Former Presidential Office secretary-general Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) on Saturday rejected former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had been a proponent of Beijing’s “one China” principle.
Lee, who served as president from 1988 to 2000, died in Taipei on Thursday last week.
After visiting the Taipei Guest House on Saturday to pay his respects to Lee, Ma posted on Facebook that “28 years ago on this day” Lee hosted a session of the now-defunct National Unification Council, during which he passed a resolution on the “one China” principle.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kun, Taipei Times
That resolution became the basis of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) “one China, with different interpretations” framework that formed the foundation of the “1992 consensus,” Ma said.
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 the Chinese government that both sides of the Strait acknowledge there is “one China,” with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means.
In his post, Ma had called upon the public to “remember the historical importance of this resolution,” which he said both sides of the Taiwan Strait persistently promoted.
In August 1992, the year the resolution was passed, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits worked out a consensus on what “one China” means, and it was on the basis of that agreement that cross-strait relations developed prosperously through Ma’s presidency from 2008 to 2016, Ma said.
Huang said that Ma was “immoral and insincere for distorting history at a time like this.”
Huang — who in 1992 was Ma’s superior, serving as Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) minister, while Ma was a deputy minister — said the meeting in Hong Kong where Ma said the “1992 consensus” was reached was a routine encounter to review documents.
“How could there possibly have been discussions on national sovereignty issues at that meeting?” Huang said.
Prior to the meeting, Beijing had repeatedly insisted that Taiwan accept its “one China” principle, which Taiwanese officials up to that point had refused to do, Huang said, adding that during that meeting, no consensus was reached on any issue.
During a press conference following the meeting, Ma, who was also the MAC spokesman, even said the meeting was a failure, Huang said.
“How can Ma now say there was a ‘1992 consensus’?” he added.
Lee’s main purpose in establishing the National Unification Council was to discuss Taiwan’s internal policies related to unification, Huang said, adding that the body would not have passed any resolutions on the issue, nor would it have met with Chinese officials to discuss it.
Lee and former SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) had both previously denied there was a “1992 consensus,” Huang said.
Ma choosing to assert otherwise after Lee passed away was “immoral,” he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods