In an article published in The Diplomat magazine on Saturday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Lee Shih-chuan (李四川) called on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to clarify her “nebulous” China policy.
Coming on the heels of a letter Lee wrote to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, the magazine article, titled “Time for Taiwan’s Opposition to Clarify Its Cross-Strait Policy,” is the latest in a series of similar calls from the KMT for Tsai to define the cross-strait “status quo” that she has vowed to maintain.
The KMT believes that Tsai’s recent 12-day US trip was a “welcome development” in terms of expanding Taiwan’s international presence, however, if the visit was the success that Tsai claims, “it was mainly made possible by her repeated statements in support of the Kuomintang’s policies toward mainland China,” Lee wrote.
Tsai has repeatedly vowed to maintain the “status quo developed under seven years of KMT leadership,” he wrote.
He said there are two directions for Taiwan’s China policy: the KMT’s “rapprochement policies” or the DPP’s pursuit of de jure independence contained in its party charter.
Based on the so-called “1992 consensus,” the KMT’s China policies “reduce tension, increase investment, cultural exchange and tourism, and ensure open and transparent dialogue” with China, Lee said.
The “1992 consensus” refers to a supposed tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that both sides of Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
The KMT believes China to be the Republic of China (ROC), he wrote.
However, the DPP’s independence approach would increase cross-strait tensions and risk “entrapping the United States in an unnecessary conflict with mainland China,” he said.
Lee questioned a pledge Tsai made during a speech she gave at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, when she said that if elected president, she would have a policy “in accordance with the will of the Taiwanese people and the existing ROC constitutional order.”
He questioned if Tsai would base her China policy on “the Taiwanese constitution’s ‘one China’ principle,” noting that she was the “mastermind” of the “one China, one Taiwan” policy of 1991 and “one country on each side [of the Taiwan Strait] policy proposed in 2000 under the then-DPP administration.
Tsai said at the time that those policies were consistent with the “one China” principle, Lee wrote.
Tsai has failed to specify “which version of the status quo” she would maintain and how she would maintain it, he wrote, adding: “What are the fundamentals underpinning that ‘status quo,’ if not the KMT’s 1992 consensus?”
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods