Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) remarks during her meeting with President Xi Jinping (習近平) were shameful and a chilling “letter of surrender,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said on social media today.
Both sides of the Strait should plan and build institutionalized and sustainable mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation based on the “1992 consensus” to make peaceful development across the Strait irreversible, Cheng said in Beijing today.
Fan asked if the “institution” Cheng was referring to was “one country, two systems,” as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views the “1992 consensus” as “one country, two systems.”
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
The so-called “1992 consensus,” a term former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) in 2006 admitted making up in 2000, refers to a tacit understanding between the KMT and CCP that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
Cheng also expressed the hope that through the efforts of the KMT and CCP, the Taiwan Strait would no longer be a focal point of potential conflict and would not become a "chessboard for outside forces to intervene in."
Cheng is surrendering by abandoning her allies, as “outside forces” in Beijing’s discourse refers to the US and Japan, Fan said.
As the chair of Taiwan’s main opposition party, publicly insulting Taiwan’s democratic allies is tantamount to declaring that Taiwan does not need international support, undermining the nation’s security, she said.
Cheng did not mention the Republic of China (Taiwan’s official name) during her remarks, instead emphasizing that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese and share an ancestral history, while discussing the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Fan said.
This aligns with Beijing’s framing of cross-strait issues as an internal Chinese affair, using vague terms to obscure the CCP’s intent toward Taiwan, she said.
If Taiwan’s sovereignty cannot be firmly upheld, meetings like today’s between the KMT and CPP could harm Taiwan, DPP Secretary-General Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said.
Xi should be clearly told that Taiwan is an independent country and not subordinate to China, Hsu said, calling on Chinese military aircraft and naval vessels to stop harassing Taiwan.
The general and defense budgets should be passed as quickly as possible and the KMT’s obstruction of them raises the question of whether it is a kind of “gift” to Xi, he said.
Such unnecessary suspicions should not be allowed to arise among people in Taiwan, he added.
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