By Jerome A. Cohen
Given the recent dueling speeches of Xi Jinping and Tsai Ing-wen, readers might be interested in my forthcoming article co-authored with Yu-Jie Chen on the “1992 Consensus” and cross-strait agreements (Our assessment of the “1992 Consensus” can be found in Section I).
This article was completed in December 2018, but the New Year speeches of Xi and Tsai only vindicate our analysis about the divergent views of the “1992 Consensus.” Their speeches, together with the response from the Kuomintang (KMT) rejecting Xi’s proposal of “One Country, Two Systems,” make it ever clearer that there was no genuine “consensus” about sovereignty issues disputed by the PRC and ROC governments. Notably, Xi Jinping’s remarks, linking “One Country, Two System” with the “1992 Consensus,” depart from China’s previous implicit practice not to publicly challenge the KMT’s position of “One China, Respective Interpretations.”