After three days of silence, the pro-China Hong Kong newspapers Wenhuibao (文匯報) and Takungpao (大公報) ran articles on Tuesday, criticizing the pan-green camp for pushing for a new constitution by referendum. Before this, the spokesperson of China's Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement on Oct 26, repeating that "the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one country, and that Chinese sovereignty and territory are indivisible." Apparently, following Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) return to Beijing from a recent overseas trip, the Chinese government discussed how to move against President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) proposal for a new constitution. That the authors of the newspaper articles both had the character wu (武, "force") in their names suggests that their views are being backed up with force. This is consistent with China's typical tactics of propaganda and intimidation.
Generally speaking, before China takes any official position on political advances by Taiwan, it speaks through the Hong Kong media. Exaggerated news reports about military exercises conducted by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) are often released through Hong Kong media at around the same time. A rally organized by the pan-green camp in support of the right to holding referendums saw more than 200,000 people protest in Kaohsiung on Oct. 25. The rally enhanced popular support and strengthened demands for a new constitution compatible with Taiwan's democracy and its rebirth as a normal, complete and great country. Under the circumstances, therefore, it was entirely predictable that the Hong Kong media and even the Chinese media would launch attacks against this new development.
According to the article in Takungpao, China believes that "under international law, if Taiwan seeks to create a new constitution and therefore a new country, it cannot be decided by only the people of Taiwan through a public referendum, but rather by the entire Chinese people through a referendum." This was because "after October 1, 1949, the government of the People's Republic of China [PRC] government had succeeded the Republic of China [ROC] government in exercising, on behalf of China, sovereignty over all its territory, including Taiwan." Any Taiwanese who reads this article would surely smirk. How can a totalitarian, communist country believe it is entitled to interfere with a model democratic country, or to declare sovereignty over another sovereign and independent, democratic country? It is even more ludicrous for China to shamefully claim that Taiwanese are not qualified to decide the constitutional framework of their own government for themselves through popular democracy, but that these matters must instead be submitted to a referendum of the Chinese people.
Apparently, China has not yet realized that, as it aims hundreds of missiles at Taiwan and refuses to denounce the use of force, its claim of being the "mother country" of Taiwanese and of being sovereign over Taiwan has nourished Taiwanese demands to be their own masters. This has led to a rapid surge in popular support for Taiwanese independence. On the other hand, a number of political parties and their members, who proclaim themselves to be "defenders of the ROC," call for the safeguarding of the ROC on the one hand and advocate the extension of Chinese sovereignty to Taiwan by unification with China on the other. This is as ridiculous and as pathetic as the small band of people who shrieked "long live Hu Jintao" as they attended the ROC's Double-Ten Day ceremony.
The average Taiwanese knows that the "one China" to which China refers is the PRC. This is something from which China cannot possibly back down, whatever phrasing it uses to mask its intent. If we continue to support the "one China" principle, it would be equivalent to surrendering to China. The pan-blue camp should give more thought to abandoning all this talk about a "one China roof," and then explicitly communicate to the Chinese the political reality of "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait. This is the best way to leave behind the complicated web of issues that beset Taiwan and China, and to discredit all of the excuses China uses to walk all over Taiwan. The need for new thinking on Taiwan's status cannot be ignored.
In addition, to further upgrade and strengthen political democracy in Taiwan, it is necessary to thoroughly reform the Constitution, a document which came into force in China in 1947 in an entirely different time and place. Regardless of whether Taiwan opts to amend the existing Constitution or adopt a new constitution, it must be compatible with -- indeed, tailored to -- the existing political situation. This is a major political project critical to the future of Taiwan.
In the face of steep requirements for amending the Constitution, and the passive resistance of the legislature to everything, except providing a showcase for trivial bickering, there is a genuine need to compensate for these inadequacies with referendums. Although both the ruling and opposition camps supposedly agreed on the need to draft a referendum law, the version of the draft recently proposed by the pan-blue camp unfortunately imposes various restrictions. If passed, the law would serve very little purpose, stifling the spirit of popular democracy underlying the referendums. It is abundantly clear that the pan-blue camp is an assassin of the referendum, rather than a champion.
Regardless of whether a new constitution is generated through amendment or adopting an entirely new document, and regardless of any compromise during negotiations between the opposition and ruling camps, the result will be the fruit of the country's own political system. Any issue raised will be enthusiastically dealt with by the Taiwanese people, as long as it is within the democratic mandate and compatible with political development.
Regardless of whether China sees the proposal for a new constitution by referendum as "election sloganeering," "incremental Taiwanese independence," or "progressive Taiwanese independence," these perspectives of the Chinese government are irrelevant to Taiwan's political democracy. Taiwanese politicians have no need to dance to China's tune. China should put in more thought as to how to amend its own socialist Constitution, so that it can be more compatible with democratic ideals, more capable of protecting its own people's rights, and more able to stimulate economic growth. The Taiwanese people will decide their own future and decide upon their own Constitution, and this is none of China's concern.
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