Taiwanese Denounce Anti-Secession Plan

A few hundred miles across the Taiwan Strait, thousands of demonstrators denounced the proposed law, burning Chinese flags and promising to fight what they said were Beijing's heavy-handed tactics.

In a news conference during the annual, 10-day National People's Congress, which opened Saturday, Li said China's differences with the United States and Japan should be resolved through dialogue. But Beijing would not tolerate interference in its bid to reunite with Taiwan, he said.

Last month, Japan joined the United States in citing security in the Taiwan Strait as a concern, breaking with Tokyo's tradition of remaining ambiguous about the issue.

"Any practice of putting Taiwan directly or indirectly into the scope of Japan-U.S. security cooperation constitutes an encroachment on China's sovereignty and interference in internal affairs," Li told reporters.

Taiwan fears that the anti-secession law could be used as a legal pretext to attack the self-governing island of 23 million if it formally declares independence. Washington also has expressed its reservations on the measure, fearing that it would alter the status quo between the two adversaries.

More than 15,000 people marched in Taiwan's second-largest city of Kaohsiung, one of two demonstrations held Sunday.

"Taiwanese, stand up!" protesters chanted, wearing red headbands. "Oppose China's hegemony!"

"You have a choice between becoming masters of your own democratic country, or being enslaved in the communist country," former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, a strong advocate for independence, told the demonstrators, which included young parents pushing baby strollers.

President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu did not attend the Kaohsiung demonstration or the second march, held by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei, the capital, apparently not wanting to provoke Beijing.

But Su Tseng-chang, chairman of Chen's party, told a group of 2,000 protesters in Taipei that the president would lead 500,000 Taiwanese in street marches if China passed the law.

Hsu Hao-jiun, a 27-year-old army officer walking in a Taipei night market, said he didn't know a lot about the law but opposed the idea.