Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said that there is no such thing as the so-called “1992 consensus” and it “only incurs ridicule” when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) keeps “chanting” it.
The 92-year-old former president attended the 2015 Convention on the Action Plan for Constitutional Reform, co-hosted by several civic groups, including Civil Alliance to Promote Constitutional Reform (CAPCR) and the Lee Teng-hui Foundation, as the “honorary convener” yesterday.
Asked how he views the visit by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) to Beijing and Chu’s scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) tomorrow, Lee said Chu went to China “to represent the KMT, [so] it has nothing to do with me nor with Taiwanese; it’s the KMT’s own business.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“[Chu] is the KMT chairman, and he might want to run for president in the future. As a country’s leader, what is most important is to answer to the needs of Taiwan and Taiwanese,” Lee said. “Don’t follow Mr Ma’s steps in reciting the ‘1992 consensus,’ which he has been unnecessarily repeating for almost 10 years; it’s embarrassing. The attitude of a leader is lacking in his chanting.”
Lee denied that a consensus was reached in 1992 between Taiwan and China, saying Ma’s claim that the “1992 consensus” was the most significant consensus made across the Taiwan Strait was “simply talking nonsense.”
“There is no such consensus,” Lee said, adding that he had asked then-Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) legal bureau head Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐), then-SEF deputy secretary-general Chen Rong-jye (陳榮傑) and then-SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) — who were the delegates to the cross-strait meeting in 1992 — about the meeting and was told there had been no such consensus.
“Why chant something that does not exist? Apparently it is in order to sing the same tune with China,” Lee said. “Taiwan is Taiwan; China is China; the idea of ‘one China’ is an ancient concept. The whole world is talking about ‘one China,’ but Taiwan, as a free, democratic society, should not handle the issue like this.”
Lee called the consensus “something that former Mainland Affairs Council minister Su Chi (蘇起) fabricated to placate the KMT in 2000.”
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed understanding reached during the cross-strait talks in 1992 that both Taiwan and China acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what that means.
In 2006, Su admitted he made up the term “1992 consensus” in 2000, before the KMT handed power to the Democratic Progressive Party.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS