On Monday last week, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) raised the possibility of a peace agreement between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. On Thursday, he elaborated on the idea by allowing the possibility of a referendum on whether a peace agreement should be signed.
However, Ma and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have long done their best to stop referendums from being held. In light of this, it was only to be expected that the opposition parties would react to Ma’s statements by accusing him of merely trying to win votes in the presidential election.
Ma is also in the habit of reneging on his campaign promises and then trying to justify his failures, or otherwise just ignoring doubts raised by commentators and the public. Given his reputation, he has his work cut out if he expects to convince the public, especially when it comes to the part about holding a referendum. However, the doubts currently being expressed about the Ma government’s latest pronouncements are not centered on whether it would ever hold a referendum on a peace agreement. Rather, people are asking whether Ma is telling the truth and whether he would once more renege on his promise.
These developments reflect that the demand that all important cross-strait agreements should be subject to mandatory referendums, as proposed by numerous civic groups since the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), has gained widespread support among the public.
It also shows that even Ma and the KMT, who are notorious for opposing referendums, have been forced to at least appear to seriously consider the necessity of holding referendums about important cross-strait agreements.
Whether they are sincere about it is, of course, another matter and the biggest question at the moment is to what extent, if any, their policy pronouncements can be treated as credible.
The most direct way to allay such doubts would be to go straight ahead and make a law to the effect that all important cross-strait agreements be subject to referendums and, at the same time, to rectify the much-criticized Referendum Act (公民投票法), which places so many restrictions and stumbling blocks in the way of referendums that people call it the “birdcage referendum law.” As to what agreements should be classified as “important,” there is probably room for discussion.
However, what is quite clear is that if a peace agreement has to be put to a referendum, then it follows a minore ad maius that any cross-strait agreement that is even more important or influential than a peace agreement must also be made subject to a referendum.
That would, of course, include any matter or agreement that would alter our nation’s existing state of sovereign independence.
Are Ma and the KMT sincerely willing to accept the demand that all important cross-strait agreements be subject to referendums, or are they just using it as a way of mitigating the impression that they are bent on stemming pro-independence tendencies and moving step-by-step toward unification?
If they are sincere, there is no need to wait until after next year’s presidential and legislative elections to do something about it. Instead, KMT legislators should go ahead and propose a draft law that makes all cross-strait agreements subject to referendums, so that the legislature can deliberate on the bill and pass it into law within the current legislative session.
Huang Kuo-chang is a research professor at Academia Sinica’s Institutum Iurisprudentiae.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry