Taipei Times
Date: Dec 19, 2016
By: Shih Hsiao-kuang and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

China’s “one country, two systems” model is to a large degree about Taiwan remaining autonomous, a Chinese academic said on Saturday.

Zhou Zhihuai (周志懷), head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Taiwan Studies, made the comment after US President Barack Obama on Friday told his year-end news conference that “Taiwanese have agreed that as long as they’re able to continue to function with some degree of autonomy, that they won’t charge forward and declare independence.”

The “one country, two systems” concept was the brainchild of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), which he put forth during a meeting with then-British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in September 1982.

Deng used the policy to highlight his promise that Hong Kong would be allowed to keep its freedoms when it was returned to China in 1997.    [FULL  STORY]