Former vice president Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said that Beijing, “if wise,” would want to maintain the so-called “1992 consensus” as there is no point of taking Taiwan by force, which would cost billions of dollars and incite Taiwanese hatred.
In a radio interview with Clara Chou (周玉蔻), Wu was asked whether he has received any calls from Beijing inquiring about his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairmanship bid, “like former KMT vice chairman Steve Chan (詹啟賢) said he had.”
Chou was referring to Chan’s revelation on Monday last week — before he announced his candidacy for KMT chairman in the May 20 election — that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office had wanted to know whether he planned to vie for the post.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Wu said he does not know whether Beijing has concerns about the KMT election.
“I did not ask and it is not appropriate for me to ask either,” Wu said, adding that the election is an intraparty affair.
Asked whether he thinks Beijing would prefer a candidate who is more “unification-oriented” and supports “one China, same interpretation,” the former vice president said that “with enough wisdom, Beijing would definitely want to keep ‘one China, different interpretations,’ and maintain a peaceful and stable cross-strait relationship.”
“There is no point waging war on Taiwan. Even if China were to successfully take Taiwan by force, it would probably cost 30 trillion to 50 trillion US dollars to rebuild and it would pay dearly for the public hatred it had incited, but Beijing might not be able to put up with what it cannot put up with,” Wu said. “When the floodwater comes up to your nose, you would probably take some action.”
While Wu did not specify what it was Beijing would not put up with, Chou suggested that it would be declaring Taiwan independent.
“So the best approach is the 1992 consensus with ‘one China, different interpretations,’” Wu said.
With five aspirants, including Wu, having announced their bids, Chou asked whether Wu would be deprived of votes as “young party members might vote for Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corp president Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the old ones could support Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), KMT Vice Chairman Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) has the backing of his father, former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), and Chan would attract the party’s local faction.”
Wu said he would receive votes from “all the above-mentioned groups.”
Separately yesterday, Hung alleged that Chan told her that he would run for chairman when he tendered his resignation on Jan. 7, an allegation that Chan denied.
In a separate radio interview, Chan said he did not quit in order to run for KMT chairman and that he did indeed hold a different view about how to deal with the party’s assets than other KMT officials, but that was “not the only reason I resigned.”
Chan said before he announced his resignation he felt “discontented and puzzled” after Hung told reporters that “nobody supported the signing of an administrative contract with the Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee except Chan,” when he had Hung’s authorization to negotiate with the committee.
It was reported that the committee and Chan, representing the KMT, had agreed to sign an administrative contract that would allow the handover of the party’s shares in Central Investment Co and its subsidiary, Hsinyutai Co, to the state, even though 45 percent of the shares would have to be transferred in the form of a donation.
The contract also had provisions concerning what would be done with the funds garnered from the disposal of Central Investment Co’s assets.
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