Taiwanese Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng recently proposed some amendments to the island's legislation. He pledged to remove the legal requirement to hang the portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China (ROC), in schools and government agencies, and also that the future "president" will no longer be required to salute Sun's portrait. The bill will be probably brought to Taiwan's Legislative Yuan this Friday.

The incident has caused a huge debate on the island. Pro-status quo forces and the media sharply denounced the proposal and demanded a response from newly-elected Tsai Ing-wen. Yet Tsai had only made a non-committed reply Tuesday. In the meantime, pro-independence forces, including the Liberty Times, mocked Sun for being only "a founding father on the wall."

November 12, 2016 is the 150th anniversary of Sun's birth. The Chinese mainland has already announced it will hold a grand ceremony.

However, right after the DPP has won the election, the first move it will make might be a slur toward Sun, a great pioneer of the Chinese democratic revolution.

We hope that Tsai can pile some pressure on the case, and stop the Legislative Yuan from collectively giving a green light to the bill as a sign of keeping her promise over maintaining the status quo. But if she chooses to provide secret support for the proposal, and lets the Legislative Yuan pass the bill, she will be stripped of credit in the future relationship across the Straits. A new battle will be triggered between Taiwan independence and anti-independence movements.

If the bill is passed over the weekend, the Chinese mainland will be bound to take forceful counter measures to teach the DPP a hard lesson. It is the DPP that will be blamed for the loss of Taiwan due to the mainland's countermeasures in the end.

Beijing should make Tsai understand via all kinds of channels that if the DPP makes big moves over Taiwan independence as soon as it takes control of the Legislative Yuan, she will be certain to face a head-on blow in return.

Tsai's policy based on the promise that cross-Straits economic cooperation won't go backward will have to be rewritten. If the DPP pushes the first domino, it must be ready to bear all the uncertainty.

It is hoped that Tsai is not a second Chen Shui-bian. As matter of fact, the conditions are not sufficient for her to become like him.

She should persuade the DPP not to go extremes as it did eight years ago. Otherwise, it will make the mainland pretty tired, but more importantly, it will exhaust itself.