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DPP will never back `1992 consensus,' academic says

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government will never accept the so-called "1992 consensus," as there is no room for each side of the Taiwan Strait to interpret the term to their own liking after opposition leaders' visits to China earlier this year, a former cross-strait affairs official said yesterday.

Chen Ming-tong (陳明通), a National Taiwan University professor who once served as Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) vice chairman, made the remarks at a forum held by the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies.

"When [former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman] Lien Chan (連戰) and [Chinese President] Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) released their `five point' communique in April, the term was then clearly defined as the `one China principle,'" he said.

The Lien-Hu communique stated that the resumption of cross-strait negotiations should be based on the "1992 consensus," upholding the "one China principle."

The pan-blue camp has recently been pushing a "cross-strait peace advancement bill" to write the "1992 consensus" into law.

The so-called "1992 consensus" refers to an agreement supposedly made during a meeting in Hong Kong in 1992 between Taiwanese and Chinese representatives.

The opposition says that both sides verbally agreed that there was only "one China," while agreeing to disagree on what that term meant.

Neither the DPP administration nor the former KMT government ever accepted that consensus.

Chen said the definitions of the "1992 consensus" in the communiques signed with Beijing were different from the opposition's former position, so the opposition must explain to the Taiwanese people why they gave ground on the issue, Chen said.
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