By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday slammed calls from within the pan-green camp for a “reconsideration” of the so-called “1992 consensus” and for “making a choice between bread and ideology” following the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential election loss, saying that it was possible for the nation to enjoy dignity and strong economy without increased dependence on China.
Calls for the DPP to revisit its China policy as well as its refusal to recognize the so-called “consensus” arose after it lost Saturday’s presidential election by nearly 800,000 votes to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) denounced those calls in a press release yesterday.
According to Huang, Taiwan’s slowing economy is a result of outflows of investment and technology to China, yet politicians and the media have created a false impression that Taiwan could boost its economy only through closer integration with China.
“It is confusing cause and effect,” he said.
Taiwan’s economy enjoyed success during former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) administration, which adopted a “no haste, be patient” policy toward Taiwanese investment in China and did not recognize the “1992 consensus,” Huang said.
Since 2001, he added, Taipei has relaxed its investment policy and created a highly integrated cross-strait economy, but the local economy has not benefited.
“Imagine what our economic situation would be like if Taiwan’s NT$400 billion [US$13.4 billion] investment in China last year had been invested in the Taiwanese market,” he said.
Stability and peace achieved through making concessions does not last long, Huang said.
On the so-called “1992 consensus,” he said the TSU insisted that history could not be distorted and it is obvious that the consensus is an invented term.