Taiwan presidential race not brought up on China trip: KMT official
ROC Central News Agency
02/20/2023 09:49 PM
Taipei, Feb. 20 (CNA) A top official with the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), who recently concluded a visit to China, said Monday that Taiwan's 2024 presidential election was an internal affair and was not discussed with Chinese officials on the trip.
Speaking at a press conference, KMT Vice Chairman Andrew Hsia (夏立言) issued the denial in response to speculation that the China visit may have been aimed at probing China's preference for the more China-friendly KMT's 2024 presidential nominee.
Hsia said there was no need to discuss the issue with China while he was there because the presidential election is an internal affair for Taiwan, and he stressed that it was never brought up with Chinese officials.
In addition, Hsia said, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) has made it clear that the party's only consideration ahead of the 2024 presidential race is to field a candidate based on nothing else than who is the most likely to win.
During his Feb. 8-17 trip to China, Hsia and his delegation met with Wang Huning (王滬寧), a Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee member, Sung Tao (宋濤), head of Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office, and Taiwanese businessmen in several Chinese cities.
Also at the press conference, Chao Chun-shan (趙春山), a top consultant to the National Policy Foundation, a KMT-affiliated think tank, said Hsia's delegation was aware that China certainly was interested in getting more information on Taiwan's presidential race.
But Chao said the delegation knew that was not part of its mission and never turned to the topic.
Hsia has reiterated that the delegation achieved the trip's three main aims -- looking after the needs of Taiwanese based in China, getting to know the new Chinese officials in charge of Taiwan affairs, and conveying the problems Taiwanese companies are having with Chinese import regulations and suspensions.
Hsia also said he told Chinese officials that the people of Taiwan are very disturbed about current cross-Taiwan Strait tensions.
Tensions across the Taiwan Strait increased following U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August last year, though they had been simmering for several years.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the main agency in Taiwan responsible for handling relations with China, was highly critical of Hsia's trip on Monday, accusing the KMT delegation of bowing to China's insistence that Taiwan is a part of China.
The MAC said the government's policy has been that exchanges and interactions with China should adhere to the principles of equality and dignity and aim to truly promote mutual understanding and should not set any one-sided political preconditions.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party also condemned Hsia for not laying out the "one China with different interpretations" principle underlying the "1992 consensus" during a meeting with Wang Huning in Beijing on Feb. 10.
During the meeting, Wang called on the KMT to work with Beijing to deepen political trust and maintain constructive interaction on the basis of reinforcing the political foundation of the "1992 consensus" and opposing "Taiwan independence," a report by China's Xinhua News Agency said.
The "1992 consensus," as the KMT defines it, refers to a tacit understanding reached in 1992 between the then KMT administration and Beijing that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is only "one China," with each side free to interpret what "China" means.
The formula served as a way to open up communications between the two sides because of its ambiguity and ability for each side to interpret the "consensus" in the way it saw fit.
According to the DPP, however, the CCP sees the "consensus" as confirming that Taiwan is part of China and that the two sides should be "reunified" under a "one country, two systems" model.
The DPP also accused the KMT of conducting exchanges with China under a specific "political basis" preset by the Chinese authorities, ignoring Beijing's continuous infringement of Taiwan's sovereignty and threats to Taiwan's security.
The behavior went against public opinion and sent a wrong message to China and the international community, it said.
The just concluded trip was Hsia's first visit to China this year following a 17-day trip in August last year to gain a first-hand understanding of the needs of Taiwanese communities there.
Hsia's trip last August, made shortly after Beijing launched a high-pressure military and economic campaign in retaliation for Pelosi's visit to Taipei, was considered controversial because of its timing.
Hsia served as MAC chief between February 2015 and May 2016 under the then Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration.
(By Yeh Su-ping, Wang Cheng-chung and Evelyn Kao)
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