Members of “third-force” political parties yesterday gathered in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei to protest the meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore, saying that Ma has damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty by acknowledging the “one China” principle.
New Power Party (NPP) legislative candidate Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said: “All the Ma-Xi meeting achieved was having Ma’s lies exposed. The underlying message of the [so-called] ‘1992 consensus’ has always been the ‘one China’ principle, and there is no room for different interpretations.”
The “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted to making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Photo: AFP
Huang said the NPP would not admit or agree to the “1992 consensus,” which he described as a fiction fabricated by politicians, but imposed on Taiwanese at the expense of the nation’s development and stability.
He also criticized legislators for failing to supervise the president, adding that the Legislative Yuan has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for Ma.
The legislature must be restructured and the KMT overthrown to establish a democratic mechanism to normalize the cross-strait relationship and its development, he said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Green Party-Social Democratic Party alliance legislative candidate Lee Ken-cheng (李根政) said that Ma stressed the “one China” principle of the “1992 consensus” without mentioning the “different interpretations” component, which was in line with the “one China” principle upheld by the CCP, making Taiwan an appendage to China and betraying the Taiwanese public’s trust.
He said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has failed in its role as the largest opposition party, as it should have exercised all of its available legal measures, such as calling for Ma’s impeachment, a constitutional interpretation or mobilizing protesters against the Ma-Xi meeting.
The alliance called on opposition parties to clarify their China policies and protest the Ma administration’s “opaque dealings.”
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
Saying that Ma refashioned the “1992 consensus” as the “one China” principle, Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said that Ma did not have a mandate from the public, and Taiwanese would not acknowledge anything he said at the meeting.
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