Terry Guo, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician, has called for dialogue between Taiwan and China and criticized the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for not engaging with Beijing.
Guo, founder of the tech giant Foxconn, said in an op-ed for The Washington Post that Taiwan should not abandon the 1992 Consensus reached between Taipei and Beijing. In 1992, Taipei and Beijing both agreed to accept the framework of One China, although the two sides have differing interpretations of what that means.
Guo said that by accepting that framework, the two sides were able to hold talks and reach productive agreements. “But shortly after Tsai Ing-wen became Taiwan’s president in 2016, China cited her refusal to accept Beijing’s interpretation — which includes Taiwan as part of China — as a justification to end the cross-strait talks, and they have not resumed,” he wrote.
Guo is a member of the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), which is more friendly toward the mainland than Tsai’s DPP. Guo criticized the DPP’s candidate for the 2024 presidential election, Vice President Lai Ching-te, for his calls to reduce trade with Beijing and rejection of the One China framework.
By rejecting the One China framework, Guo said the DPP leaders have “greatly aggravated the threat of war, isolated Taiwan internationally, damaged our economy, scared away investors and made Taiwan less secure.” Guo said that he has “long advocated the immediate resumption of direct cross-strait negotiations between Taiwan and China as the only way to truly ease tensions and to preserve Taiwan’s democracy, freedom and rule of law.”
Guo thanked the US for the support over the years but said Taiwan must take responsibility for itself. The US has been increasing support for Taiwan in recent years, angering Beijing and resulting in more Chinese military pressure on the island.
“Taiwan has to take control of its destiny, strengthen deterrence capability and, at the same time, deliver an approach to peace that benefits the region and the globe, but most of all itself,” he wrote. “It can do so only by working with China directly on the basis of the One China framework.”
Earlier this year, Guo announced that he was seeking the nomination to be the KMT’s presidential candidate for the 2024 election, which is scheduled to be held on January 14. But the KMT has since nominated New Taipei Mayor Hou Yu-ih, and Guo has vowed to support his candidacy.
Polling has shown that, for the first time, a third political party in Taiwan is a contender for the presidential election. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which was founded in 2019, has been leading the KMT in recent polls, while the DPP has been the frontrunner. The South China Morning Post described the TPP as “relatively Beijing friendly.”
first time i have heard anyone speaking sense lately
Actually the elections in 2022 demonstrated that voters were concerned with local issues. Although people there like the relative independence, they are not so keen on being a proxy for war:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/26/taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen-quits-as-party-head-after-local-election-losses
Prominent Taiwanese Businessman Calls for Dialogue With China
how far is Taiwan from China?
google = the air travel distance is equal to 1,307 miles.
is Taiwan really that far distant from China?
WTF that is like the distance from L.A. to Denver.
at some point every person involved needs to man-up and say
“i don’t want to fight, i just want to have a disco-party!”
WTF is a disco-party so out of the question?
The separation distance coast to coast is about 100 miles.
Please correct me if I am too simplistic, Mainland China offers scholarships, business opportunities and tourism to people living on Taiwan. Mainland China hopes interpersonal relations become so entangled that people on Taiwan will eventually want a seat at the table governing all China with Taiwan willingly included. What China sees as natural and peaceful the US sees it as a war profit gig for its one percent,
That’s pretty much the conventional wisdom since Deng’s reforms: The PRC, as it became freer and more prosperous, would also seem less threatening, and over time the Taiwanese would more and more see themselves as both culturally and economically simpatico. Then, at some point, there would be an agreement (probably backed by a Taiwanese referendum) under which Taiwan peacefully assumes a place as a PRC province.
Obviously US meddling is aimed at preventing that from happening.
But the PRC also had a tendency to own-goal itself where such convergence is concerned. For one thing, it throws huge temper tantrums any time it notices someone (even a movie actor!) not pretending that Taiwan already is a PRC province, it conditions diplomatic relations with itself on not having diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and domestically in recent years it’s been moving away from Deng’s liberalizations from fear that people will get well-off enough that they’ll have the time and energy to start thinking that maybe things should be run a different way, or even, horror of horrors, not by the single ruling party.
Of course, domestic unrest in China and attempt to move it toward some kind of real representative democracy would probably not be without its dangers — see the Gorbachev/Yeltsin years for comparison. Instead of ending up with a vibrant democracy, they ended up with a resource raid by the west, an empowered gang of oligarchs, and eventually an authoritarian regime again.
The single ruling party has shepherded Chinese people from terrible poverty to moderate prosperity complete with plans for a 2030 moon colony. There are other parties and the future includes millions of young Chinese wild with discovering their own history as well as sixties style rock and roll. Let’s help make sure whatever happens is fun. Hang on to you hat!
“There are other parties”
There’s the Communist Party, and some small local parties that are affiliated with the Communist Party. That’s been the extent of political liberalization so far, and it’s easy to see why the Communist Party would be hesitant to open it up very quickly. They’ve spent nearly three quarters of a century building something that could come apart very quickly if they move too fast. Of course, it could come apart whether they move at all or not, too. They’re trying to thread the needle. And the US is trying to bait them into poking themselves in the eye with that needle.
TPP aka CIA.
Well, here’s hoping peace and good business will prevail and the horrific lessons of Ukraine will be heeded by the Taiwanese people when they vote.
This new party is interesting … they say they are for peace with China, but isn’t that what Zelensky said before his election when he came out of nowhere to win?
If out of nowhere you mean sponsored by the same oligarch who was paying far right battalions during the maiden, then sure.