Taiwan citizens should be grateful to Hsinchu City Mayor Lin Cheng-tse for ripping up the fig leaf of "one China with separate expressions" employed by President and ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou to mask the reality behind the touted "reconciliation" with the authoritarian People's Republic of China.
The KMT mayor exposed the true nature of Ma's reconciliation policy during a ceremony held Sunday at Houyanshan on Putian Island in China's Fujian Province to unveil a huge stone plaque with large red characters declaring "The Closest Distance Between the Motherland Mainland and Taiwan Island 68 Nautical Miles."
Lin uttered not one word of protest over the wording of the slogan, which linked both the "mainland" and "Taiwan Island" as parts of the "Motherland" in his remarks at the ceremony and joined a commemorative photographed together with PRC officials.
Through his actions, Lin confirmed that the so-called "Consensus of 1992," allegedly reached between KMT and Chinese Communist Party representatives in Hong Kong in October 1992, is not "one China with separate expressions" as claimed by Ma but actually "common expressions of one China."
After returning to Taiwan, Lin denied that he intended to endorse Beijing's "one China principle," but such protests are clearly meaningless.
After all, through China's state propaganda media, billions of Chinese citizens and untold numbers of persons in Asia and the world community will see Lin's affirmation through action that the PRC is "the Motherland" for him and the Taiwan government, while his protest that "our motherland is the Republic of China" was restricted to the consumption of viewers and readers in Taiwan.
Ma has long touted the acceptance of the so-called (and probably fictional) "Consensus of 1992" of "one China with separate expressions" as the key to avoiding conflict in the Taiwan Strait and opening the door for cross-strait consultations and economic cooperation with "dignity."
However, even before Ma took office on May 20, 2008, then KMT vice president-elect Vincent Siew attended the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan Island where he failed to uphold "dignity" and was subjected to denigrating actions by his CCP hosts, including a press release that said that Siew had agreed to cross-strait economic interaction "under the one China principle" which posits that Taiwan is part of the PRC.
Any signs of "separate expression" were also absent from visits by KMT honorary chairman and former vice president Lien Chan or then KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung and three sets of "negotiations" between Taipei's Strait Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Ping-kun and Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin in Beijing and Nanjing and even in Taipei, where Taiwan police blocked the display of the ROC flag in Taiwan's own capital last November.
Lin's actions are only the most explicit demonstration of the fact that the "Consensus of 1992" and "one China with separate expressions" are nothing more than slogans used to deceive the Taiwan people.
'ROC' only in Taiwan
After all, if "one China with separate expressions" had any genuine significance, Siew, Lien, Wu, Chiang and Lin would have been able to freely use the terms "Republic of China" or "Taiwan" within PRC territory or in international forums.
For its part, the Beijing government has declared its acceptance of the "Consensus of 1992" but has rigorously rejected any possibility of "separate expressions" of "one China" besides "the People's Republic of China."
Ironically, the only Taiwan government official who has upheld "one China with separate expressions" while in the PRC was Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party.
Chen subtly highlighted Taiwan's independence by publically referring to "President Ma Ying - jeou of our central government" during a meeting with Beijing City Mayor Guo Jinlong in May and as "Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou" in the opening ceremony of the 2009 World Games in her city in July, during which a panoply of Taiwan flags, including the ROC banner, were displayed.
The KMT's deceitful use of the "one China with separate expressions" slogan appears to Taiwan residents to maintain room for use of both the "Republic of China" moniker together with the "People's Republic of China" and thus gives the impression of upholding "two governments."
However, Lin's actions and the record of the past 18 months has proven "beyond reasonable doubt" that Beijing licenses use of the "ROC" for use only in Taiwan and that elsewhere the "Consensus of 1992" signifies the tacit acceptance by the KMT government that Taiwan is part of PRC territory.
If the Taiwan people fail to dare to vigorously and publically reject the "Consensus of 1992" in word and deed and affirm Taiwan's separate and equal identity within and outside of Taiwan, international society will be persuaded by scenes such as Lin Cheng-tse's affirmation of the "Motherland" and the Chiang-Chen embrace in Nanjing in April that the Taiwan people do not oppose becoming part of the PRC and accept Beijing's suzerainty.
Source: Taiwan News - Editorial 2009/11/12
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