Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Friday said that if elected president, he would launch negotiations between the government and opposition parties to coin a new term to replace the so-called “1992 consensus.”
“People in the KMT and those in the pan-blue and pan-green camps are in disagreement over the term’s definition,” Wang said.
“The DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] claims that it is synonymous with ‘one country, two systems,’ which is likely not convincing,” he said.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The KMT and China each have their own interpretation of the term, with some KMT members advocating “one China, different interpretations” and Beijing touting “one China, same interpretation.”
“Any definition that involves ‘interpretation’ is not the answer,” said Wang, who announced his bid to run for president in March.
With the term sparking divisions domestically and across the Taiwan Strait, he would hold negotiations between the ruling party and opposition parties to discuss whether to replace the “consensus” with a new term, while leaving open the option to “keep using it,” he said.
Meanwhile, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that “one China” could only mean the Republic of China (ROC).
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), another KMT presidential hopeful, during an interview with CommonWealth Magazine said that he would never only say “1992 consensus,” but rather “1992 consensus and ‘one China, different interpretations.’”
“For the Zhonghua minzu [ethnic Chinese, 中華民族], there is one ROC and one People’s Republic of China,” Gou said.
Ma said that he took Gou to mean that the “one China” in “one China, different interpretations” refers to the ROC.
Chu, who in December last year announced that he would join the KMT’s presidential primary, urged all KMT members to heed the “consensus” as defined in the party’s “peace platform” as well as its “historical context.”
It is the KMT’s unwavering stance that “one China” refers to the ROC, he said.
Commenting on Gou’s remarks, National Taiwan Normal University professor of political science Fan Shih-ping (范世平) said that Gou’s latest cross-strait stance was not different from that espoused in the DPP’s Resolution on Taiwan’s Future or the “special state-to-state relationship” theory of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
China’s silence on Gou’s remarks could mean one of two things, he said.
One, it has been too preoccupied to respond, Fan said.
Two — which would be “alarming” — Gou has gained Beijing’s consent before making the remark, which would mean that the two sides had conspired together to formulate a plot to win the support of swing voters or borderline DPP supporters, he said.
The “1992 consensus — ” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted that he made up in 2000 — refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and the Chinese government that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Additional reporting by Hsiao Fang-chi
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
‘CROWN JEWEL’: Washington ‘can delay and deter’ Chinese President Xi Jinping’s plans for Taiwan, but it is ‘a very delicate situation there,’ the secretary of state said US President Donald Trump is opposed to any change to Taiwan’s “status quo” by force or extortion and would maintain that policy, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Hugh Hewitt Show host on Wednesday. The US’ policy is to maintain Taiwan’s “status quo” and to oppose any changes in the situation by force or extortion, Rubio said. Hewitt asked Rubio about the significance of Trump earlier this month speaking with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) at the White House, a meeting that Hewitt described as a “big deal.” Asked whether the meeting was an indication of the
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
RSS