Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) met with President Ma Yin-jeou (馬英九) before Chu left for the US on Tuesday and is to deliver some messages about Ma’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — if asked — during his trip, KMT caucus whip Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) said yesterday.
Lai told a press conference in Taipei that, “as he understood it from indirect sources,” Chu met with the president on Tuesday, with Ma asking him to explain to the US the meeting in Singapore.
The first message that Ma wants Chu to convey is that he clearly told Xi that the “[so-called] 1992 consensus is ‘one China, different interpretations’ and is a historic fact based on the Constitution of the Republic of China,” Lai said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“The second message is that the two leaders on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait confirmed that the ‘1992 consensus’ is the cross-strait consensus and is meant to build a bridge for future presidents to ensure cross-strait peace, prosperity and stability,” Lai said. “The bridge is the ‘1992 consensus.’”
The third message is one that “he has derived from the first two,” which is that “without the bridge, a meeting in the future between the leaders of the two sides would be very, very difficult,” Lai said.
Other KMT lawmakers at the press conference accused Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of “deceptive performances,” saying that according to legislative documents, Tsai has always known that the “1992 consensus” is “one China, different interpretations.”
“She recognized [the ‘1992 consensus’] when she was Mainland Affairs Council chairperson [in former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration]. We might as well ask today’s Tsai whether her words from then still count,” KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said.
KMT Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元) said Tsai was “dodging cross-strait affairs,” which he said was “a scam,” as she could only “avoid answering sensitive questions by saying ‘next question please,’ talking nonsense, repeating herself and reciting statements.”
The “1992 consensus,” a term former KMT lawmaker Su Chi (蘇起) admitted in 2006 that he had made up in 2000, when he was chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, refers to a tacit understanding between the 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 DPP and many others do not accept the validity of the “consensus.”
Also in the press conference, when asked about a Time magazine article by Zoher Abdoolcarim on the Ma-Xi meeting that labeled Ma a “yesterday man” and “a cipher” and said the KMT considered him “a loser,” KMT lawmakers rejected that description.
Alex Tsai said he would not comment on Zohar’s personal column “just as we would not care too much about what Apple Daily Taiwan editor-in-chief Jesse Ma (馬維敏) writes in its editorials.”
“[Time] is almost bankrupt in the US,” he said. “It is a loser in the US market. That is for sure… I would recommend a tycoon in Taiwan to buy the company, if the US government does not object.”
People can preregister to receive their NT$10,000 (US$325) cash distributed from the central government on Nov. 5 after President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday signed the Special Budget for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience, the Executive Yuan told a news conference last night. The special budget, passed by the Legislative Yuan on Friday last week with a cash handout budget of NT$236 billion, was officially submitted to the Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office yesterday afternoon. People can register through the official Web site at https://10000.gov.tw to have the funds deposited into their bank accounts, withdraw the funds at automated teller
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