20100324 Time has come for ‘consensus of 1996’

Time has come for ‘consensus of 1996’

By Jerome Keating
Wednesday, Mar 24, 2010, Page 8

Although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) regularly revels in this fabrication, the time has come for all Taiwanese to dump the hypocrisy of the “1992 consensus.” The so-called consensus of 1992 is a fraud formulated by former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起).

Allegedly, the purpose was to facilitate cross-strait talks, and even then the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never publicly agreed to it. Further, the talks that were being “facilitated” at that time were not nation-to-nation talks, but rather party-to-party talks between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). What was really happening was that both parties were trying to find a way to maintain their respective claims that there was only “one China” which they represented. That idea must be scrapped.

The real consensus that Taiwanese should acknowledge is what came four years later when the nation took part in Taiwan’s first presidential election of the people, by the people and for the people. This is the gist of the recent effort by former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and other politicians in establishing the 1996 Consensus Promotion Alliance. This alliance spells out and specifies agreement of all parties in Taiwan as to the basis of Taiwan’s nationhood and hence its national identity.

Taiwan does have an identity problem. The pan-blue and pan-green parties have conflicting interpretations of what its identity is. Many Taiwanese are themselves struggling with the idea of what it means to be Taiwanese. As they struggle, however, one thing they can and should agree on is that Taiwan is a democratic nation. It is a democratic nation in which the people not only can, but also have been consistently and freely electing their president since 1996. Political candidates who cannot accept the reality of this statement should be drummed out of office and rejected by the people.

Taiwanese must realize that for too long outsiders have been imposing their thoughts on Taiwan. The US in its official policy claims that the status of Taiwan is “undetermined.” Undetermined by whom? The people of Taiwan already do determine their president and their future. The PRC, of course, also wants to get in on the act and claims it has the right to determine Taiwan’s future. These are the issues — the US does not want to admit to it, and the PRC wants to take it away.

One can be blue, one can be green, and one can have his or her own ideas on where the nation should go. However, everyone — yes, everyone — should agree that whatever direction and path the nation chooses, that choice is the sole responsibility and right of the Taiwanese people and no one else. To believe otherwise would amount to treason.

That may sound harsh, but it is the line that should and must be drawn and all politicians should be held accountable to it. It is even stronger than the idea that politicians should not hold dual citizenship. It may seem strange that Taiwanese have never directly formulated the belief in a “1996 consensus” before, for the idea is so simple and basic to any democratic country’s existence. Regardless, Taiwanese should wait no longer; this is an idea whose time and need for expression has come.

Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.