China's deliberate effort not to publish text of the proposed anti-secession law has increased Taiwan's difficulties in lobbying against the bill in the international community, senior diplomats said yesterday.
In an effort to stop Beijing from passing the law, which is aimed at justifying the use of military force against Taiwan, the National Security Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent four delegations to Europe, Japan and the US seeking support against the law.
"China instructed all its overseas embassies to inform their host countries of Beijing's intention to make the anti-secession law," said Lo Fu-chen (
Lo, the country's former representative to Tokyo and the president of the foreign affairs ministry's Association of East Asian Relations, said his delegation could only exchange general opinions about the law with Japanese officials, because of lack of understanding of the actual text of the law.
"Nevertheless, Japanese officials showed serious concern about any move that might unilaterally change the status quo between Taiwan and China," Lo said.
Keeping the bill's content secret is part of China's strategy to reduce the risk of being compelled to alter the text of the law under international pressure, observers said.
"Beijing wants to see how the international community will respond to the legislation," said Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Michael Kau (
Kau, who led a delegation to Europe, said some friends he met there told him China's legislative procedure was "unbelievable."
"Beijing plans to make the law, yet the content of the law was almost unknown. China is not a democratic country and its lawmaking procedure is not transparent," Kau said.
Kau, who traveled to a number of European countries, including France, Germany, Luxemburg and Belgium, said most European government officials and journalists only had vague ideas about what the anti-secession law is meant to do.
"Our goal in sending the delegations abroad is to stop China from passing the law. We still have a window of opportunity before the law is passed on March 5," Kau said.
Kau noted that the law, if passed, would not only affect Taiwan's national security but could also threaten both Chinese and Taiwanese people's security on a personal level.
"China-based Taiwanese businesspeople might be persecuted because of their links with the Taiwanese government," he said.
Differing from Japanese and European officials, US officials and academics "understand the anti-secession law very well, even though they don't know the concrete details of the bill," said Hsu Szu-chien (
Hsu, a member of a delegation to Washington led by Mainland Affairs Council Joseph Wu (
"People we talked to in Washington used these adjectives to describe the anti-secession law: unnecessary, unhelpful, unconstructive, undesirable, counter-productive, unwanted and stupid," Hsu said.
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