Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan’s bizarre politics get weirder

Lu Shih-hsiang 盧世祥

The debate over the so-called “1992 consensus” is becoming increasingly bizarre, giving us a picture of the perpetual oddity we call Taiwanese politics, which always gets a tad more odd during elections.

Since a controversy has arisen about the validity of the so-called “1992 consensus,” you would expect those saying that it is indeed valid to provide some sort of evidence to back up their claims. All they have to do is show us a document or some sort of proof that verifies the existence of such a consensus. However, in a completely preposterous way, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his followers trumpet on with the utmost certainty about its validity, yet fail to provide any concrete evidence whatsoever.

US cable reignites Ma green card furor

Taipei Times

The controversy over President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) US green card status flared up again after recent cables released by WikiLeaks ignited a fresh round of accusations between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday.

The cables, dated between February and June 2008, recently released by WikiLeaks showed that KMT heavyweights had visited the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and asked the US to clearly explain Ma’s green card status before the 2008 presidential election.

After Ma defeated DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who had accused Ma of still holding a green card, in the 2008 presidential election, KMT politicians expressed their appreciation for the US’ impartiality toward the “dirty tricks” that the DPP had staged.

UN told to drop ‘Taiwan is part of China’: cable

Taipei Times

A number of Western governments, with the US in the lead, protested to the UN in 2007 to force the global body and its secretary-general to stop using the reference “Taiwan is a part of China,” a cable recently released by WikiLeaks shows.

The confidential cable, sent by the US’ UN mission in New York in August 2007, said that after returning from a trip abroad, UN -Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had met then-US ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad to discuss a range of issues, including “UN language on the status of Taiwan.”

“Ban said he realized he had gone too far in his recent public statements, and confirmed that the UN would no longer use the phrase ‘Taiwan is a part of China,’” said the cable, which was sent to the US Department of State and various US embassies worldwide.

‘Three noes’ destroying the so-called ‘status quo’

Paul Lin 林保華

As Typhoon Nanmadol threatened Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had other things on his mind, such as what to do about Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). He thought invoking the so-called “1992 consensus” could silence Tsai and the Taiwanese who oppose unification. Apart from banging on about how much he was engaged with the preparations for Nanmadol’s landfall — ignoring the more considerable contributions of others — he called on Tsai to comment on his “three noes” policy: “no unification, no independence and no use of force.”

Tsai need not bother answer his questions, because I can answer them for her. Ma’s “three noes” threaten the “status quo.” Not only do they fail to maintain it, they conspire to obliterate it and perhaps are already doing so.

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