China Lashes Out at Key Taiwan Ally Over US-Friendly Remarks

China blasted Taiwanese opposition leader Eric Chu after he appeared to play down a key agreement between the two sides, in a sign of new frictions between Beijing and its traditional negotiating partner in Taipei.

Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang criticized Chu for remarks Monday in the US in which he called the agreement that both sides are part of “one China” as a “non-consensus consensus.” Ma said that the so-called 1992 consensus, which has underpinned decades of talks between the Communist Party and Chu’s Kuomintang, “brooks no arbitrary distortion.”