KMT chair says Taiwan has never been a 'country,' nor ever 'independent'
Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wen said in an online interview that Taiwan has never been an independent country, dismissed the DPP's claim of de facto independence as nonsense, and urged acceptance of the 1992 Consensus.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wen publicly rejected the Democratic Progressive Party's claim that Taiwan is already independent, calling it a ridiculous, shameless scam. She insisted the island has never been a sovereign state and pressed Lai Ching-te's government to accept the 1992 Consensus as the basis for cross-strait peace.
The leader of a big political party in Taiwan said that Taiwan has never really been its own country, and she's upset at the ruling party for pretending it already is. She told them to stop the game and accept an old agreement called the 1992 Consensus so that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait can keep living in peace.
Analysis
The 1992 Consensus
Cheng Li-wen framed acceptance of the 1992 Consensus as the indispensable political foundation for any peaceful dialogue between Taipei and Beijing. In her remarks she warned that abandoning the framework would not protect the status quo but would actively destroy it, telling the audience that everything Taiwan currently enjoys, including the prevailing calm, would vanish instantly if "Taiwan independence" were genuinely pursued. By casting the Consensus as the only safe course, she aligned the largest opposition party on Taiwan with the formulation Beijing has insisted on since the late 2000s, framing it less as a negotiating chip than as a precondition for the survival of the present arrangement.
Cheng Li-wen's rebuke of the DPP
The Kuomintang chairwoman reserved her sharpest language for the Democratic Progressive Party's argument that Taiwan is already effectively independent, so a formal referendum is unnecessary. She dismissed the claim as "self-deception," "the talk of street thugs," and "nonsense," and called the entire "Taiwan independence" project "a ridiculous and shameless scam." Her rhetorical questions, asking whether the United States, Japan, and indeed every country in the world do not uphold the One China policy, were designed to corner the DPP by appealing to the international diplomatic reality rather than to any domestic constitutional debate. By doing so on a popular online program rather than in a sterile party press release, she reached voters directly and put the DPP on the defensive on its own rhetorical turf.
The 23 million Taiwanese
Cheng's warning that the DPP authorities should not "tie all 23 million people of Taiwan to you" reframed the independence debate from one of principle to one of risk for ordinary residents. The figure, a standard shorthand for Taiwan's population, served as the emotional anchor of her argument: continuing the current path, she implied, exposes every household to the consequences of a confrontation. Calling the two sides "one family," she presented the 1992 Consensus as the only arrangement under which those 23 million people can preserve what they have today. The framing matters because it positions the KMT as the defender of stability and the DPP as the party gambling with the daily lives of an entire population.
Key points
- Kuomintang Chairwoman Cheng Li-wen said Taiwan has never been an independent country and never been 'independent' at all
- She called the DPP's claim that Taiwan is already independent 'a ridiculous and shameless scam' and 'street thug talk'
- She argued that the 1992 Consensus is the political foundation for peaceful cross-strait dialogue and asked Lai Ching-te what he is waiting for
- She pointed to the US, Japan and the rest of the world as upholding the One China policy and asked who the DPP is still trying to fool
- She framed the issue as one affecting all 23 million people of Taiwan, not just the DPP leadership
If the KMT position gains traction with voters and pressures the DPP to soften its stance, cross-strait tensions could cool and a basis for official dialogue grounded in the 1992 Consensus could eventually be restored. Cheng's emphasis on peace and shared identity also creates space for incremental cultural and economic exchanges that benefit ordinary people on both sides.
The remarks harden the partisan battle in Taiwan ahead of future elections and give Beijing rhetorical cover to intensify pressure on the Lai Ching-te administration. If the DPP doubles down on its own framing in response, mutual accusations of bad faith could entrench hostility and make any future dialogue harder, not easier.
