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
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