Taiwan media criticize Tsai Ing-wen equivocation

New Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen's ambiguous remarks on cross-Strait relations were a hot topic in Saturday's media on the island, with many op-eds urging Tsai to be honest and rational.

In her inauguration address on Friday, Tsai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said she respected "the historical fact that the two institutions representing each side across the Taiwan Strait reached joint acknowledgements and common understandings in 1992 through communication and negotiations."

As the mainland and Tsai's predecessor had acknowledged, the common understanding was called the 1992 Consensus, stating that both sides of the Taiwan Strait uphold the one China principle. The consensus has explicitly defined the nature of cross-Straits relations.

"Regarding the 1992 Consensus, Tsai adopted a circuitous and indirect stance and in a tricky way, avoided answering the yes or no question [of whether she agrees with the principle]," said an editorial in the China Times newspaper.

"The importance of the 1992 Consensus lies in it being the precondition for developing cross-Strait ties." Cross-Strait relations have developed well over the past eight years because former leader Ma Ying-jeou accepted and recognized the precondition, said the article.

"It is certainly a kind of retrogression if the previously recognized precondition is now turned into a 'respected historical fact,'" said the editorial, which warned Tsai that "such rhetoric may avoid temporary showdown but will not win trust."

The new leader's words cannot be seen as acknowledging the 1992 Consensus, said an editorial in the Commercial Times newspaper.

It expressed hope that Tsai can take concrete action to dispel doubts and build up mutual trust in order to maintain the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations, said the article, arguing that Taiwanese business will never feel confident before this happens.

The DPP is pushing for the amendment of the island's "referendum law" to lower the referendum thresholds, which is very likely to cause tension across the Strait, said an editorial in the Want Daily on Saturday.

"The new authority must rethink it from the view of the broad picture of cross-Strait relations, and by no means recommit the same error as Chen Shui-bian (the island's leader from 2000 to 2008, also of the DPP), who said one thing and did another, causing turbulence in the Taiwan Strait," said the article. Endi