The May 17 Statement, also called the May 17 Declaration, was a statement jointly issued by the Office for Taiwan Affairs under the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China on 17 May 2004.[1]
Issued three days before Chen Shui-bian's second inaugural, it gave the Taiwanese leadership two choices - "The Taiwan leaders have before them two roads: one is to pull back immediately from their dangerous lurch toward independence, recognizing that both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to the one and same China and dedicating their efforts to closer cross-Straits relations; the other is play with fire and attempt to cut Taiwan away from China". Though the language used was considered tough, this declaration broke tradition in that it offered different options, as opposed to the firm edicts issued in the past, and addressed "the issue of international living space of the Taiwan region", although the insistence on Taiwan's recognition of One China Policy still has not loosened.
It was intended to convince that it was in Taiwanese interests to recognize the One China Policy, which President Chen has thus far rejected.
There are seven points in the declaration :
Local reporters labelled this statement as CPC General Secretary and Chinese President Hu Jintao's "seven points", as opposed to former general secretary Jiang Zemin's declaration of "Jiang's eight points".
