99年10月19日
美聯社專訪總統報導與答覆原文對照
馬英九總統今日接受美聯社專訪，美聯社最後刊出的報導內容與馬總統接受採訪時的談話原意不同，本府已透過行政院新聞局向美聯社要求更正。
首先，在有關統一的問題上，美聯社在報導中表示：
Any political union, he said, would require Beijing to adopt democracy and respect for human rights, under special scrutiny following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed China democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo. Because of such concerns, Ma did not cite any timetable for the process, saying it would be a "long historical" transition.
馬總統指出，兩岸政治統一須以中國大陸採取民主制度且尊重人權為前提…。
惟實際的訪談錄音逐字內容如下：
AP: I wanted to circle back to something you said earlier. I think what I heard you say was that a truly democratic system of government in the mainland is the only way that the Taiwanese people will engage in a conversation about unification.
President Ma: I think that will help, that will help. In other words, but there’s no guarantee how long it would take for the people of Taiwan to believe it’s time to do so. And opinion polls show that the majority of the people support maintaining the status quo. And obviously this trend has been maintained for over at least 20 years. And given the high approval rate of the status quo I think we’ll continue. So far, the mainland, aside from the economic side, the political reforms on the democratic side have made little progress.
美聯社：我想要回到前面您提到的部分。我想我剛才聽到閣下表示，一個真正的民主體制政府在中國大陸出現，是台灣民眾唯一會考量與中國大陸就統一進行對話的途徑。
總統：我想那會有幫助，會有幫助。換言之，台灣民眾需要多長時間才會認為是時候來做這件事，這並沒有辦法保證。民調顯示，大部分的民眾是支持維持現狀。而顯然這樣的趨勢已經維持了至少超過20年之久。從目前高比例支持維持現狀的情況來看，我想還會持續下去。到目前為止，撇開經濟面向，中國大陸在政治上朝向民主的改革仍然鮮有進展。
其次，針對兩岸談判政治協議問題，美聯社在報導中表示：
In between the poles of union and separation, Ma said his government is prepared to discuss political agreements, including security issues, as soon as the priority economic issues are dealt with. He suggested that those political talks could start as early as a second four-year term if he wins re-election in 2012.
惟根據現場錄音的逐字記錄，馬總統並未作上述表示。
針對相關議題的錄音逐字稿如下：
AP: Would the policy that you’re spelling out carry through a second term, were you to be reelected? Is just this period that you’re talking about—of economic outreach, travel back and forth but not political dialogue—does that carry through a second administration, or is that a commitment that you made for the first administration?
President Ma: Well, it depends on how fast we move with our relations with the mainland. For instance, now, we are almost two-and-a-half years into my presidency and we have achieved 14 agreements with the mainland. But we haven’t finished the important ones, for instance, an investment guarantee agreement, a dispute settlement agreement. And for our trade, in terms of tariff concessions and non-tariff barriers, we have only reached the first phase on the negotiations—that is what we call the “early harvest.” So the two sides will return to the negotiating table next year to discuss the rest of the trade and other relationships. So we still have our hands full with all these economic issues because, you see, the two sides have a trade volume of overUS$100 billion and we haven’t got any mechanism for dispute settlement and for a number of things that will exist between two normal economic entities. That is exactly what we want to do. We are not intentionally delaying the talks of political issues, but certainly, the economic ones are more important to people here, and people also support the idea of economy first, politics later.
AP: So, do I understand you correctly that, if economic issues are resolved during your second term, during that term, you might move on to political questions?
President Ma: As I said, it depends on how fast we move, whether these issues are satisfactorily resolved, and of course all the policies regarding the mainland are very sensitive, and we certainly will also make decisions on generally whether the decision receives popular support. So usually when we lay out our general policy, we will say that: first of all, it has to be something needed by the country; secondly, it has to be supported by the people; and thirdly, that it will be supervised by the national parliament to make surethat this is a policy basically meeting the needs of the people.
AP: In that progression from economic issues to political issues, what about the security issues and perhaps moving towards confidence-building measures between the militaries, where does that fall in this process?
President Ma: The CBM issue is generally considered in the broad sense of political issues. And certainly as I said, that will come after all the major economic issues are resolved. But we’re not in a hurry because the two sides, as a result of the efforts we’ve made, greatly reduced tension across the Taiwan Strait. When we talk about CBM—confidence building measures—when we signed, when we negotiated and signed the ECFA, that was a very important CBM. And the process lasted for over a year, and during the process, the officials involved from the two sides also built mutual trust in some regard. And this is exactly what we would like to see. So they can just pick up a phone and call each other.
For instance, when we reached the agreement to have judicial assistance, mutual assistance in judicial affairs, the police from the two sides met and jointly broke several rings of crime on fraud, and we have so far apprehended 1,200 criminals in this regard, and greatly reduced that crime, the fraud—even people told me that they used to receive many calls—which will affect fraud, but the number was greatly reduced. And so the cross-strait rapprochement did bring many benefits, not just economic, but also for our personal safety and all other things.
美聯社：如果您贏得下一屆總統大選，您將會延續您剛所提出的政策嗎？也就是您在下一任也會堅持經濟開放、兩岸觀光，但是不觸及政治對話，或者這只是你在第一任的承諾？
總統：這個問題將視我國與中國大陸關係進展的速度而定。舉例來說，目前在我就職以來的兩年半之中，我們已經與中國大陸簽署14項協議，但更重要的議題尚未完成協商，例如兩岸投資保障協議及兩岸解決貿易爭端協議等。在貿易層面，關稅減讓及非貿易障礙的議題上，我們只進入第一階段的協商，也就是所謂「早期收穫」的部分。因此，兩岸明年將會回到談判桌上繼續討論貿易等相關的議題，光是這些經濟的問題，就會讓政府忙得不可開交。你看，兩岸的貿易額高達一千億美元，但是目前雙方卻沒有任何機制解決貿易爭端，這就是我們目前正在著手的事情。我們並不是刻意拖延政治對話，但是經濟議題對於台灣民眾來說更為重要，因此民眾也支持政府先解決經濟問題，再討論政治議題的立場。
美聯社：我完全了解您的意思，如果經濟的議題在您擔任總統的第二任期都妥善解決，您會進一步與對岸討論政治議題嗎？
總統：正如我所說的，這將視雙方進展的速度，端視以上的問題能否得到滿意的解決，當然牽涉到大陸的政策都相當敏感，而我們施政的決策將會依循大多數的民意支持所進行。因此，當我們擘畫政策藍圖時，我們的優先考量是國家的需要，其次是民意的支持，第三是國會的監督，藉此來確認政策是否符合民眾的需求。
美聯社：兩岸由經濟議題至政治性議題之進程中，是否會觸及安全議題與建立雙方軍事互信機制？
總統：本人認為，廣義之政治議題即包括了建立兩岸互信建立機制，兩岸在解決主要經濟議題後，自然會談及雙方之互信建立機制。但我們並不急，因為，在我方努力下，兩岸緊張情勢已大幅降低。當我們提到互信建立機制時，兩岸在協商及簽訂ECFA時，事實上就可視為一種很重要的互信建立機制。兩岸談論洽簽ECFA的時間持續超過一年，雙方參與人員在整個過程中事實上已建立了某種程度的互信，這也是我們所樂見的，雙方人員可以隨時透過電話進行溝通。
例如，當兩岸達成司法互助協議後，雙方執法人員共同合作已破獲一些大型詐欺犯罪集團，至目前為止，我方亦已拘捕1,200名詐欺嫌犯，大幅降低前開犯罪現象。許多人向我提起以往常接到詐欺電話，現在數量亦大為減少。因此，兩岸和解的確帶來經濟上的利益，並包含人身安全等其它事務的好處。