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`Anti-Secession' Law offers Taiwan a golden opportunity, legal experts say

Legal experts yesterday called for legislation that would appropriately counter Beijing's "Anti-Secession" Law on a statutory front.

While the Anti-Secession Law has been dealt with extensively from diplomatic and political perspectives since its passage last Monday, little has been said of its legal nature, Chen Hwei-syin (陳惠馨), a National Chengchi University law professor, said at a forum held by the Taiwan Law Society in conjunction with the Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association and the Taipei Society.

"There is a move from traditional warfare toward a legal battle between Taiwan and China," Chen said.

Tsai Tzung-Jen (蔡宗貞), a professor of law at National Taiwan University, said that the Anti-Secession Law actually offered an opportunity, if handled appropriately, to make minor changes in the nation's legal status.

"The law itself is not a missile, but it can be like packaging for tomorrow's missiles," Tsai said. She said that the legislature should take this "golden opportunity" to turn the game around by passing appropriate legislation.

Chen agreed, saying that lawmakers should amend the legal stipulations that create ambiguity about Taiwan's legal status.

"Our stance on Taiwan's status needs to be made clear. Either we go the route that independence supporters want, or we make changes to the Constitution and its prologue, or we just make minor adjustments to the word choice of some laws," National Taiwan University Law professor Yen Chueh-an (顏厥安) said, explaining that China's law could effectively change the nation's legal status.

Tsai said that China's authorization of "non-peaceful" means against Taiwan was a mistake.

"It's a big contradiction. The authorization of the use of force should not be in this law. China uses force to put down domestic riots all the time. If there is need of a law to authorize the use of force against Taiwan, it indicates that the legality of this force comes from somewhere else," Tsai said.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) echoed Tsai's sentiments, asking why there was a need for this law if the so-called "Taiwan question" was a leftover dispute from the civil war of the 1940s, as China claims in the bill.

"They did not need a law authorizing the use of force before," Lin said.

Chang Wen-chen (張文貞), a law professor at National Taiwan University, examined Beijing's treatment of secession rights, noting that, legally speaking, there should not be any dispute over secession rights between Taiwan and China.

"Since Taiwan is not a part of China, de facto or de jure, there is no problem concerning secession rights," she said.

Chang said that there was a move internationally toward the protection of secession rights and that several nations have already ensconced secession rights in their constitutions.

"Several African nations, including Ethiopia, have placed the right to secede into their new constitutions," Chang said, adding that the former USSR was the first nation to make legal allowances for secession.

Chen Chao-ju (陳昭如), a National Taiwan University law professor, brought feminist legal theory to her analysis of the violence inherent in the bill.

"China's use of `non-peaceful means' instead of `military force' in the bill has brought praise from some sectors, but in a way this new term actually better describes the situation. It is more than just military force, it is also a linguistic and psychological attack," Chen said, pointing to the definition of violence in feminist theory as more than just a physical attack.

"Violence doesn't have to be just physical ... China's violence takes many forms, but remember, the ultimate motive remains unchanged," Chen said.
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