The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday jostled over the so-called “1992 consensus,” with the KMT stressing the consensus does exist, while the DPP contended otherwise.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said the consensus — which the KMT says means “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” — has been the basis of the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and that it would not disappear simply because DPP Chairperson and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) denies its existence.
Meanwhile, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) displayed two letters between the foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, as proof that the consensus exists.
Both sides wrote that they hoped to “resume exchanges and negotiation as soon as possible on the basis of the 1992 consensus.”
In response, DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said the letters were dated May 26, 2008, a week after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) assumed office.
Citing the autobiography of late SEF chairman Koo Chen-foo (辜振甫), who participated in the negotiations in 1992, the DPP said Koo wrote that no consensus was reached in the 1992 meeting. It was former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) who first coined the phrase on April 28, 2000, wrote Koo, who died in 2005.
Almost everyone involved in the meeting in 1992, including Koo and former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), has denied the existence of such a consensus, Chen added, urging Beijing and the KMT to spend time studying Tsai’s China policy instead of dwelling on a phrase which “has not been helpful to cross-strait relations.”
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry