The so-called "1992 consensus" of "one China, with each side having its own intepretation" is more than a slogan used by the pan-blue camp to bolster the party state: It is a fiction conjured by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to enable it to continue manipulating the Taiwanese people. And even though KMT Legislator Su Chi (蘇起) has publicly admitted that he made the term up, everyone in the party -- from the chairman down -- continues to cling to this myth.
Nevertheless, lies are lies. During the televised debate between President Chen Shui-bian (
As it turned out, Lien could not even bring himself to utter the words "Republic of China," let alone inquire what possible interpretations there might be to the term "one China." For his part, Hu was generously vocal on China's "united front" strategy and deftly ignored the question of what "one China" means. A desperate Ma seized on Hu's talk of "ironing out mutual differences" as a reference to each side having its own interpretation. It seems that the KMT and CCP rival each other in their ability to spout rubbish, with the latter playing the lead and the former playing second fiddle.
Lies are lies, and the truth will come out in the end. When Hu visited the US, President George W. Bush did not criticize Chen's cessation of the functions of the National Unification Council and its guidelines as the Chinese leader had hoped. Aside from not saying that the US opposed Taiwanese independence, Bush even brought up the Taiwan Relations Act in support of Taiwan and talked about a "peaceful solution" to the Taiwan issue.
Faced with this, Hu was left with little choice but to reiterate Beijing's "one China" principle, emphasizing that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China's territory, as stated in the CCP's white paper on the "One China Principle and Taiwan Issue" in 2000.
Hu's failure to come clean on the so-called "1992 consensus" and his vague references to ironing out mutual differences do not signify a relaxing of the "one China" principle at all. When Bush failed to speak out against Taiwanese independence, Hu had to counter this by restating Beijing's stand as a warning to Chen.
It is most interesting to look at how the world views the idea of one China, and whether this includes the KMT's and Ma's conception of each side having its own interpretation. When Bush welcomed Hu on the South Lawn of the White House, where Hu was greeted with a 21-gun salute, the protocol officer -- announcing that the national anthems of both countries would be played -- mistakenly referred to the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the Republic of China (ROC). Far from being a recognition of each side having its own interpretation of "one China," this slip shows that to US officials and the US public, China is simply China -- not Taiwan, and not the PRC. If even the protocol officer can mess this up, there is clearly little place for the ROC in the "one China" principle. US officials know only of Taiwan: which is how it is referred to in the Taiwan Relations Act in support of the country.
What's more, the CCP has never viewed China as two entities. When Hu was giving his address on the South Lawn, the Chinese interpreter translated Hu's phrase Zhongguo lingtu (中國領土) as "Chinese territory," and not "PRC territory." Clearly, China is the PRC, and the PRC is China: the China referred to in Beijing's "one China" principle. The idea of "one China, with each side having its own interpretation" is nothing but a smoke screen for eventual unification.
Chen asked Ma to confirm that the "one China" principle meant "one China, with each side having its own interpretation," and Ma gave him Hu's talk of ironing out differences. In the US, however, Hu's statement was a veritable slap in the face to believers of "each side having their own interpretation."
Lies are lies, and the truth will out. And the idea of a "1992 consensus" and "one China, with each side having its own interpretation" has been revealed for what it is.
Chin Heng-wei is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs