Taiwan’s elected chief of staff, Lai Qingde, has announced his readiness to engage in dialogue with the government of mainland China.
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“I do not rule out dialogue with China based on the principles of mutual respect, benefit and equality,” he said in a video message to participants at the Democratic Summit in Copenhagen.
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Lai Qingde stressed that dialogue between Taipei and Beijing should be carried out without preconditions.
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The PRC authorities have repeatedly indicated that the condition for dialogue with Taiwan is the so-called 1992 Consensus, but Lai Qingde stated that he does not recognize it. He will officially take office as head of the island’s administration on May 20.
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The “1992 Consensus” is an agreement reached at a historic semi-official meeting in Hong Kong between representatives of the Chinese Communist Party and the then-ruling Kuomintang party in Taiwan.
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Consensus implies recognition of the principle of the uniqueness of China, that is, that there is only one Chinese state in the world. However, each party has the right to interpret it in its own way. For Beijing, this is the People’s Republic of China, founded on October 1, 1949, as a result of the civil war in China, and for Taipei, this is the Republic of China, which existed on the mainland until 1949.
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Taiwan has been governed by its own administration since 1949, when the remnants of the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975) fled there after being defeated in the Chinese Civil War. Beijing considers Taiwan one of the provinces of China.
