During a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) policy debate prior to its chairperson by-election in February, then-candidate Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said he felt that the “1992 consensus” was a little bit outdated and that young Taiwanese “do not necessarily identify with it.”
In July, having won the election, Chiang went further, saying that the “1992 consensus” had become “distorted” and the ideal time to sort it out had already passed.
It is abundantly clear that the party needs to find a way to divest itself of the burdensome “consensus,” he said.
Then, unexpectedly, at the KMT’s national congress on Sunday last week, a report was presented to attendees that contained the awkward phrase: The party would “continue cross-strait relations on the basis of the Republic of China [ROC] Constitution’s 1992 consensus.”
With just a few mangled phrases, Chiang undid all of his work to rebrand the party and awakened the ghost of the “1992 consensus.”
It is as if the “consensus” holds a mysterious spell over the KMT. Why is it incapable of jettisoning this shibboleth? Why does it appear intent on taking it to its grave?
The answer is in a series of articles on former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) that the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun published, titled “Lee Teng-hui: A Secret Record.”
The articles quote Lee as saying that “there never was a 1992 consensus.”
Then-Straits Exchange Foundation chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), who headed Taiwan’s delegation to the cross-strait meeting in 1992, said in his memoirs that no consensus had been reached and that the two sides shared nothing in common.
Furthermore, in 2006, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) admitted that he fabricated the “1992 consensus” in 2000.
Despite being nothing more than a mirage, the “1992 consensus” has trapped the KMT in its voodoo magic.
The KMT still hopes that it will hypnotize the public into believing in the magic of the “consensus” and its “one China, each side with its own interpretation” appendage.
During the meeting in 2015 between then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the two should at least have discussed these phrases in a few sentences. Did they?
Given that Ma did not even use his official title — president of the ROC — how could he discuss the “1992 consensus” and “one China, each side with its own interpretation”?
Taiwanese saw how Xi during the meeting refused to call Ma “president,” not to mention “President Ma of the Republic of China,” instead casually referring to “Mr Ma,” as if he were a man who had just walked in off the street.
Still, Ma just grinned into the cameras like a Cheshire cat without complaining. It became obvious that in China’s book, there is no such thing as the ROC, so how could there be any talk of “each side with its own interpretation”?
In a New Year’s speech on Jan. 2 last year, Xi went even further, unilaterally declaring that the “1992 consensus” simply meant “one China” and that there was no room anyone having their own interpretation, thus equating the “1992 consensus” to “one country, two systems.”
A little over a year since that speech, the situation in Hong Kong shows that “one country, two systems” actually means “one country, one system.”
Some consensus.
This rude slap was not enough to awaken the KMT from the spell of the “1992 consensus.”
Instead it increased the confusion in the party and tied itself in so many knots to convince voters and justify its dogged adherence that it no longer knows which way is up and which way is down.
In Xi’s eyes the ROC does not exist and the KMT is still going on about the ROC Constitution and the “1992 consensus” being based on it.
The KMT’s semantic contortions are complete gobbledygook and its magic charm no longer has any effect.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired associate professor at National Hsinchu University of Education.
Translated by Edward Jones
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In December 1937, Japanese troops captured Nanjing and unleashed one of the darkest chapters of the 20th century. Over six weeks, hundreds of thousands were slaughtered and women were raped on a scale that still defies comprehension. Across Asia, the Japanese occupation left deep scars. Singapore, Malaya, the Philippines and much of China endured terror, forced labor and massacres. My own grandfather was tortured by the Japanese in Singapore. His wife, traumatized beyond recovery, lived the rest of her life in silence and breakdown. These stories are real, not abstract history. Here is the irony: Mao Zedong (毛澤東) himself once told visiting
When I reminded my 83-year-old mother on Wednesday that it was the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, she replied: “Yes, it was the day when my family was broken.” That answer captures the paradox of modern China. To most Chinese in mainland China, Oct. 1 is a day of pride — a celebration of national strength, prosperity and global stature. However, on a deeper level, it is also a reminder to many of the families shattered, the freedoms extinguished and the lives sacrificed on the road here. Seventy-six years ago, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東)
RSS