Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) recently said in an interview that the government would only sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China under three conditions: if the nation needs it, if the public supports it and if there is legislative oversight. The three conditions appear to be reasonable, but the government is using them to deprive voters of their right to make decisions.
First, does Taiwan really need an ECFA with China? We must ask whether the “one China” principle is the premise for the government’s negotiations on an ECFA with Beijing: In other words, does the government view Taiwan as part of China? This is something the government must make clear to the public.
If the negotiations are based on the “one China” premise, the government must hold a referendum on whether or not the public supports this premise to ease public worries. It should then allow the public time to thoroughly discuss and gain an understanding of the ECFA before making a decision. This is the only way to handle the issue according to the Constitution, which states that sovereignty rests with the people.
Second, Wu said an ECFA would only be signed if there is legislative oversight. The Constitution gives the legislature the right to monitor the Cabinet. However, given that the legislature is dominated by the ruling party, it cannot fully arbitrate over social disputes or ease public concern. That is why a major policy such as signing an ECFA must be decided in a referendum.
Third, Wu said support for an ECFA must command more than 60 percent of public support in opinion polls. While I do not dispute the importance of opinion polls in demonstrating the will of the people, the government has often made use of them to manipulate public opinion when dealing with highly debated issues. When politics takes precedence over professionalism, the government could distort public opinion by using biased polls. For example, when various media agencies reported that government approval ratings had hit an all-time low, the administration responded with its own opinion poll showing wide public support, causing widespread doubts about the reliability of official public polls.
Even in Western democracies where public opinion polls are highly developed, people know that public polls are not a substitute for referendums. This is a tenet of democracy and political common sense. The government should stop using public polls as an excuse for not amending the Referendum Act (公民投票法) and give the public the right to decide.
The Referendum Act makes it difficult to hold a vote given its stringent requirements: first, 0.5 percent of all eligible voters in the latest presidential election must sign a referendum proposal, and then, 5 percent of voters must sign a reviewed and approved referendum proposal to establish the referendum. This threshold is even higher than the number of joint signatures required to support the registration of a presidential candidate.
I suggest that this unreasonable law be amended, making the joint signatures of 1.5 of all eligible voters sufficient to establish a referendum.
The Referendum Act also requires that half of all eligible voters in the previous presidential election vote in a referendum for it to be valid. I suggest this be changed to a plurality, or half of all who actually voted in that election.
Cheng Li-chiun is the chief executive officer of Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
Taiwan might just give up. That’s the argument Simon Shuster made in The Atlantic’s October issue. The US is unreliable, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leadership is aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Taiwan does not have the military capability to defend itself in a prolonged war without help. What hope does Taiwan have? Quite a bit more, in fact, than Shuster lets on. Shuster points to genuine problems. The first Donald Trump administration had a mostly positive record on Taiwan policy. It regularized the arms sales process, enhanced the military-to-military relationship, and treated Taiwan more like a normal
On Oct. 10, 1911, gunfire in Wuchang (武昌) shattered the stillness of late-Qing China. What began as a regional uprising quickly ignited a chain reaction across the empire, toppling a dynastic order that had endured for more than two millennia and ushering in one of Asia’s first republics — the Republic of China (ROC). From that moment, the 10th day of the 10th month became a date of epochal significance, not merely in Chinese history, but in the broader arc of Asia’s encounter with modernity. Yet today, as Taiwan marks Double Ten National Day, the holiday’s meaning has undergone a transformation
A Facebook post by Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) earlier this month achieved record levels of engagement — although perhaps inadvertently. In it, he attacked Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator and Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for an op-ed published in 2014 discussing drug harm reduction policies. In attempting to stir up fear with talk of community centers, drugs and needles, Chiang’s comment section exploded. More than 100,000 comments poured in within the first two hours; more than 330,000 after the first 12; and more than 400,000 by noon the following day. Rather embarrassingly, many commenters made a point
Last year, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) turned the Double Ten National Day ceremony into a platform for grievances against the government. Yesterday, standing before the president and foreign dignitaries, he warned against Taiwan becoming a “false democracy, in reality a dictatorship.” Then he called for unity. Democratic leaders must tolerate criticism, even on ceremonial occasions, but Han misused his position and a national celebration to insinuate that Taiwan’s elected president was steering the country toward dictatorship and cast himself as a statesman offering reconciliation. Han asked how Taiwan’s security should be examined, using a medical analogy. If he insists on playing
RSS