Supposedly, all political parties across the political spectrum, from independence to unification, would agree that democracy is the best weapon the nation has to resist China’s attempt to unite with Taiwan or force Taiwan to accept its terms of unification, but in practice, they tend to forget the golden rule.
A case in point was the suggestion former Mainland Affairs Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) recently made that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should reassure China that it would not let its hawkish views dominate cross-strait relations if it regains power in 2016 by disavowing its aspiration for independence, because that is what Beijing cares about most.
Given the DPP’s stubborn position against the so-called “1992 consensus” — which refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means — the party might as well forget about the “1992 consensus” and go ahead and “renounce independence,” Su said.
Another case was the apparent olive branch DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) extended to Beijing that the party would be open to discussion about the “1992 consensus” as long as it is not listed as a prerequisite for talks.
It is intriguing to see how the results of the Nov. 29 elections — which reflected the public’s desire for change, arguably motivated by rising concern over the balance in cross-strait relations significantly tilting in China’s favor under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration — sparked a change of heart over the “1992 consensus” in Su.
Su, who has admitted he made up the “1992 consensus” before the KMT handed over power to the DPP in 2000, was close to conceding failure in his efforts to coin a term for both sides to make good use of ambiguity in sovereignty disputes and finding commonalities.
Tsai’s shift in attitude on the “1992 consensus” is also intriguing, because she has had a clear track record of denying it since 2000. A prominent example was when, serving as Mainland Affairs Council chairperson in June 2000, she negated the statement made by then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at a meeting a day earlier with foreign guests that his government considered the formula “acceptable.”
Tsai, a likely DPP hopeful for the 2016 presidential election, appears to have become less rigid in her thinking about the “1992 consensus.” It clearly shows that she still sees her past refusal to accept the “1992 consensus” as a major roadblock that could again hinder her from traversing the “last mile” to the presidency, as it did in the 2012 presidential election.
If it were not for her chances of being elected in 2016 skyrocketing after the Nov. 29 elections, Tsai might not have fallen victim to political tunnel vision and attributed great significance to the “1992 consensus.”
In 2012, when Ma won re-election, he described the election result as a “victory for the 1992 consensus,” after which he was emboldened to be more assertive in his policy. If the 2012 poll was a “victory for the 1992 consensus,” last month’s elections showed that it is now deemed a flop.
Although on the surface the elections were not a referendum on the “1992 consensus,” because it was not as heatedly debated as it was in the 2012 presidential election, it was the overarching principle that framed the Ma administration’s China-centered policies on all fronts in the past six years, which obstructed the normalization of Taiwan as a country and development of commendable values to the point were voters overwhelmingly elected to change their government.
One of those values is that Taiwan engages China on equal footing without preconditions repudiating any political party that Beijing sees as undesirable. Tsai’s new approach has gone against the wishes of voters, and Su’s advice was a far cry from democracy.
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