Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Chairman Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑) earlier this month led a delegation to Beijing to attend a think tank forum between the KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After returning to Taiwan, Hsiao spoke at length about “accumulating mutual trust” and letting matters “fall into place,” portraying the forum as a series of discussions focused on cooperation in tourism, renewable energy, disaster prevention, emerging industries, health and medicine, and artificial intelligence (AI).
However, when the entire dialogue presupposes the so-called “1992 consensus — the idea that there is only “one China,” with each side of the Taiwan Strait having its own interpretation of what that means — and opposition to Taiwanese independence as its political premise, such exchanges lose any space for neutrality, instead becoming highly politicized institutional operations. Given that CCP authorities have publicly denied the existence of the Republic of China and have even threatened to “punish independence,” the KMT-CCP forum far exceeded the bounds of academic exchange, instead becoming part of a specific political agenda.
The issue is not in the cross-strait exchanges themselves, but whether such exchanges form a predictable political link with legislative behavior. Past experience has repeatedly caused alarm — after a delegation of KMT officials led by party caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) returned from their visit to China in April 2024, the Legislative Yuan promptly advanced a series of highly controversial amendments, most notably measures aimed at expanding legislative oversight, some of which were later declared unconstitutional.
Now, the opposition is, on one hand, cutting key items from the special defense budget, blocking policies aimed at building “non-red” supply chains and weakening Taiwan-US cooperation. On the other hand, it has put forward 15 “joint proposals” with Beijing following the KMT-CCP forum. Society is well within its rights to reasonably question whether this is merely a prelude to a broader policy shift.
From a legal and institutional perspective, the true risk lies not in the rhetoric of the forum, but in how its outcomes are subsequently institutionalized and translated into actual policy.
Whether it involves relaxing restrictions on cross-strait personnel exchanges, promoting industrial and AI cooperation, or establishing mechanisms for collaboration in healthcare and disaster prevention, once such measures are implemented through legislative amendments, budget allocations or administrative deregulation, unavoidable questions arise — do such measures conflict with the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), national security review mechanisms or the regulatory framework?
Yet these issues — central to the bottom line of the rule of law — were deliberately sidestepped at the KMT-CCP forum, only to potentially resurface in the Legislative Yuan as operational institutional realities.
What is worth even greater attention is that Beijing never makes unconditional investments.
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning’s (王滬寧) reception was not a matter of diplomatic courtesy, but an evaluation of political performance. When the CCP publicly praises the opposition’s obstruction of the special defense budget, Taiwanese cannot focus solely on gestures framed as “goodwill toward people’s livelihoods” while overlooking the potential institutional impact.
Exchange should be allowed, but only if clear boundaries are in place. Dialogue can take place, but the rule of law and national security cannot be treated as bargaining chips.
In the face of carefully crafted “joint proposals,” what is most needed at this moment is an institutional inquiry: Would these commitments ultimately be translated into workable policies in the Legislative Yuan?
Yeh Yu-cheng is a secretary at the Pingtung County Public Health Bureau.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS