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Editorial: No foolhardy referendums for now

On Saturday President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed to have a "defensive referendum" on election day next March. No details were given of what question would be asked. And indeed Chiu I-jen (邱義仁) wants to know from voters what they think the question should be about. Now the obvious thing about the defensive referendum is this, that it was to concern sovereignty and it was only supposed to be used when Taiwan was under imminent threat from China. Chen says that we can hardly wait until China attacks before trudging off to the polls. True enough and for this reason many of us wondered what the point of the "defensive referendum" clause was. Chen argues that Taiwan is in a permanent state of threat which justifies calling a defensive referendum at any time. This is foolish and antagonistic and can only damage Chen in the election campaign.

For a start Taiwan is simply not in a state of "imminent threat." Taiwanese realize the danger that China poses, but they do not think this is a danger that is likely to turn very ugly very quickly. What might turn it ugly, in fact, is Chen's call for a sovereignty vote. Taiwanese are likely to interpret Chen's call as a semantic trick which could put them in very real danger. They will not like this. And the US will conclude that everything it has heard about Chen being irresponsible in provoking China if he can thereby gain some election advantage is, in fact, true. How smart is that?

It is true that Taiwanese will back their leader in a crisis with China, as they did in 1996. But that crisis was brought about by Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) doing something, and something very simple, that almost all Taiwanese thought he should be able to do -- go to the US to receive an award from Cornell University. Taiwanese rallied behind Lee because they saw China's reaction as utterly unreasonable. When China goes ballistic -- hopefully not literally -- over Chen's referendum call, they will see it as a predictable reaction to a foolhardy policy, for which Chen will be punished at the polls.

The main point of the referendum law, and one which almost nobody has commented on so far, is that the old model for unification which China has long cherished is now impossible. Beijing has thought reunification was possible as an agreement between two ruling cabals -- it has thought party-to-party negotiations sufficient. It has of course been buttressed in this misapprehension by reaching agreements about the return of Hong Kong and Macau with their colonial overlords without even the hint of an attempt to seek the views of the luckless inhabitants of those territories concerning their future.

Now Taiwanese people have been given the right to vote directly on issues of national importance. It is simply absurd for the pan-greens moaning about the "birdcage" referendum law to think that the Taiwanese people will be denied a say on the greatest question of all, however restricted the current law might be.

This means that China has to change its policy. If it really wants unification as much as it claims, it has to persuade Taiwanese that it would be good for them. After 50 years of wielding the stick it now has to try using the carrot. It is quite possible that this hasn't really sunk in in Beijing yet. And given the glacial way policy change occurs there it will be at least two years before we see any evidence that Beijing has mapped out the geography of the new playing field. During this time Taiwan should refrain from doing anything to interfere with this process. It should hold referendums on sensible topics to establish the process in voters' minds. It should leave sovereignty issues well alone.
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