While bills regarding the organization and functions of the Coast Guard Administration (海?巡防總署) were making their way through the legislature, the Ministry of Defense admitted that the marine corps unit currently garrisoned on the Spratly Islands and the Pratas Islands will be replaced by soldiers of the Coast Defense Command(海?巡防司令3? and will be taken over by the Coast Guard Administration.
If this move is a push for establishing the administration and to highlight the importance of this bizarre "half-military, half-civilian; non-military, non-police" government agency, then it is highly questionable.
It is beyond common sense and puts the interest of an individual agency ahead of national sovereignty and dignity.
In addition, the move exposes the absurdity of the strategic thinking taking place in the minds of top leaders and belittles the legislature.
It is true that even in the post-Cold War era safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity is important.
Regardless of the difference in political systems, no nation neglects to mobilize its resources and adopt the necessary measures to achieve this goal.
In keeping with this, Taiwan has garrisoned these two offshore islands with troops for the last 40-50 years.
There is no international territorial dispute with respect to the Pratas Islands. With its geographic proximity, gradually increasing non-military administrative control and laying down a maritime policy on the Pratas Islands in order to monitor illegal fishing activities -- such as dynamite or cyanide fishing -- and to maintain our maritime zones as required by the Maritime Zone Laws is an important measure.
However, putting troops on Itu Aba (Taiping,
From a purely military perspective, Taiping is vulnerable to military attack and difficult to defend.
The defense minister was not entirely wrong in arguing that there is not too much difference between deploying troops or policemen in view of Taipings indefensibility.
If this argument was true, why have we persistently defended Taiping for decades?
If the replacement of the marine corps unit with coast guard units is simply for the sake of Taiping's indefensibility, it is tantamount to sending out second-rate players to be slaughtered in an apparently hopeless basketball game.
It might be a trivial thing to lose a basketball game, but how can a territorial issue be handled in such an unthinking way?
In addition, ranking policy-makers remain incapable of clarifying the status and functions of the Coast Guard Administration.
If the administration is a military agency ready to defend our national boundaries, how can it also possess judicial police powers for maritime policing functions?
Have we ever seen the involvement of the military establishment with the task of law enforcement in any other democratic nations?
If the administration is simply a maritime and coastal law enforcement agency, why is it bestowed with the duties of defending national territories that are remote, indefensible and subject to international territorial disputes?
It is irresponsible to human life as well as to national sovereignty and territorial defense to use policemen as soldiers!
Our country and society have evolved to a degree of maturity in which "military and civilians are separately ruled, and military and police are diversified," according to law.
We possess the necessary resources and a national consensus to maintain the operation of this kind of constitutional institution.
With this in mind, the Legislative Yuan enacted the "Law on the Organization of Maritime Policy Bureau of the Police Administration, Ministry of the Interior" on May 15, 1998, and the bureau as the lead agency for maritime law enforcement was officially established on June 15, of the same year.
Ranking policy makers in the national security and defense establishment totally ignored the constitutional rule on the separation of military from civilians, insulted legislative efforts to establish such a maritime policing regime and ruined the legal and institutional stability cherished by all democratic nations by attempting to incorporate this bureau into the administration.
The establishment or re-organization of a new agency involving citizens' rights and law enforcement in a democratic nation need not hide anything from the public.
However, the drafting of relevant bills was handled clandestinely by the defense ministry and the Executive Yuan.
This aberration warrants close scrutiny by legislators and the public alike.
The policy-making process and the policy objectives of establishing such an administration are full of problems and misperceptions.
It would be wrong if Taiwan's territorial defense and sovereignty are at stake in compelling the legislature and the public to accept the establishment of such an administration.
If the top leadership has the nerve to ignore the Constitution and disregard the legislature to push for such a military establishment, why don't they have the guts to establish a marine affairs ministry in accordance with what is right?
The issues outlined above need to be addressed.
Hu Nien-Tsu is director of the Office for Marine Policy Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University and Secretary-General of the Institute of Marine Affairs and Policy.
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