Amid renewed debates over the so-called “1992 consensus,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Katharine Chang (張小月) yesterday reiterated that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration respects the historical fact of the 1992 cross-strait talks.
Chang made the remarks on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee, which was reviewing proposed amendments to Article 17 of 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).
“President Tsai has stated on multiple occasions our opinions on the ‘1992’ [consensus], which is that we respect the historical fact of the 1992 [talks], with the key being seeking common ground, while reserving differences,” Chang said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chang said that over the past two decades, both sides of the Taiwan Strait have made several achievements though communication and interaction.
Both sides should cherish and value these achievements, she said, adding that the government hopes to continue to improve cross-strait ties based on that political foundation.
The “1992 consensus” — a term former council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted to making up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Debates about the existence of the “1992 consensus” have been renewed after American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt said in an interview with Voice of America in Washington on Wednesday last week that the term “1992 consensus” did not exist until Su used it in 2000.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson An Fengshan (安峰山) on Saturday said that cross-strait communications were suspended on May 20 due to Taiwan’s failure to recognize the “1992 consensus,” which An said is an embodiment of the “one China” principle serving as the political foundation for cross-strait relations.
Asked by reporters about Burghardt’s remarks, Chang said the government’s stance is that it respects the historical fact of the 1992 talks and the achievements accumulated over the past two decades based on the shared understanding of seeking common ground, while reserving differences.
“The council will continue communications with Beijing and keep up efforts to accumulate goodwill across the Taiwan Strait,” she said.
She added that the amount of Chinese investment in Taiwan between January and last month showed an upward trend.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS