I believe that the chance for the green camp to win a legislative majority in the Dec. 11 elections is very high. In that case, the legislature should immediately amend the Referendum Law (
Taipei does not want to anger Beijing or embarrass Washington. The timing for a unification or independence referendum has not arrived. As former president Lee Teng-hui (
The only referendum that can be held immediately is perhaps on an "interim agreement" proposed again by former senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council Kenneth Lieberthal in Taipei this month. That plan would follow a strategy of "no independence, no war" and postpone a final political resolution of the cross-strait situation for 50 years.
Lieberthal first formulated this idea during a February 1998 conference in Taipei, and took unification as the ultimate goal at that time. But his stance changed in his article "Heading off the Next War," jointly written with another China expert David Lampton in the Washington Post on April 12. The biggest change is that he no longer sees unification as the ultimate goal now. His proposal is therefore seen as an "improved" interim agreement by Taipei.
As the Washington Post article pointed out, perhaps the two sides can build a stable framework across the Taiwan Strait for a long period -- counted not in years but in decades. Under such circumstances, "Taiwan can continue to assert that it is an `independent, sovereign country,' but it must abjure additional steps to turn this island-wide sensibility into a juridical fact. Beijing can continue to assert that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of it, but it must give up its threat to use military force to change Taiwan's status."
Lieberthal also said that given the numerous disagreements between the two sides, they should build a stability framework grounded in the concept of an interim agreement. On this basis, they can maintain the status quo for 50 years to negotiate disputed issues -- including military and security issues, and Taiwan's participation in various international organizations.
As Lieberthal stressed, the cross-strait issue should be resolved by Taiwan and China themselves, not the US. But if the two sides hope that the US can get involved, Washington can have a hand in this by playing the role of an international witness.
If China attacks Taiwan militarily during this interim period, the international community will take it seriously. But if China attacks Taiwan because the latter declares independence, all other countries -- including the US -- will not support Taiwan. This will force the two sides to strictly abide by the agreement.
A referendum on an interim agreement is not about independence, so the US should not object. Since the idea was proposed by pro-China scholars, Beijing will be glad to accept it. To rationally and pragmatically break through the deadlock across the Strait today, a democratic referendum like this should be considered.
Chiou Chwei-liang is a professor at Tamkang University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS