Perhaps it is because he used to teach and is himself well-educated that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pays a lot of attention to academic research. On May 23, Ma attended a conference to commemorate the late legal scholar Chiu Hungdah (丘宏達). The next day, he attended a symposium on international comparative law. Over the past few years, Ma has taken part in a great number of academic conferences, showing more interest in academia than any of the nation’s former presidents. As an academic, I admire this and hope history notes it. It really is something rather special.
However, when Ma attended the conference to commemorate Chiu, he said that Chiu was the first ever to propose the idea of China and Taiwan being political entities that practice “mutual non-denial.”
Ma also said that the concepts of “mutual non-recognition of sovereignty” and “mutual non-denial of authority to govern” he mentioned in his inauguration speech came from Chiu’s ideas.
Ma added that he was glad to see that in 2009, the fifth edition of the best-known textbook on international law in the US, International Law, Cases and Materials, started to change the way it referred to Taiwan. The book previously referred to Taiwan as a special case, but in 2009, there was a paragraph which said that in the 2008 Taiwan presidential election, Ma proposed the idea of “mutual non-denial.” However, it is strange that Ma should be glad about this.
The sentence directly following the part cited by Ma reads: “As such, the likelihood of Taiwan seeking independence appears to have diminished.” It is therefore clear that authoritative academic works also believe the idea of “mutual non-denial” Ma has proposed is actually harmful to Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence. So what is there to be glad about?
Moreover, in the past, this book did not group Taiwan with Hong Kong or Macau, but in the fifth edition, after the part about Taiwan, it immediately moves on to discuss Hong Kong and Macau. Lumping Taiwan with Hong Kong and Macau is something very worrying indeed.
In the discussion about Taiwan’s legal status from pages 341 through 344, the book still views Taiwan as an entity with special status. Page 343 specifically mentions how in 2000, the year Taiwan elected the pro-independence Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as president, Chen carefully used his inaugural speech to stop any direct conflict with China and said that unless China attacked Taiwan, Taiwan would not declare independence. In 2007, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) passed a resolution that made a clear distinction between Taiwan and China. It said that “Taiwan” would be used as a general term to refer to Taiwan, but Taiwan would not relinquish the use of its official name of the “Republic of China.” The textbook was quite positive about what the DPP did for Taiwan’s status as a nation after coming to power in 2000.
Cross-strait relations are a complicated issue and progress is tricky. However, if we act only to please China and to make things easier for us in dealing with them, denying Taiwan’s sovereignty in the process, then we would only be sabotaging ourselves. This is especially true after Ma’s talk about his concept of “one Republic of China and two areas” in his re-inauguration speech.
Given Ma’s comments, it would not be so strange if in the future, mainstream legal textbooks from the West start viewing Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as the same — “special administrative regions” of China.
Chiang Huang-chih is a law professor at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and