Could a lie told a thousand times become a truth? Apparently so, at least in the case of the so-called “1992 consensus,” with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) continually insisting that the term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted making up in 2000 exists when it does not, and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration allowing China to take advantage of it without recourse.
Over the past few days, the public has heard a lot about the consensus, which refers to a supposed tacit understanding between the KMT and Beijing that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means. Former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing on Sunday on the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ summit and told Xi that the two nations should make sure there would be no change to the “1992 consensus” while pushing ahead with bilateral ties.
The spurious consensus was bought up again during a meeting between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Beijing yesterday, with both reaffirming the “1992 consensus,” and Zhang adding that the “1992 consensus” and “opposition to Taiwanese independence” are the bases of stable cross-strait relations.
It seems that the “1992 consensus” has become a ubiquitous term among KMT and Chinese officials.
However, all is not what it seems.
Prior to the Siew-Xi meeting, Xi, when meeting New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) and former director of the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen Hsu Li-lung (許歷農), said that “one country, two systems [and] peaceful ‘unification’” are key to developing cross-strait ties.
In other words, China’s understanding of the “1992 consensus” is different to what Taiwan has been told by Ma and the KMT. Beijing’s interpretation is just another way of describing its “one country, two systems” policy, which does not at all recognize that each side of the Taiwan Strait has its own interpretation of what “one China” means.
This position was evident in a number of US cables released by WikiLeaks in September 2011. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) was quoted in a cable dated Dec. 24, 2008, as saying that “both sides now accept and recognize the 1992 consensus, which means that both sides essentially accept there is only one China” and that “the improvement in cross-strait relations thus far has been on the basis of the one China principle.”
Chinese academic Zhou Zhihuai (周志懷), in a separate cable, put it more bluntly, saying that Taiwan’s position of “each with its own interpretation” is intolerable to Beijing because it would be tantamount to the acceptance of two nations.
With Siew, Wang and Zhang all mentioning the “1992 consensus,” but leaving out descriptions of what it entails, one wonders whether they are acting in concert, with a sort of tacit understanding, to keep the issue vague, hence creating room for ambiguity so China can keep selling its interpretation to members of the international community, while the Ma administration continues to deceive the public that the consensus means “one China, with each side having its own interpretation.”
At the end of the day, the situation is: “One 1992 consensus, two interpretations.”
However, Ma and his administration will never publicly acknowledge that there are blatant differences between their understanding and Beijing’s.
One has to wonder how much longer the government intends to lie to the nation. One also has to wonder why Taiwanese let the president get away with this fabrication and toe Beijing’s line.
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