In US President George W. Bush's State of the Union address last month, he said that the continuing push for democracy remains the nation's key overseas mission.
Yet a recent suggestion by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) that the time has come to seriously consider scrapping the National Unification Council and the guidelines for national unification upset the US Department of State, which believes that Chen's plans may result in a change of the cross-strait status quo.
Suspicions have also been raised by several media outlets in Taiwan, which have been eager to point out that the guidelines are the foundation on which cross-strait relations are built and that they therefore they must not be abolished arbitrarily.
But if we take a closer look at the guidelines, whose historical implications have been regarded as sacred by Taiwan's opposition parties, Chinese authorities and some US politicians, we see that they are in fact not sacred at all.
The guidelines were enacted in 1991, and the main force behind them, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), was elected in 1990 by the first National Assembly.
Although the first National Assembly -- which didn't face elections for more than 40 years -- had a legal foundation, it lost all legitimacy amid vigorous calls for new elections to be held.
As a result, the legitimacy of a president elected only by the assembly was in doubt. The fact that the guidelines were hammered out by the Presidential Office without consulting the public highlights their expedient nature.
The guidelines removed the restrictions of former president Chiang Ching-kuo's (蔣經國) "three noes" policy -- "no contact, no compromise, and no negotiation" with the Chinese Communists.
This played an important role in helping to kick-start landmark talks between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in the early 1990s.
But since the guidelines were implemented without first gaining public consent, however, their legitimacy was clearly questionable. After Lee became the first popularly elected president in 1996, the guidelines were shelved.
The guidelines set out short-, mid- and long-term goals for achieving the unification of Taiwan and China, but from the perspective of legal theory, they are only a policy statement or a basis for short-term administrative expediency. In the absence of public consent, the guidelines should not be used to plan Taiwan's cross-strait policies.
Strangely, the US government does not hesitate to send soldiers to Iraq, but when faced with the thorny cross-strait situation, it ignores the guidelines' undemocratic character.
The US tolerates China's "Anti-Secession" Law, which amounts to a unilateral change to the cross-strait status quo, but it does not support the abrogation of a policy statement which is not even a law.
When a great global power, which has declared that it will defend democracy unnecessarily criticizes democratic Taiwan in this way, its double standards are laid bare for all to see.
The opposition parties' worship of the guidelines -- which have not been approved by any elected institution or been given any other form of authorization by the public -- ignores the damage the guidelines inflict on Taiwan's democracy. They continue to backpedal by standing on the opposite side of democracy.
Li To-tzu has a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
In China, competition is fierce, and in many cases suppliers do not get paid on time. Rather than improving, the situation appears to be deteriorating. BYD Co, the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer by production volume, has gained notoriety for its harsh treatment of suppliers, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability. The case also highlights the decline of China’s business environment, and the growing risk of a cascading wave of corporate failures. BYD generally does not follow China’s Negotiable Instruments Law when settling payments with suppliers. Instead the company has created its own proprietary supply chain finance system called the “D-chain,” through which
RSS