Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

While local media outlets over the past week focused on the controversial bill to reform the premium scale of the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme in the hopes of rescuing the debt-ridden system, few noticed a number of proposals at the very bottom of the legislature’s agenda — proposals that might have significant symbolic meaning.

Out of the 57 proposals that should have been reviewed over the past week, two were proposed to voice support for human rights, particularly those of jailed Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), who won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and other dissidents in China.

If one thing can be said of former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起), it is that the man is infatuated with consensuses.

It was he who, just as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was coming into office after the nation’s first transition of power in 2000, came up with the ambiguous — and dubious — “1992 consensus.” And it was he who, now wearing his academic hat, told a conference on Monday that what the nation needed was a “Taiwan consensus.”