The "Anti-Secession" Law was approved by China's National People's Congress (NPC) on March 14. The law will exert a far-reaching influence on Taiwan's international situation and cross-strait relations, so Taiwanese people must not be indifferent about it.
Formulating the Anti-Secession Law has confused international perception of the cross-strait issue and further consolidated the "one China" principle of unification. The law considers Taiwan a domestic affair.
On the one hand, the law mandates the use of "non-peaceful means" and other necessary measures to deal with a declaration of "de jure Taiwan independence." It also provides legal protection for the lives, property, rights, and interests of Taiwanese, foreign nationals in Taiwan, and Taiwanese in China, which is offered as bait to encourage opposition to independence and support for unification.
At the same time, the law further isolates Taiwan by prohibiting the international community from interfering in China's domestic affairs.
The Anti-Secession Law gives legal form to China's unificationist position, and rules out cross-strait resolution models derived from East and West Germany, North and South Korea, the EU and others and narrows the scope of cross-strait dialogue. All of these fully reveal China's overbearing attitude not only to completely destroy the "1992 consensus," but also its intent to put an end to the long-term cross-strait controversy.
Particularly, instituting such a law will authorize China to broaden its pro-unification focal point from simple cross-strait political issues to international and legal aspects.
The so-called "one China based on legal principles" will further narrow the scope of Taiwan's international activities, and legitimize China's behavior in the international community to oppress Taiwan, making the future of the two sides of the Strait even more distant and alienated.
In fact, Taiwan's 50-year struggle has realized its people's right of self-determination, which is the foundation of all basic human rights. The two international covenants on human rights passed by the UN in 1966 and which came into force in 1976, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Social Covenant or Covenant A) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the Civil Covenant or Covenant B), grant all peoples "the right of self-determination."
The Republic of China in Taiwan is a liberal democracy, the foundation of which is governed by its people. Faced with China's ambition, Taiwanese people, of course, want to defend their country. Only Taiwanese people have the right to determine Taiwan's political status. Only if Taiwan is free from China's military threat can Taiwan's future be determined by the Taiwanese people, rather than unilaterally by China's "legal warfare."
Furthermore, Articles I and III of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, signed in 1933, specify that "the state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states" and "the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states."
Therefore, there is no doubt that the Republic of China in Taiwan is a sovereign nation under international law. In the current international trend of developing in the direction of mutual dependency and continuing to promote regional integration, resolving international disputes by means of peaceful negotiation has become a common consensus in the international community.
The following are two examples from other countries in the world. One is the Basic Treaty signed between East and West Germany in 1972 in East Berlin, resolving their basic relations prior to their unification. The other is North and South Korea's participating in the UN.
Therefore, we can make no exceptions about resolving cross-strait issues. We should resume the mechanism of restarting appropriate cross-strait talks and advancing political dialogue. In order to promote cross-strait "co-existence" and "co-prosperity" and ensure a peaceful and stable development of the Asia-Pacific region to meet the shared interests of both sides of the Taiwan Strait and the international community, Taiwan and China should abandon the idea of "zero-sum" competition and must not use the Anti-Secession Law as a weapon. Only in this way can we be able to prevent cross-strait relations from sinking again into a deadlock.
Dominique Wang is a professor of the department and Graduate Institute of Law at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY LIN YA-TI
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