Talk of signing a cross-strait peace agreement has resurfaced among Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) Jan. 2 speech suggested that “both sides of the Strait can recommend representatives to begin democratic negotiation for an institutional arrangement on the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”
Kao Yu-jen (高育仁), chairman of the 21st Century Foundation and the father-in-law of former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫), who has declared his intention to run for president in 2020, on Jan. 5 proposed that academics from both sides of the Strait should settle on a “common cross-strait historical view,” from which both sides could negotiate and sign “a 50-year or 100-year peace agreement.”
Following suit, KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on Thursday last week said that if the KMT regains the presidency, the government would hold talks with Beijing on a peace agreement.
The public has heard it all before from former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and former KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). On Oct. 17, 2011, Ma told a news conference at the Presidential Office that his administration would decide in the next decade whether the nation should sign a peace agreement with China, telling reporters three days later that a referendum would first be held to gauge public opinion, and that an agreement would be dropped if the referendum failed.
In September 2016, Hung included “researching the possibility of obtaining a peace agreement to therefore end the hostile situation between the two sides of the Strait” in the party’s policy platform, although Wu, who took the party’s helm on May 20, 2017, later replaced “peace agreement” with “peaceful vision.” Two years later, Wu has changed his position, talking as if Taiwan’s future can be decided by the KMT alone, if it is in power, which exceeds similar statements from other leading party figures.
In October last year, KMT Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) sided with Ma, suggesting that a cross-strait peace agreement be signed, but only with strong domestic support — a public consensus on the issue — and an adequate supplementary plan in place.
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties defines a treaty as “an international agreement concluded between states in written form and governed by international law.”
However, a precondition of a peace accord is to conclude a war or stop hostilities between warring parties.
As critics, including National Taiwan University College of Law professor Chiang Huang-chih (姜皇池), have pointed out, a peace agreement signed between Taiwan and China would be an acknowledgement to the international community that future cross-strait conflicts would be a continuation of the Chinese Civil War between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party, turning cross-strait relations into “China’s internal affairs and increasing the difficulty of international intervention.”
History clearly shows China’s lack of credentials when it comes to honoring peace agreements. For example, the 17-Point Agreement of 1951 turned into a bloody crackdown and continuous interference in Tibet instead of lasting peace with Beijing.
Peace is a shared global value, and no one is against having peaceful cross-strait relations. However, in what roles would Taipei and Beijing be sitting at the negotiating table, and what would happen to the existence and sovereign standing of Taiwan?
These are serious questions. The fate of the nation, its people and its dignity as a sovereign state are at stake. The presidential hopefuls should not casually pin Taiwan’s fate and dignity on Beijing, an authoritarian regime with notoriously poor credibility.
George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This article will help readers avoid repeating mistakes by examining four examples from the civil war between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forces and the Republic of China (ROC) forces that involved two city sieges and two island invasions. The city sieges compared are Changchun (May to October 1948) and Beiping (November 1948 to January 1949, renamed Beijing after its capture), and attempts to invade Kinmen (October 1949) and Hainan (April 1950). Comparing and contrasting these examples, we can learn how Taiwan may prevent a war with
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
Taiwan is rapidly accelerating toward becoming a “super-aged society” — moving at one of the fastest rates globally — with the proportion of elderly people in the population sharply rising. While the demographic shift of “fewer births than deaths” is no longer an anomaly, the nation’s legal framework and social customs appear stuck in the last century. Without adjustments, incidents like last month’s viral kicking incident on the Taipei MRT involving a 73-year-old woman would continue to proliferate, sowing seeds of generational distrust and conflict. The Senior Citizens Welfare Act (老人福利法), originally enacted in 1980 and revised multiple times, positions older
Taiwan’s business-friendly environment and science parks designed to foster technology industries are the key elements of the nation’s winning chip formula, inspiring the US and other countries to try to replicate it. Representatives from US business groups — such as the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and the Arizona-Taiwan Trade and Investment Office — in July visited the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) headquarters and its first fab. They showed great interest in creating similar science parks, with aims to build an extensive semiconductor chain suitable for the US, with chip designing, packaging and manufacturing. The
RSS