Sun, Dec 17, 2000 page8

• It is time to reorganize the NUC

  • By Shen Fu-hsiung 沈富雄
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  In view of the "three acknowledgements, four suggestions" consensus reached by the President's Advisory Group on Cross-Strait Affairs (跨黨派小組), President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has indicated recently that he would make efforts to integrate the different opinions on cross-strait relations.

  In fact, since its inception, the advisory group's status and whether the group and the National Unification Council (NUC, 國統會) are redundant in terms of functions have been the subjects of much debate. As a result, the opposition parties joined forces to boycott participation in the advisory group and question the group's legitimacy. Now that the advisory group has completed the first phase of its task, it is necessary to straighten out and restructure the president's advisory mechanism on cross-strait relations.

  To clarify the status of the advisory group and the NUC, it is inevitable to first address issues concerning integration and names of the two organizations. I disagree with Professor Shen Chun-shan's (沈君山) suggestion to incorporate the advisory group with the NUC. The truth of the matter is two wrongs don't make a right. The NUC meetings have always been occasions in which top officials get together as a formality. Not only is the body an inadequate representation of popular will, the annual meeting was little more than an empty ritual without any concrete contribution.

  On the other hand, the structure of the advisory group had some serious birth defects, in that it lacked sufficient party representation. Despite the pains that it had taken to reach a consensus, it can never win over the support of the opposition alliance. Therefore, I suggest that we start with the reorganization of the NUC to strengthen its representation. Namely, maintain the NUC's general structure, and add to it the democratic spirit of proportional representation that the advisory group is supposed to have. We can reconstruct the NUC along this path.

  Due to the original sin of "unification," the NUC's reorganization would face a debate over its name. The DPP opposes unification as a precondition and asks to change the name of the "National Unification Council." The opposition alliance insists that the name should not be abolished that easily. There seems to be no common ground on this issue. If we identify the NUC as a consensus building mechanism, then whether it can perform the practical function of preventing war and conflict should be far more important than whatever its name may be.

  Don't we stand to lose more than we gain if setting aside the name "national unification" creates yet another dispute and stirs up anxiety in China? Hence, Chen may as well spend his time and energy on issues other than the NUC's name, and make overall adjustments on its organization and operations. As for the issue of whether there should be a change of name, this should be left for the reorganized NUC to decide.

  Perhaps the NUC could study and discuss the following three positions: first, "unification is the only option," ie pro-unification; second, "unification is one of the options," ie neither pro-unification nor pro-independence; third, "unification is never an option," ie pro-independence. Such an arrangement would be acceptable to pro-unificationists because unification is regarded as a top-priority subject of discussion under the NUC.

  Those who are pro-independence will also have some elbow room because unification is not a foregone conclusion and independence is not totally excluded. With both sides finding this arrangement acceptable, and the replacement of the unification versus independence dispute with a discussion of the options, the NUC's prospects will look good.

  As for the question of how the NUC should be organized, I think this should be done in accordance with the principle of party representation, as well as the respective percentages of public support on the unification-independence spectrum. First, we will need to conduct opinion polls to get the proportions of public support for "unification being the only option," "unification being an option," and "unification not being an option." Then, based on these results, we can set the NUC membership proportionally.

  Next, each political party appoints NUC members according to the proportions of seats they have in the Legislature (or the calculation may also include the percentage of votes each party obtained in the presidential election). Every party representative must choose one of the three positions, and serve as an advocate of that position. After all the party representatives are chosen, there may be "insufficient representation" or "over representation" of the support for the three positions.

  Finally, in view of the tremendous public divergence over the the unification-independence issue, the NUC should uphold the principle of "consensus democracy." To integrate differences and seek the highest common denominator, decisions should be based on the consensus of the entire membership instead of a majority. The unification-independence dispute has long been a source of clear-cut and insurmountable division in Taiwan society. We hope the reorganization and rebirth of the NUC can eliminate this division and lead the cross-strait relations out of its dismal state and toward a more hopeful path.

  Shen Fu-hsiung is a DPP legislator and a member of the President's Advisory Group on Cross-Strait Affairs.

  Translated by Wu Pei-shih
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