Only Han Kuo-yu Can Make Peace No Longer a Luxury

 Only Han Kuo-yu Can Make Peace No Longer a Luxury

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 23, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

As the 2020 presidential election campaign rages on, debates related the status and future of Taiwan and whether economics or sovereignty top the priority between the Blue and Green camps are becoming more and more acute; the Mainland's hostilities toward the Taiwan independence trends of the DPP government is also escalating.  Han Kuo-yu says "2020 is a decisive battle for the survival of the Republic of China," representing the inner voices of quite a few Blue camp voters.

Since Tsai Ing-wen took power three years ago, she has avoided cross-Strait policy based on a cross-Strait political foundation, being destined that there would be no official interactions across the Strait, while she has chosen to embrace the US strategic option one-sidedly, even letting Taiwan become a periphery in China-US confrontation; the tense situation across the Strait will inevitably become even more exacerbated. In order to consolidate her power base, President Tsai began to manipulate cross-Strait issues, incessantly escalating the atmospherics of cross-Strait hostilities. The Tsai government not only threatened and restricted people from going to the Mainland, but it also upped the ante to block Mainland people from engaging in cross-Strait exchanges, casting a shadow over people-to-people exchanges across the Strait.

Han Kuo-yu won the grassroots support of the Blue camp; people enthusiastically expect that he will stand up to lead Taiwan in the search for a brand new cross-Strait approach, which is obviously a serious challenge for Han Kuo-yu. How to find the linkage between the Republic of China and one China across the Strait is a vital issue to test the powers-that-be in Taiwan. During the Ma government in the past, under the ambiguous status of the 1992 Consensus, it could temporarily handle affairs of cross-Strait exchanges; however, after cross-Strait relations entered the deep-water zone, especially because of the Tsai government’s interference and undermining of cross-Strait mutual trust, it is more and more impossible to handle the cross-Strait issue in a fuzzy fashion.

The KMT’s institutional faction could not circumvent the "1992 Consensus, one China, respective interpretations,” nor could it break through the Green camp's vilification of the "1992 Consensus"; only Han Kuo-yu, who came from the grassroots, could have an opportunity to transcend Blue and Green, leading Taiwan toward a new situation. Taiwan should take the initiative to attack, firmly erecting a “Greater China” which embraces both sides of the Strait, searching for a pulpit that belongs to Taiwan, and only by doing so, could the Republic of China have room for survival.

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