Beijing’s reaction to President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) inaugural address was not as bad as some people had expected and might have even showed some goodwill, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chairman Richard Bush said on Saturday.
Beijing’s reaction “could have been worse,” Bush said during a talk in Taipei organized by the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation and hosted by former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台).
China on Friday described Tsai’s speech as an “incomplete test paper” and said that it failed to clearly recognize the so-called “1992 consensus” or agree to its core connotations.
During his conversation with Lung after his speech, Bush said that over the past year, Beijing has demanded absolute clarity from Tsai on her interpretation of cross-strait relations, while Tsai has preferred ambiguity.
What Tsai has said over that time, including in her speech on Friday, shows her moving down the spectrum toward “some clarity,” said Bush, who added that he hoped Tsai’s address represented a “starting point” for continued interaction and trust-building across the Taiwan Strait.
By clarity, Bush said he meant that Tsai had said in an interview earlier this year that she respected the historic fact of what happened in 1992 and mentioned the elements of the “existing political foundation.”
Bush also believed that Tsai sought to address the core connotations of the “1992 consensus” in her inaugural address by referring to the Republic of China’s Constitution and the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
“Whether it’s far enough down the spectrum, we’ll see,” he said.
As for the possibility that a hotline between the Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, might be terminated, Bush said he hoped it would be only a temporary suspension.
Maintaining communication channels between Taiwan and China is very important because it reduces misunderstandings and helps to clarify intentions, he said.
In his speech, Bush said Taiwan faced a number of challenges, but he believed that the transition of power created an opportunity to address those problems in a new way.
He said he agreed with Tsai that Taiwan is more likely to succeed if its government is united, efficient and pragmatic.
Taiwan needs to reach a balance between its national security and the benefits of maintaining good relations with China, he said.
“It would be naive of Taiwan to ignore the need for a strong national defense,” he said.
Bush was chairman and managing director of the AIT from 1997 to 2002, and has worked on issues related to Taiwan for more than 30 years. He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and director of the Brookings Center for East Asia Policy Studies.
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