TAIWAN’S KMT MAY HAVE A SERIOUS ‘1992 CONSENSUS’ PROBLEM
BY DEREK GROSSMAN AND BRANDON ALEXANDER MILLAN
Following another landslide loss in the presidential election this past January, Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party faced a critical decision on cross-Strait policy: whether to keep the “1992 Consensus” in the party platform. The 1992 Consensus is an agreement between the KMT and mainland Chinese authorities on the existence of only “One China,” but the KMT contends it may hold “different interpretations” of One China. After some initial hesitance, the new KMT chairman, Johnny Chiang, announced at the KMT National Congress on September 6 that the party would retain the 1992 Consensus.
From the perspective of maintaining peace and stability, the KMT’s decision is understandable. Beijing has routinely noted that Taiwan’s recognition of the 1992 Consensus is a precondition of positive cross-Strait relations. At his inauguration in May 2008, KMT President Ma Ying-jeou became the first Taiwanese leader to recognize the consensus, paving the way for the inking of the cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement in June 2010, and an informal summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November 2015 in Singapore.
Read the full article at The Diplomat.
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Derek Grossman is a Pacific Council member and a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
Brandon Alexander Millan is a Pacific Council member and a Los Angeles-based corporate strategist and entertainment and tech executive with academic faculty appointments to Pepperdine University and Santa Monica College.
This article was originally published by The Diplomat.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Pacific Council.
