Ep 257 | Michael Turton : Taipei Times Columnist Talks About the 1992 Consensus

Oct 13, 2023

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As a follow up to last week’s episode featuring my interview with General Yu, I invited Taipei Times columnist Michael Turton back on to Talking Taiwan to talk about the 1992 Consensus, a term that General Yu mentioned, and in the lead up to Taiwan’s presidential elections in January, the Kuomintang presidential candidate Hou Yi-ih brought it up. In the Related Links section below, we’ll share Michael’s Taipei Times article about the Kuomintang presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih’s support of the 1992 Consensus.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The meeting in Hong Kong in 1992 between the Kuomintang (KMT) and People’s Republic of China (PRC) from which the term 1992 Consensus came

· According to the KMT the two sides agreed that Taiwan was a part of China, but agreed to disagree on what China Taiwan was a part of

· China insists that the One China principle means the People’s Republic of China

· How Ma Ying-jeou, as Minister of Justice said that the People’s Republic of China wouldn’t accept any of the Kuomintang’s rational proposals, but later a president he said there was an agreement

· How the KMT and PRC met throughout the 1990s until 1999 when President Lee Teng-hui described the relationship between Taiwan and China as state-to-state

· The phrase 1992 Consensus doesn’t appear in the PRC until around 1997

· The phrase 1992 Consensus became popular in 2000 around the time of Taiwan’s presidential election, which was a three-way race between Chen Shui-bian, Lien Chan and James Soong

· How the KMT have tried to use the 1992 Consensus to put a cage around the Democratic Progressive Party’s foreign policy

· The 1992 Consensus was an agreement reached between the unelected parties of two authoritarian states

· After martial law was lifted in Taiwan it was replaced by something the KMT passed called the National Security Law, and pro-democracy dissidents were still jailed in Taiwan

· In the 1990s there was a shift in the people of Taiwan’s sense of identity as Taiwanese and a growing confidence in democracy

· How western writers in the 1950s and 60s thought that the KMT would be marginalized as Taiwan democratized

· How the KMT used the 1992 Consensus to cage Chen Shui-bian’s foreign policy

· How the KMT took the Republic of China out of the United Nations when recognition was switched from the Republic of China to the People’s Republic of China as the representative of China

· How the PRC has set rules about the usage of the term “1992 Consensus” in its media

· A MAC (Mainland Affairs Council) poll from October 2022 had a 80% rejecting the 1992 Consensus

· A Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll last year showed that 67% of people reject the 1992 Consensus

· How the term 1992 Consensus disappeared during President Tsai Ing-wen’s administration

· Why the KMT’s presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih brought up the 1992 Consensus

· How it’s important to have balance so that one political party doesn’t too big or corrupt in Taiwan