1992 Consensus - Historic Background of The Term

Historic Background of The Term

The 1992 Consensus was the outcome of a November 1992 meeting in Hong Kong between the mainland China-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). Three months before the meeting, the Taiwan side (on 1 August 1992) published the following statement in respect of its interpretation of the meaning of "One China":

"Both sides of the Taiwan Strait agree that there is only one China. However, the two sides of the Strait have different opinions as to the meaning of “one China.” To Peking, “one China” means the “People’s Republic of China (PRC),” with Taiwan to become a “Special Administration Region” after unification. Taipei, on the other hand, considers “one China” to mean the Republic of China (ROC), founded in 1911 and with de jure sovereignty over all of China. The ROC, however, currently has jurisdiction only over Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu. Taiwan is part of China, and the Chinese mainland is part of China as well."

The above statement was published in the Mainland Affairs Council, Executive Yuan, ROC, “Consensus Formed at the National Development Conference on Cross-Strait Relations,” February 1997. “The Meaning of ‘One China’” was adopted by the ROC's (now defunct) National Unification Council.

With respect to the actual "1992 Consensus" reached by the two sides in Hong Kong in 1992, the following statement from the Taiwan SEF side is relevant:

"On November 3, a responsible person of the Communist Chinese ARATS said that it is willing to “respect and accept” SEF’s proposal that each side “verbally states” its respective principles on “one China."

The above statement was contained in a Press release (in Chinese) made by the SEF in Taipei on November 3, 1992. There appears to be no written record of what the SEF verbally stated at that time in respect of the meaning of "One China" but, given that it was effectively an agent of the ROC Government, it undoubtedly stuck to the ROC's official position at the time (set out above) with respect to the meaning of "One China".

With respect to the actual "1992 Consensus" reached by the two sides in Hong Kong in 1992, the following statement from the Mainland ARATS side is relevant:

"At this working-level consultation in Hong Kong, SEF representatives suggested that each side use respective verbal announcements to state the one China principle. On November 3rd, SEF sent a letter, formally notifying that “each side will make respective statements through verbal announcements.” ARATS fully respects and accepts SEF’s suggestion."

The conclusion they reached was intended as a means of side-stepping the conflict over the political status of Taiwan. At the time of the meeting, Hong Kong was under British rule and therefore considered neutral territory by both sides.

As a result of the 1992 meeting, ARATS Chairman Wang Daohan and SEF Chairman Koo Chen-fu met in Singapore on April 27, 1993 in what became known as the "Wang-Koo summit". They concluded agreements on document authentication, postal transfers, and a schedule for future ARATS-SEF meetings. Talks were delayed as tensions rose in the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, but in October 1998 a second round of Wang-Koo summit were held in Shanghai. Wang and Koo agreed to meet again in Taiwan in the autumn of 1999, but the meeting was called off by the PRC side when then President Lee Teng-hui proposed his 'Two-states Theory' whereby each side would treat the other as separate state. PRC officials indicated that this position was unacceptable.

The Kuomintang (KMT) led ROC government had expressed the 1992 meeting's outcome as "one China with different interpretations": that both sides agreed that there was one China, but indirectly recognised and respected that both sides had different interpretations of that concept. By contrast, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led PRC government consistently emphasizes that the 1992 meeting reached an understanding that there is "one China". ROC's main opposition party, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), however, did not see the 1992 meeting as reaching any consensus on there being only "one China". Instead, it saw the outcome of the meeting as establishing that the two sides had different interpretations of the status quo.

The election of the DPP to the ROC government in 2000 prompted former SEF official Su Chi (蘇起) to coin the term "1992 Consensus" as an ambiguous replacement for the previous terms in order to capture the broadest consensus between the different parties over the outcome of the 1992 meeting. Some who dispute the existence of a "1992 Consensus" claim that if there is a "1992 Consensus", it is that (1) there's only one China; and (2) both sides are free to define what "one China" is;

Also, supporters of the pan-Green coalition led by the DPP remained insistent that the meetings in 1992 did not come to any consensus over the one China principle. In support of this view, they point out that both Hsu Huei-yu and Koo Chen-fu, who participated in the 1992 meeting as SEF delegates, have publicly affirmed that the meeting did not result in any consensus on the "one China" issue. Instead, they claim, both sides agreed to proceed with future meetings on the basis of equality and mutual respect. Koo stated in his biography that, "Both sides across the strait have different interpretations of the 1992 Hong Kong meeting. Rather than using 'consensus,' the term of art should be 'understanding' or 'accord' to better reflect the fact, thus avoiding untruthful application."

The Chief of the ROC Mainland Affairs Council also indicated that no consensus was reached as a result of the 1992 meeting and that the term 1992 Consensus was only introduced by the mass media in 1995. Some Taiwan independence supporters, such as former President Lee Teng-hui, point to a lack of documentation to argue that the consensus has never existed. However, it is also the case that as of 1992, the government of the ROC still formally adhered to a 'one China' position, one which it only moved away from in the late-1990s.

According to Raymond Burghardt, the chair of the American Institute in Taiwan, the US's de facto embassy in Taiwan:

" some language that overlapped and some language that differed." Then Taiwan and China agreed to conduct dialogue based on their statements written in those faxes. "That's what happened. Nothing more or nothing less," Burghardt said, adding that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) called this the '1992 Consensus', which was to some extent "confusing and misleading. To me, I'm not sure why you could call that a consensus."

Burghardt is thought to be the only US official to have expressed a position on the existence of the 1992 Consensus.

The 1992 Consensus has been described by Lee Teng-hui, the ROC president between 1988 and 2000, as a consensus without a consensus on the definition of 'One China.'