The legislative caucus of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) reacted angrily Sunday to China’s suspension of official communications with Taiwan, saying that forcing Taiwanese to accept its version of the “1992 Consensus” is tantamount to “blackmailing and coercing”.
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In 1949, the Chinese Nationalist government was defeated by the Communists and had to flee from continental China to Taiwan, where it formed a separate government and declared itself to be the Republic of China.
China said Saturday that communications with Taiwan had been suspended after the island’s new government failed to acknowledge the concept that there is only “one China”.
Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡), secretary-general of the DPP caucus at the Legislative Yuan, was commenting on China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman An Fengshan’s rejection a day earlier of Taiwan’s protest over the handover of Taiwanese fraud suspects caught overseas to the Chinese authorities.
China, which regards Taiwan as wayward province, is deeply suspicious of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who took office last month, suspecting she will push for formal independence.
Taiwan insists citizens deported from third countries should be returned to the island and not to mainland China.
In a brief statement carried by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said that since May 20, when Tsai took office, Taiwan has not affirmed this consensus.
Decision attributed to island’s refusal to recognise “one China” principle as tensions rise between the two governments.
Tsai is now on a nine-day trip, to Panama and Paraguay – her first foreign trip since she became the president – to strengthen diplomatic ties with the Latin American nations.
Taiwan’s political relations with the mainland have become increasingly strained since January’s landslide election victory by Tsai Ing-wen.
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China in March established formal diplomatic ties with the small African nation of Gambia, which had severed relations with Taiwan in 2013. The island hopes to have more communications channels with China, which “will help the interactions and development in relations”, Tung Chen-yuan, a Taiwan cabinet spokesman, said by phone Saturday. That was seen as a move toward abandoning the unspoken diplomatic truce between the sides that lasted for eight years under Tsai’s China-friendly predecessor.
