Lee Teng-hui: No 1992 Consensus Ever Existed / Presidential Office Rebuts

 Lee Teng-hui: No 1992 Consensus Ever Existed /

Presidential Office Rebuts

  Source: All Taipei Newspapers

May 13, 2016

Former ROC President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) stated yesterday that no “1992 Consensus” ever existed, adding that Ma Ying-jeou was “making a mess” in asking Tsai Ing-wen to “recognize something fictitious, converting the 1992 Consensus into a truth. I don’t think Tsai needs to recognize the 1992 Consensus.”

 Lee made the above remarks during a ceremony at the National Chung Hsing University (中興大學) to receive an honorary doctorate in management.

 Lee Teng-hui went on to say, “Taiwan does not need to accept the one China principle to attend the May 23 World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting. We never said we would adhere to the one China principle in order to attend the WHA meeting. This prerequisite was added at the last moment. It is the Chinese Communist Party’s principle, not ours.”   

 In response, Charles Chen (陳以信), spokesman of the Presidential Office, noted that the National Unification Council (NUC) was established in 1990 by the Lee Teng-hui administration. Chen added that on August 1, 1992, Lee presided over a NUC meeting when a resolution was adopted on “the meaning of one China," stressing that "both sides of the Taiwan Strait insist that there is only one China. However, the two sides of the Strait have different opinions as to the meaning of one China."

 During a November 3, 1992 telephone call and again in an official telegram on November 16, the Beijing-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) said that it "fully respects and accepts" the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) proposal that "each side release an oral statement setting out its own interpretation," meaning that the SEF and the ARATS could have different understandings of the meaning of "one China" and that the two sides could each orally express their different positions. This is the “1992 Consensus – One China, different interpretations,” which was proposed by our side and the Mainland fully respected and accepted Taiwan's suggestion.

Chen went on to say that the resolution of August 1, 1992 was adopted by Lee Teng-hui, and accepted by the Mainland as well. These were undeniable historic facts, stressing that on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, 8 years of peaceful cross-Strait relations had been maintained, becoming the foundation of cross-Strait communication.

 Chen pointed out that Lee’s denial of historical facts could not alter history, adding, “it seems obvious that Lee is afraid to look his past in the eye.” 

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