ABSTRACT
In essence, because of the insistence of the Kuomintang that the National Assembly had to keep representatives from all Chinese provinces and that Taiwan was only one represented province, the National Assembly actually represented China as it was in 1947, not Taiwan in the early 1990s. In Lee Teng-hui speech marking the reversion of Macao to China in 1999, Jiang Zemin indicated that it was time to deal with the Taiwan question; he supported Deng's one country, two systems model. Until the presidency of Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan publicly agreed with the one-China formulation. As for Taiwan's relationship to China, Lee continued to acknowledge that there was only one China. In July 2000, PRC Defense Minister Chi Haotian told the US defense secretary, "although China reserves the right to use force against Taiwan, that does not mean it intends to do so." But Beijing entered a period of "strategic disengagement" from Taiwan.
