By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been “naive” in believing China would accept “one China, with each side having its own interpretation” under the so-called “1992 consensus,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
China has “never compromised” on its explanation of the “1992 consensus” — that both sides of the Taiwan Strait recognize the “one China” principle, she said.
According to a leaked US cable dated Dec. 24, 2008, Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅) told then-US ambassador to China Clark Randt that the “1992 consensus” “means that both sides essentially accept there is only one China.”
Wang added that in order “to solve [Taiwan’s] international space problem, the two sides must stick to the one China framework, because the improvement in cross-strait relations thus far has been on the basis of the one China principle.”
Wang’s comment “matches our understanding of the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ and the DPP’s understanding of China’s position, which has never changed,” Tsai said.
“The leaked cables prove that the DPP’s criticism of Ma in the past has been correct,” DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) told a press conference yesterday morning.
The cables reaffirmed that the “1992 consensus” was invented by former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) and that it has been nothing but a fabrication by the Ma administration and Beijing to cheat Taiwanese, she said.
“I don’t know now how Ma can patch up this lie,” she added.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) condemned Ma, saying the president had accepted the so-called consensus and began negotiations with China when he already knew that China had never accepted his version of the consensus.
“The 1992 consensus is Ma’s tool to facilitate eventual unification,” Tsai Huang-liang said.
Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year jail term for corruption and money laundering, wrote in an article published yesterday that he “almost mistakenly believed that there was a consensus on ‘one China, different interpretations’” after he was inaugurated in 2000.
After a thorough review, Chen wrote, his administration reaffirmed that the consensus never existed and publicly denied the existence of such a consensus at a press conference hosted by then-Mainland Affairs Council chairperson Tsai Ing-wen on Aug. 23, 2000.