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October 11, 2004
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Double Tenth
In a much heralded speech, Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian used his National Day speech to call for peace talks with China (the full speech is here). These National Day celebrations where a break with the past. Chen proposed moving forward based on the 1992 Hong Kong consensus, which says both sides accept there is only "one China" but differ in their understanding of what that means. He pushed for a code of conduct to control the arms race and prevent future conflict over Taiwan. At the same time, however, he re-iterated support for Taiwan's massive arms purchase from the US. Naturally the opposition KMT were accusing Chen of gimmickery and trying to attract voters in year-end legislative elections in Taiwan. China's natural reaction has been to reject the speech, saying it was "more symbolic than substantial". The official response has been that there is nothing new in Chen's speech and that he is still determined to push forward on Taiwan's independence. Interestingly though, the China Daily quotes a Chinese expert on Taiwan, Li Jiaquan: "His call for bilateral talks suggested even the Taiwanese leader himself has come to realize the significance of improving cross-Straits ties to the stability and economic development of Taiwan...But he has apparently failed to find a correct way of breaking the stalemate in cross-Straits ties by sticking to his pro-independence stance."That's as close to an admission of progress as you're likely to hear from the China side. It's early days but this could signal the first progress in China-Taiwan relations since Chen's election back in 1999. posted by Simon on 10.11.04 at 09:59 AM in the
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It might seem a trivial point, but Chen did *not* talk about the '1992 consensus', but about using the 1992 meetings as a basis for talks. Chen is a lawyer and is careful to say what he means: using the term '1992 consensus' would imply he accepts a version of the 'One China' principle ... which ain't going to happen. I don't expect any sort of positive response from China in the near term ... after all there are elections in Taiwan in December, and the PRC wouldn't want to give the DPP a helping hand by agreeing to talks of any sort before then! posted by: David on 10.12.04 at 07:22 PM [permalink]Fair point, but perhaps I've missed the subtly here. What is the difference between using the 1992 talks as a "basis" or talking about the consensus (admittedly, a misleading word) itself? The basis was clear - that there is one China but that the two parties differ on what that means. That is the only way China will come to the table at all.... posted by: Simon on 10.12.04 at 07:26 PM [permalink]The whole history of the 1992 talks is pretty murky - there was certainly never anything written down about an agreement on 'One China' (and no preconditions about this for the meeting). I've read comments that China wanted a written agreement on this, but in the end the two sides just verbally reported what there position was. Since then the '1992 consensus' has been interpreted to mean that the two sides had a differing opinion about the legitimate rulers of China, but both agreed that Taiwan was part of China. Whether there was any real consensus is open to debate ... So, what did Chen mean? It's possible that Chen could claim that there is no such thing as the '1992 consensus' (Lee Deng Hui who was president back then takes this line), but the two sides managed to talk and make deals despite this. The bottom line is, unfortunately, that China demands acceptance of 'One China' as a precondition to talks. This is something that Chen cannot and would not do. He's being as concilliatory as he can be within this constraint, but I suspect that is nowhere near enough for China. posted by: David on 10.13.04 at 01:02 AM [permalink] |
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