Sometimes it is funny to hear senior Chinese officials lecture about upholding their nation’s laws or constitution, given the lip service Beijing’s power brokers pay to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) constitution and laws, but most of the time it is plain depressing.
However, it is hard not to smirk when hearing them talk about the Republic of China’s (ROC) Constitution, tying themselves into linguistic knots, avoiding giving legitimacy to either the ROC or its Constitution.
The knots did not impede Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) from voicing concern about president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday, although he never mentioned her by name or the office she is to assume on May 20.
Wang told the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that Beijing hoped “once someone has come into power...he or she” would accept the provision in Taiwan’s Constitution that “the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China,” adding: “It will be difficult to imagine that somebody elected on the basis of that constitution should try to do anything in violation of its own constitution.”
He said the important thing is that “whether someone would commit to the political foundation of cross-strait relations, the one China principle, once they have risen to power.”
It was not the first time Wang has voiced such concerns and it will probably not be the last, although he sounded much more dramatic in December 2011, when as head of the Taiwan Affairs Office, he said that presidential candidate Tsai’s refusal to recognize the so-called “1992 consensus” had left her “hurtling toward an abyss” and she needed to pull back.
However, before Wang and other Chinese officials talk about ROC leaders respecting the nation’s Constitution, they should do a better job of safeguarding the PRC’s constitution, especially with regard to its pledge that no state organ, public organization or individual can discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs, and the constitutional amendment that was passed in March 2004 that the state respects and preserves human rights. It would give them a better leg to stand on.
Wang said that Beijing does not care much about who is in power in the “Taiwan region of China,” yet the often hysterical diatribes emanating from the Global Times and other Chinese Communist Party mouthpieces since Tsai was nominated as the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate last year and more so since her victory in the Jan. 16 presidential election shows that that is not the case.
Beijing’s pre-emptive attempts to lay the blame for any cross-strait problems at Tsai’s feet, saying that her policy toward China “remains ambiguous,” shows how much China cares about who is in power in Taiwan.
Despite Beijing’s claims to the contrary, Tsai, especially since her victory, has been clear on her stance: that Taiwan’s democratic system, national identity and international space must be respected; and that it is China’s attempts at suppression that hurt cross-strait ties, not Taiwan’s actions.
What Beijing fails to understand with its “do as we say, not as we do” mentality is that its continuous inability to live up to its own promises is destroying the willingness of Taiwanese — and the rest of the world — to accept the veracity of anything Beijing says, the pledges it makes or the treaties it signs.
This reluctance is not the result of a Western anti-Chinese bias, the DPP’s policies or any other conspiracy; it is the result of Beijing’s actions. Despite its claims to the contrary, China is not beset by internal or external enemies; the problem is that its own leaders keep shooting themselves in the foot. That is why it does not have a leg to stand on.
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