In a recent survey, only about 10 percent of respondents felt President-elect Chen Shui-bian
After all, the challenge facing the new government is not just how to respond to Beijing, but how to bridge the gap between the political stances and the legal status quo, and how to deal with the nationalism and the incoherence of the ROC's Constitution.
For a long period of time, the DPP has insisted that Taiwan is an independent sovereignty. However, before the country is renamed and a new constitution is promulgated, Taiwan is just a geographic or political term, not a legal one.
When it was without political power, the DPP used political statements to emphasize Taiwan's political stance and to claim that Taiwan is de facto independent. It intentionally dodged the country's legal status quo.
But now the DPP can no longer mix political statements with legal facts. Before the Constitution and other relevant laws are amended, the government must rule the country in compliance with ROC law.
The gap between public expectations and the law is evident from the following example. Despite the DPP's denial of "one China" and of "Taiwan being a part of the ROC," the name of the country -- the Republic of China on Taiwan -- has not been changed, and the sovereignty and territory stipulated by the Constitution has not yet changed. Nor has the "two states" model
According to ROC laws, Taiwan is still defined under "one China" (the ROC) and the political definition of cross-strait relations is still "one country, two areas"
Because the Constitution has not yet changed, the people of Taiwan are still citizens of the ROC edition of "one China." From the legal perspective, the "Taiwanese" are still "Chinese." The concept of Taiwanese is political, not legal.
The problem is that the DPP is confined by the political statements of Taiwan's nationalism. The party will neither admit that the Taiwanese are legally "Chinese," nor that the ROC's legal system is a "one China" system.
The gap between the public's expectations and the law has led to China's suspicion about the new president's good will and his low profile in cross-strait relations.
The national identity struggle makes the DPP like a person with a Taiwanese heart confined in a Chinese body. The DPP basically intends to borrow a "temporary shell" from the ROC title.
Trapped in international and cross-strait political realities, it has no choice but to accept the current legal structure, but its heart is full of unwillingness and hatred. This contradiction prevents the new government from building a future for cross-strait relations on the basis of a legal structure.
For the DPP, not admitting that "Taiwan is part of the ROC" amounts to a deviation from the legal status quo.
But the Beijing government's refusal to admit the reality of the cross-strait split is also a deviation from the legal status quo.
The political struggle between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will never be resolved if the two sides fail to return to legal realities.
Julian Kuo is an associate professor of political science at Soochow University.
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