The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not abandoned the idea of peace across the Taiwan Strait, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday, after former Changhua County commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said that the party’s leadership had discarded the “foundation for cross-strait peace.”
The KMT’s leadership “threw away the foundation for cross-strait peace, the 1992 consensus,” Cho said in a five-minute video posted online on Sunday, in which he announced his intent to run for party chairperson in the upcoming election.
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.
Photo: Chiu Shu-yu, Taipei Times
Asked yesterday for comment on the sidelines of donating medical supplies to Tucheng Hospital in New Taipei City, Chiang said that some of what Cho expressed on Sunday coincided with what he had presented at the KMT National Congress in September last year.
Chiang said that he made the KMT’s discourse on cross-strait relations “very clear” at the congress.
The party advocates “a 1992 consensus based on the Constitution of the Republic of China,” Chiang added.
“On the one hand, we emphasize the subjectivity of the Republic of China,” he said. “On the other, we emphasize the importance of the 1992 consensus, of having one China with different interpretations (一中各表) and of seeking common ground while reserving differences (求同存異).”
“There is no such thing as the party abandoning the idea of cross-strait peace,” Chiang said.
Regarding plans for this year’s KMT chairperson election, Chiang said the party’s Central Standing Committee decided to discuss a timeline for the election once the Central Epidemic Command Center lowered the nationwide COVID-19 alert from level 3 to level 2.
A nationwide level 3 pandemic alert issued on May 19 is scheduled to continue through July 26.
Elections for the KMT chairperson and delegates to the party’s 21st national congress had been scheduled to take place on Saturday next week.
At a May 26 meeting, the KMT Central Standing Committee postponed the elections given the COVID-19 situation.
Cho’s announcement made him the fourth candidate to run for KMT chairperson.
On Feb. 20, Chiang announced that he would seek to be re-elected. He won the KMT’s chairperson by-election on March 7 last year and was sworn in two days later.
Additional reporting by CNA
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