Tsai's latest trick is a bid to erase sense of kinship

In her meeting with foreign correspondents on Jan 5 in Taipei, Tsai Ing-wen, the Taiwan leader, called on political parties on the island not to delve into the 1992 Consensus any more, because the term has been defined by Beijing as "one country, two systems". Xiakedao, a WeChat account owned by People's Daily, comments:

Tsai has obviously not had an easy time recently. The Democratic Progressive Party swallowed a bitter defeat to its rival the Kuomintang in the elections for county and city heads on the island late last year－which prompted her resignation as the DPP leader.

The Chinese mainland gave a high profile to the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan earlier this month, which pulled on many Taiwan people's heartstrings as well.

President Xi Jinping's speech at a gathering to commemorate the message drove home the point that Beijing is determined to strive for national reunification, warning secessionists like Tsai to discard their dangerous fantasies.

The principle of "one country, two systems", which has been successfully implemented in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, has been intentionally demonized by the separatists in Taiwan. Tsai is one of them. She is trying to stealthily equate "one country, two systems" with the 1992 Consensus, which the secessionists deny. Although the two terms are drastically different in their contents, objectives and historical meanings, in her mind, if the border between them is blurred, then it will smear the consensus there is only one China.

Certainly, Tsai would never touch the other side of the 1992 Consensus, under which the two sides agree to seek common points that both belong to one China while reserving their differences. The trick is not new, and it aims to erase the Chinese national kinship from Taiwan people's minds.

Besides, the 1992 Consensus creates valuable space for talks between Kuomintang and the Chinese mainland. By imposing her ill-intentioned interpretation of the consensus, Tsai is intent on killing two birds with one stone.