was a message that Ma had wanted him to relay.
The island's pro-independence camp immediately accused the mainland-friendly Ma of trying to surrender Taiwan's sovereignty to Beijing.
Ma maintained there was nothing wrong in describing cross-strait ties as a 'special relationship'. He stressed that in his concept, the 'one country' is the 'Republic of China' (the formal name for Taiwan) and that the 'Taiwan area' and 'the mainland area' held equal status.
That explanation went nowhere with the pro-independence camp, which suspects this wording is just a repackaging of 'one country, two systems' - the formulation that Deng Xiaoping trotted out years ago as a model for cross-strait reunification. Taiwan has consistently said 'no, thank you' to that, certain it would turn the island's government into a local authority under Beijing's control, like Hong Kong and Macau.