New Taiwan Consensus About to Emerge

  New Taiwan Consensus About to Emerge

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 10, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

After the elections, the "Han Kuo-yu effect" keeps on fermenting; the "1992 Consensus," which has long been dormant, has once again become the key phrase of the talk of the town. The post-electoral situation is very clear; most voters are not happy to see the continuous partisan ideological squabbling, hoping that the two sides of the Strait will break through the status quo of cold confrontation.

Besides Han Kuo-yu’s Kaohsiung City, Taichung City, New Taipei City, Kinmen, Hualien, Taitung and other counties have set up, one by one "cross-Strait exchanges committees" hoping to engage in further exchanges with the Mainland, establishing mechanisms similar to the Taipei-Shanghai Twin Cities Forum. Cheng Wen-tsan, Taoyuan City Mayor, of the Green camp, indicated that he would be happy to see win cities forums, and would not rule out exchanges with the Mainland. Huang Wei-cher, mayor-elect of Tainan City, also of the Green camp, indicated that he would go to the Mainland to promote sales of agricultural products as well, hoping for cross-Strait harmony and striving for the economy.

With the Han Kuo-yu vogue sweeping across all of Taiwan, the cross-Strait city-to-city exchanges once again see the arrival of precious opportunities. While the Mainland insists that cross-Strait exchanges cannot be without a shared foundation, and the Tsai government continues to boycott the “1992 Consensus,” the cross-Strait city-to-city exchanges in the future ought not be limited to the phrase "1992 Consensus," having a political nature; how about seeking reference from the Shanghai-Taipei Twin Cities Forum, directly appeal to the cultural-ethical narrative of "the two sides of the Strait are like family" or "the two sides of the Strait are both Chinese."

Recently, even heads of cities and counties under Green camp rule have all proclaimed that the two sides of the Strait will not engage in confrontation, nor provocation, and that they want harmony and stability, jointly striving for the economy. Thus, we can see that the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations is precisely the mainstream vox populi in Taiwan, longing for a better life is the shared inner voice of Taiwan’s proletariat.

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