Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) last week spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington — where president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) spoke in June last year. Wang said he hoped that Tsai, in her May 20 inaugural address, would, “in her own way, explain how she would promote peaceful development in cross-strait relations,” and “can accept that China and Taiwan belong to ‘one China,’ in line with their own Constitution.”
Wang did not mention the so-called “1992 consensus.” His use of the word “Constitution” was informative. In the past, Chinese officials said, “the laws and relevant regulations of the Taiwan area.” Wang’s use of the word prompted many to see it as a major concession on China’s part.
At the heart of the “1992 consensus” — which China regards as the political basis for peaceful development across the Strait — has always been, for Beijing, the idea that both sides of the strait belong to “one China.” Wang might not have mentioned the “1992 consensus,” but his words were still very much wed to the “one China” principle.
Wang was entirely consistent with Beijing’s stance. And while he uttered the word “Constitution,” he did so hoping that Tsai would use “her own way” to avoid broaching the issue of the status of the Republic of China (ROC). As a result, Wang’s words cannot interpreted as Beijing’s readiness to recognize the ROC.
What is different about Wang’s idea is his response to the four elements of “maintaining the ‘status quo’” that Tsai mentioned in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times — the Taipei Times’ sister paper — specifically on the ROC’s system of constitutional government, differentiating “constitutional government” from the Constitution. For Wang, while constitutional government is linked to elections, cross-strait relations are linked to the “one China” Constitution. To make this distinction, he would have had to have known Tsai’s interpretation of constitutional government when she spoke at CSIS and from there hoped to constrain her by using the narrower definition of “Constitution.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office joined the legislature’s debate on the proposed removal of portraits of the ROC’s founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) from classrooms prior to Wang’s speech and continued to reiterate the necessity of the “1992 consensus” while opposing Taiwanese independence. These run counter to the direction Wang appears to be going. Therefore, it is impossible to know whether his tactic represents a major shift in Beijing’s official Taiwan policy.
However, it is understood that Wang chose the same venue as Tsai for the benefit of a US audience, especially when the US has made clear on several occasions that it does not see the “1992 consensus” as a necessity. Many nations, such as the US, Japan, the UK and the EU expressed hope when congratulating Tsai on her electoral victory that she would maintain the “status quo” and keep negotiating with China.
By separating the phrase “1992 consensus” from its meaning and aligning with the international community, including the US, Beijing is placing the ball in Tsai’s court.
Wang’s statement also suggests that there has been a recalibration of the cross-strait dynamics, with a change in Taiwanese outlook and the rebalancing of the US’ focus toward Asia, since Taipei’s pro-China stance over the past eight years. The US’ renewed interest in Taiwan is born of a return to its role as a strategic balance.
Taiwanese must take note of what Wang said, but it is more important to take note of the strategic backdrop to his words.
Lai I-chung is deputy executive director of Taiwan Thinktank.
Translated by Paul Cooper
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
On today’s page, Masahiro Matsumura, a professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka, questions the viability and advisability of the government’s proposed “T-Dome” missile defense system. Matsumura writes that Taiwan’s military budget would be better allocated elsewhere, and cautions against the temptation to allow politics to trump strategic sense. What he does not do is question whether Taiwan needs to increase its defense capabilities. “Given the accelerating pace of Beijing’s military buildup and political coercion ... [Taiwan] cannot afford inaction,” he writes. A rational, robust debate over the specifics, not the scale or the necessity,
RSS