Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) last month published a two-volume memoir in which he called “on the mainland to face up to the existence of the government of the Republic of China [ROC],” adding that “only with such political mutual trust can cross-strait dialogue begin.”
The memoir quickly drew a tide of criticism from Chinese media such as Web sites Straits Express and NetEase, and the Fujian Daily, which described Lien’s emphasis on the ROC as being almost identical to the “two-state theory” proposed by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), and President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) statement that neither side of the Taiwan Strait should be subordinate to the other.
Chinese media said that when Lien made his “icebreaker trip” to China in 2005, he received a grand reception and a warm welcome from Chinese.
They said that during his visit he only mentioned the ROC once, when he said that Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) had led the national revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty and established the first democratic republic in Asia — the ROC.
Now that Lien is too old to travel to China, he has “stopped pretending,” which shows him to be fickle and untrustworthy, they said.
However, Lien visited China several times after 2005 and met with Chinese Communist Party leaders, including then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and his successor, Xi Jinping (習近平). In Taiwan, Lien’s strong advocacy of cross-strait exchanges has led to him being regarded as “pro-China,” so why is he being castigated for calling on China to face up to the ROC’s existence?
It is because China denies that the ROC lives on in Taiwan proper, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, even after the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949. On Jan. 2, 2019, Xi equated the so-called “1992 consensus” with “national unification” and identified the means to achieve it as “one country, two systems,” which would turn Taiwan into a “special administrative region” like Hong Kong and Macau.
When Xi’s ally Song Tao (宋濤) was appointed director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office in December last year, he said that he would draw up a “two systems plan for Taiwan” this year.
That is why China regards Lien’s emphasis on the ROC as “implicit Taiwan independence.” No wonder KMT politicians often talk about the ROC when they are in Taiwan, but never dare to mention it when they are in China.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said at a meeting of the party’s Central Standing Committee on Jan. 18 that “the public as a whole wants to maintain ... the peaceful and stable status quo of the Republic of China.”
Chu and the KMT keep saying the government should restart cross-strait dialogue, but even KMT elder statesman Lien says that if China does not face up to the ROC’s existence, there will be no political trust between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and no hope of launching talks. Lien’s remarks should be a wake-up call for Chu and the KMT.
Fan Shih-ping is a professor in National Taiwan Normal University’s Graduate Institute of Political Science.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
The ongoing Iran conflict is putting Taiwan’s energy fragility on full display — the island of 23 million people, home to the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing, is highly dependent on imported oil and gas, especially that from the Middle East. In 2025, 69.6 percent of Taiwan’s crude oil and 38.7 percent of liquified natural gas were sourced from the Middle East. In the same year, 62 percent of crude oil and 34 percent of LNG to Taiwan went through the Strait of Hormuz. Taiwan’s state-run oil company CPC Corp’s benchmark crude oil price (70 percent Dubai, 30 percent Brent)
RSS