In his July 20 response to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) telegram congratulating him on his re-election as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that “in 1992, the two sides reached a consensus that each side would verbally express their adherence to the one China principle.”
This is an astonishing statement.
First, the 1992 talks in Hong Kong did not establish any consensus. The truth is that the talks did not end amicably. After the talks, on Nov. 6, the Chinese-language Central Daily News published an interview with Ma, the then-deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council. Ma said that “the talks in Hong Kong fell short of success at the last moment … the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits [ARATS] ignored the Straits Exchange Foundation’s requests for continued talks and went straight back to China … a lack of sincerity.”
Second, the reason the talks ended on bad terms was that the two parties were unable to reach a consensus on the “one China” principle. Ma said that “there is no agreement between the two sides regarding the interpretation of one China.”
Today, Ma is recanting what he said when he was deputy chairman of the council. That is very dishonest.
The “interpretation problem” that Ma talked about at the time was as follows:
Between November 1991 and October 1992, the foundation and ARATS held three consultations in Beijing and Hong Kong regarding issues such as the procedures for jointly combating maritime crime. Beijing insisted that the premise for the talks should be that both sides adhere to the “one China” principle, and that it be included in all documents related to the negotiation process. All three consultations ended on bad terms because Taiwan did not agree to this condition.
In August 1992, the National Unification Council approved a policy document addressing the meaning of “one China.” The document said that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait adhere to the ‘one China’ principle, but they define it differently. The communist authorities hold that ‘one China’ means the ‘People’s Republic of China.’ While it is true that Taiwan is part of China, so is the Chinese mainland.”
During the talks in Hong Kong in October 1992, the foundation submitted some suggestions in accordance with the Guidelines for National Unification. The main spirit of these suggestions was that during the process in which the two sides of the Strait were working hard together to bring about national unification, both sides would adhere to the “one China” principle, but their understanding of what that “one China” entailed would differ.
Beijing did not agree. After talks broke down, Beijing suddenly announced through the New China news agency that ARATS would accept the foundation’s suggestion that the two sides state their interpretations of “one China” verbally and that it would be willing to hold talks on the concrete meaning.
An angry Ma chastised China, saying that there clearly was no consensus and adding that “when China repeatedly tells observers that the two sides have reached a consensus, it is saying one thing and doing another.”
In 2001, Ma insisted that no consensus existed between the two sides, and on June 20, 2001, he said that “the KMT accepts that there is ‘one China’ with each side having its own interpretation, but as far as China is concerned, there is only ‘one China’ and no different interpretations.”
Who would have thought that he would one day completely abandon the view that there are different interpretations of what “one China” means? That is nothing if not a complete surrender.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
Translated by Perry Svensson
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In the opening remarks of her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) framed her visit as a historic occasion. In his own remarks, Xi had also emphasized the history of the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Where they differed was that Cheng’s account, while flawed by its omissions, at least partially corresponded to reality. The meeting was certainly historic, albeit not in the way that Cheng and Xi were signaling, and not from the perspective
RSS