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Falling deeper into ‘consensus’ trap
Thursday, Aug 12, 2010, Page 8
On July 30, Chinese defense ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng
(耿雁生) said that everything is discussable under the “one China” principle,
including the removal of ballistic missiles that China has pointed at Taiwan.
China has deployed almost 2,000 missiles targeting Taiwan and this is only part
of its military threat against the nation. China’s ultimate goal is to annex
Taiwan, making the island part of its territory. Even if the missiles are
removed, China’s military threat is still enormous. In proposing to remove the
missiles on condition that Taipei accepts the “one China” principle, Beijing is
employing both political and military blackmail. If China got its way on this,
it would get into the habit of blackmailing and keep trying to coerce Taiwan in
the future.
One of China’s negotiating skills is to blackmail others while pretending to do
them favors. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) once said that
everything was negotiable on the premise of “one China.” He may have sounded
lenient on the surface, but he was really playing a deceitful trick. Nothing is
negotiable if Taiwan accepts the “one China” principle. Whatever Taiwan and
China negotiate, they would most likely reach Beijing’s presumption in the end.
The so-called “1992 consensus,” namely that there is only “one China,” with each
side having its own interpretation of what that means, appears to leave room for
each side’s “respective interpretation” at a superficial level. However, such an
interpretation is limited by the “one China” principle, not to mention that the
international community does not really care about Taiwan’s own interpretation.
Similarly, during the former Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) rule, Chinese
President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said that everything was discussable if Taiwan
acknowledged the “consensus,” but the DPP government strongly denied that such a
consensus ever existed.
Geng’s latest remarks are nothing new, so it is hard to understand why some of
Taiwan’s pro-unification media were so overjoyed to hear them. Hu already issued
a six-point statement on cross-strait relations at the end of 2008. The last of
his six points called on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to officially end
their state of hostility and reach a peace agreement through talks based on the
“one China” principle. Thus, Taipei would have to accept the principle first to
reach a peace agreement.
For Taiwan, this amounts to waving the white flag. What would Taiwanese gain
from “peace through surrender?” Besides, the current situation remains one in
which Beijing is hostile to Taiwan and wants to annex it, while Taiwan is not
hostile to China and has no intention of invading it. China’s proposal is to end
its hostility toward Taiwan on condition that the latter surrenders first. What
kind of equal negotiation is this?
In the past, Jiang suggested to former US president George W. Bush that he could
cancel US arms sales to Taiwan in exchange for China’s removal of some of its
missiles pointed at Taiwan. However, missiles are just part of China’s military
threat against Taiwan, while US arms sales are crucial to Taiwan’s defense and
survival. Given this imbalance, Washington did not even discuss it with Beijing.
Obviously, what China should have done was to remove the missiles targeting
Taiwan unconditionally. Linking the removal of missiles to the cancellation of
US arms sales and Taiwan’s acceptance of the “one China” principle is akin to a
gangster kidnapping someone for ransom.
Pitifully, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration dares not insist that
China remove its missiles unconditionally. On the contrary, in the shadow of
China’s military threat, Ma’s administration has resurrected the “1992
consensus” and resumed talks with Beijing to curry favor with it.
Over the past two years, China has continued adding to the number of missiles it
has pointed at Taiwan, even while playing the trick of “using business to
promote unification.” If Ma, as head of state, truly considered Taiwan his first
priority, he would do all in his power to resist such trickery. Unfortunately,
he has instead made concessions all throughout. He has revived the dubious “1992
consensus,” put up with Chinese envoys greeting him with “mister” instead of
“president,” defined Taiwan as a part of China, participated willingly in
international events under the name “Chinese Taipei” and signed the Economic
Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between the so-called “Taiwan and
mainland areas.”
Step by step, this administration is walking toward China’s goal. As the Chinese
missiles are all still there, Ma has only said that the deployment seems
“discordant” now that Taiwan and China have signed the ECFA, while avoiding
comment on how illusory the “peaceful atmosphere” across the Strait really is.
Even more ridiculous, the Ma administration recently called on Beijing to take
the initiative by removing the missiles on the basis of the “1992 consensus.”
We need to understand that the so-called “consensus” is nothing but a cover for
the “one China” principle. For the Taiwanese government, acknowledging the
consensus is also acknowledging the principle, so China should remove the
missiles soon. However, the Chinese government will surely want more and it will
continue blackmailing the Ma administration until it swallows Taiwan’s
sovereignty entirely.
China is fully aware of Ma’s obsession with the idea that “Taiwan should not
provoke China” and that he will not insist on the unconditional removal of its
missiles. That being the case, China is more than happy to take the false
missile issue as a trump card, while compelling Ma to shed more of his
bargaining chips.
This is exactly how the situation has been developing in recent years. Voters
were deceived into choosing the wrong person in the 2008 presidential election
and the result is that Taiwan’s future is now uncertain. Everyone in Taiwan
should remember this painful lesson.
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