The 1992 Consensus
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Mainland slams Taiwan leader’s speech
By Leng Shumei and Xu Yichao Source:Global Times Published: 2016/10/11 0:23:39 Tsai could drag cross-Straits ties back to confrontation: experts A Chinese mainland spokesperson for cross-Straits affairs slammed Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen's Monday speech, saying it is a dead-end to deny the 1992 Consensus, incite confrontation and cut economic and cultural ties across the Straits. "The two sides across the Straits can only negotiate and interact if Taiwan recognizes the 1992 Consensus and adheres to its core meaning," An Fengshan, spokesman of the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, said in a statement published on the official website on Monday. The 1992 Consensus and the one-China principle it embodies are in accordance with the juridical logic and reality of the cross-Straits relations as well as the cornerstone that ensures the peaceful development of the relations, An said, adding that the "goodwill" of the island's leadership lies in whether it accepts the 1992 Consensus. An reiterated the mainland's sincerity and goodwill in improving cross-Straits ties based on the 1992 Consensus remain unchanged, and will resolutely oppose acts to create "Taiwan independence." Tsai said in the speech that "our pledges will not change, and our goodwill will not change. But we will not bow to pressure, and we will, of course, not revert to the old path of confrontation. This is our fundamental attitude toward maintaining the status quo, and it is based on the collective hope for peace across the Taiwan Straits." She called upon the Chinese mainland authorities to "face up to the reality that the Republic of China exists." Zhang Wensheng, a research fellow at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that the mainland could not feel any "goodwill" without the recognition of the one-China principle. "Tsai's speech has nothing new and she was actually using the idea of 'two countries' to confront the principle," Zhang said. "It is a good time for Tsai to improve cross-Straits ties. However, she missed the chance and will possibly drag the relationship back to confrontation," said Zhang Hua, an assistant research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Tsai's speech to promote the cross-Straits relationship is only another disguise for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to promote "Taiwan independence," said Chang Ya-chung, a political professor at Taiwan University. "Tsai wants to seek a balance between pro-independence groups within the DPP and the Chinese mainland, but she failed and hurt the cross-Straits relations as well as the interests of Taiwan," Zhang Hua said, referring to a sharp decline in the number of tourists from the mainland to Taiwan since Tsai took office and Taiwan's absence at an assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organization held in Montreal, Canada on September 27. Zhang noted that it is impossible for Taiwan to seek support from the US and Japan on the Taiwan question because the two countries would prioritize their cooperation with the mainland on economic and global affairs over Taiwan.
President Tsai and Beijing clash
4 October 2016 Author: Suisheng Zhao, University of Denver The Taiwan Strait has been a hot spot in East Asia since the Chen Shui-bian administration’s push toward independence in the early 2000s. The KMT’s return to power in 2008 started eight years of progress toward peace, but the good old days of stability have been replaced by a stalemate after the DPP returned in 2016. Although the Tsai Ing-wen administration has promised to maintain the status quo and has not provoked Beijing, it has refused to speak on Beijing’s terms. President Tsai Ing-wen feels that it would not only alienate her DPP supporters but also violate some of her own beliefs. Labelling Tsai another trouble-maker, Jin Canrong of Beijing’s Renmin University suggested that Tsai appears softer than Chen Shui-bian but is more determined to pursue Taiwan independence. Zhong Houtang of the Institute of Taiwan Studies at CASS predicted that although Tsai has promised the status quo, she would certainly reverse three aspects of the Ma administration’s mainland policy. First, Tsai would place Taiwan’s foreign relations above cross-strait relations. Second, Tsai would replace Ma’s flexible diplomacy for soft independent diplomacy. Third, Tsai would reverse Ma’s policy of going to the world via the mainland and move closer to the US and Japan. After the electoral victory in January 2016, Tsai promised to maintain the status quo and commit to ‘the constitutional order of the Republic of China’. To moderate traditional DPP policy, she said that she would ‘continue to work for cross-strait peace and stability and the development of cross-strait relations on such “political bases” as the historical fact of the 1992 cross-strait talks between the two bodies, the two sides’ common acknowledgment that they should seek common ground while reserving differences and the constitutional system in force of the Republic of China’. But Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement that ‘peaceful growth’ of relations would be impossible unless Tsai asserted that ‘both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China’. Warning that cross-strait relations had come to an important turning point, Beijing suspected that Tsai’s ‘status quo’ and ‘constitution order’ were redolent of a circuitous ‘two-country’ theory. The 1992 Consensus — in which both sides agreed that there is one China — was important for Beijing as a fig leaf to cover up the differences between the mainland and Taiwan: it creates the impression of an accord. The mainland officials have rarely, if ever, mentioned that the two parties interpret the agreement differently — that ‘one China’ means two different things. Unless Tsai and the DPP accept the 1992 consensus, China would take this as desirous of changing the status quo. In her inauguration speech, Tsai avoided using the word ‘consensus’, but said she respected the ‘historical fact’ that a meeting took place in 1992, during which Taiwan and the mainland sought common ground and tried to set aside differences. Tsai’s statements could be interpreted as an implicit acknowledgement of the 1992 consensus. Tsai endorsed KMT-era laws such as ‘the Act Governing Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area’, that assumes the eventual reunification of the two sides. But Beijing is not satisfied. The Taiwan Affairs Office had a simple rejoinder that Tsai’s speech was an ‘incomplete test answer’. Instead, Beijing voiced that she must clearly state that she acknowledges the 1992 consensus, rather than be ‘ambiguous and evasive’. The Taiwan Affairs Office suspended communications with its Taiwanese counterpart, the Mainland Affairs Council of Executive Yuan, soon after Tsai’s inauguration. The two government agencies were one of the primary channels of official communication in cross-strait talks during the Ma administration. Beijing also halted the longstanding semi-official channel between the Association for Relations across the Taiwan Straits and the Straits Exchange Foundation. By refusing to communicate, Beijing could make it difficult for the Tsai government to fulfill its obligations to its citizens. In her July 2016 interview with the Washington Post, Tsai was asked how she was going to continue to communicate with the mainland in light of its recent move to sever communication ties. Her response was that ‘we have always had diverse channels of communication across the strait. These include not just official communications but also people-to-people contacts’. Li Peng, Deputy Director of Taiwan Research Institute in Xiamen, commented that the so-called ‘people to people contacts’ were not authorised and could not be verified. If Tsai counted them as ‘communication channels’, that meant that she was at the end of her rope and desperate. The suspension of the official communication mechanism has served Beijing’s effort to increase pressure on the Tsai administration. But Beijing’s pressure has not brought Tsai to endorse the 1992 consensus. In her Washington Post interview, Tsai was asked whether she agreed with some academics that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a deadline by which he wanted Tsai to agree to the 1992 Consensus. Tsai said that ‘it isn’t likely that the government of Taiwan will accept a deadline for conditions that are against the will of the people’. The answer was interpreted by mainland media as the first time that Tsai officially refused to accept the 1992 consensus and exposed her pro-independence stance. As the possibility of confrontation across the Taiwan Strait has increased, dealing with the mainland is becoming an increasingly delicate issue for the Tsai administration. Refusing to endorse the 1992 consensus, the Tsai administration has demonstrated that it is not the Chen Shui-bian administration 2.0.
Lawmakers: Global Security Hampered by Taiwan’s Exclusion From Interpol Taiwan pushes for observer status at Interpol assembly amid rising terror concerns (Updated)
BY: Morgan Chalfant October 31, 2016 4:59 am Taiwan is seeking admission to Interpol’s annual assembly, and has the support of a pair of U.S. lawmakers who argue that Taipei’s exclusion from the international police organization compromises global security. Taiwan’s plea to participate in the Interpol assembly next month as an observer, after decades of exclusion from the world’s largest international police organization, comes at a point of increased security concerns over terrorism and particularly the rise of ISIS in Southeast Asia. Taiwan, formally known as the Republic of China, was forced to withdraw from the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, when China joined in 1984. Taiwan has been excluded from Interpol and other international organizations over its refusal to adopt Beijing’s interpretation of the “one China” principle. Reps. Ed Royce (R., Calif.) and Matt Salmon (R., Ariz.) have voiced support for Taiwan’s participation in the assembly, arguing that Taipei’s continued absence from Interpol is undermining the security of the world. “It’s time Taiwan be allowed to obtain Interpol observer status. The continued exclusion of Taiwan—a strong friend and critical partner of the United States—from this important organization is troubling,” Royce, who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement last week. “Global security is needlessly put at risk due to Taiwan’s inability to quickly share and receive the latest information about international crime. Everyone’s security would be improved by Taiwan’s participation in Interpol.” Salmon, who heads the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview Friday that Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol is “absolutely” harming global security. “Given the fact that all nations that are concerned about either drug trafficking or terrorism or human trafficking or the war on terror, it’s all hands on deck when it comes to overcoming these issues, these security risks to our countries,” Salmon said. “It doesn’t make sense at all that a country as developed and capable as Taiwan would have to go to second parties to get information and not on a time-sensitive basis.” Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said this month that Taiwan is a potential target for terrorist groups. The probability of Taiwan being targeted by foreign terror organizations, the bureau said, increased with the release of an ISIS video last year featuring the Republic of China flag in a list of 60 countries contributing to the U.S.-led mission against the group. The threat has also risen as a result of ISIS’s push to expand its reach in Southeast Asia. ISIS has looked to recruit fighters and spur attacks in Southeast Asia as the group has suffered territorial losses in its so-called caliphate, which spans portions of Iraq and Syria. ISIS published a local language paper to recruit jihadists in the region over the summer and released a video declaring the Philippines its territory and asking supporters to travel there. Jihadist groups in the region have also pledged allegiance to ISIS, including Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines, which U.S. advisers are helping local forces fight. Taipei is set to host the 2017 Summer Universiade college games next August, an event that is expected to draw 12,000 participants from 150 countries, and which could be a potential target for terror attacks, according to the National Security Bureau. Interpol facilitates international police cooperation between 190 member countries to fight crime and thwart terror threats. The organization’s general assembly this year will take place in Bali, Indonesia, between Nov. 7 and 10. If Taiwan is not allowed access to the assembly as an observer, it will be another sign of China’s increasing pressure on Taipei’s new government to conform to the “one China” principle. Relations between Taiwan and China have grown frostier in the wake of the election of Taipei’s new leader, Tsai Ing-wen, who refused to affirm the 1992 Consensus in which Taipei and Beijing agreed that they were part of “one China” during her inaugural address in May. Tsai is a member of the Democratic Progressive Party, which favors ultimate and formal separation from China. The State Department has repeatedly said that it supports Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, such as Interpol, that don’t require statehood for membership. According to a law that President Obama signed earlier this year, Secretary of State John Kerry is required to develop a strategy to achieve “observer” status for Taiwan in Interpol. But the Obama administration’s statements supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in these organizations have been no match for China’s efforts to block Taipei’s participation. Taiwan also sought to participate as a guest in a United Nations forum on aviation security that took place one month ago, but was rejected as a result of its new leadership’s failure to embrace the “one China” principle. The United States acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China. “I do believe that the administration could be doing a lot more than it’s doing. My gauge for that is just that it hasn’t happened yet,” Salmon said of Taiwan’s status at the upcoming Interpol meeting. “I think our influence is pretty great when we decide to use it, and I think that the if the United States decided that it was a top priority, I believe it would happen.”
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 The "1992 Consensus" or "Consensus of 1992" is a political term referring to the outcome of a meeting in 1992 between the semi-official representatives of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan.
2 The 1992 Consensus was the outcome of a November 1992 meeting in British Hong Kong between the mainland China-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).
3 The PRC has stated that any group in Taiwan with which it has formal talks must support the 1992 Consensus.