It is sad, but unsurprising, that the Taipei Times misunderstands the position of the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution regarding “one China” (Editorial, April 3, page 8). Sad because people are prevented from gaining useful understanding; unsurprising because hardly anyone in Taiwan understands this issue clearly.
Politicians can perhaps be excused for simply mouthing whatever they think will win them votes, but when even so-called “legal experts” can make blatantly incorrect statements, we have a real problem.
So where exactly does the Constitution detail national territory?
Most people think they know the answer: Article 4.
In the original Constitution, adopted in 1947, it states: “The territory of the Republic of China according to its existing national boundaries shall not be altered except by resolution of the National Assembly.”
That is it; there is no specification of any territories, only the mention of “existing” boundaries (this is the official translation, from the Presidential Office Web site, of the Chinese term guyou [固有], which some feel would be better translated as “inherent”).
Of course, having been written by people in China they must have been including the main areas of China, and then there are several articles about elections of representatives from the Mongolian and Tibetan areas (Article 26, paragraphs 2 and 3; Article 64, paragraphs 2 and 3; and Article 135).
However, all that is so much water under the bridge.
First, Article 4 has been ruled “non-justiciable” by the Council of Grand Justices. Asked whether Mongolia was still a part of ROC territory, the council in 1993 issued Interpretation No. 328, which ruled that the legislative intent of the term “inherent/existing” was specifically to avoid setting down precise boundaries, since the areas controlled by the ROC in China at the time were continually shifting with the tides of the Chinese Civil War. The interpretation thus held that the phrase is a political question that cannot be assigned any fixed legal definition. The practical impact of this ruling is that it is legally impossible to “violate” Article 4, since anyone could assert any notion of “inherent/existing national boundaries.”
Second, Article 4 is no longer in effect. It was replaced in 2000 by paragraph 5 of Additional Article 4, which itself was amended in 2005. Although Additional Article 4 contains almost the same phrase, “the territory of the Republic of China, defined by its existing national boundaries,” surely the use of the term “existing” in 2000 or 2005, without qualification, does not mean “existing as of 1947.”
This does not pass the common sense test.
Recall that ever since the first set of constitutional amendments abolished the “10,000-year parliament,” the Additional Articles of the ROC Constitution have been enacted by people representing only the current territory of the ROC — not to mention that the hypothetical change in boundaries would now be approved only by the electorate in the current territory. Could the legislative intent really have been to give voters in Taiwan sole authority to change, say, the location of the border between Tibet and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state?
Thus it is quite astonishing to hear all kinds of pan-blue figures, from law professors to top national leaders, continuously invoking Article 4 as if it were still the law of the land. At the same time, it is hardly less amazing that we have seen no really effective rebuttal by pan-greens, who are apparently as confused as everyone else on this issue.
Without at least a minimum degree of clarity as to what the Constitution actually says, it is hardly possible to usefully discuss whether we can or ought to use it to address issues of cross-strait relations, or indeed anything else.
Bo Tedards is a political commentator living in Taipei.
During the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum’s third leadership summit on Aug. 31, US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun said that the US wants to partner with the other members of the Quadrilaterial Security Dialogue — Australia, India and Japan — to establish an organization similar to NATO, to “respond to ... any potential challenge from China.” He said that the US’ purpose is to work with these nations and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region to “create a critical mass around the shared values and interest of those parties,” and possibly attract more countries to establish an alliance comparable to
On August 24, 2020, the US Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, made an important statement: “The Pentagon is Prepared for China.” Going forward, how might the Department of Defense team up with Taiwan to make itself even more prepared? No American wants to deter the next war by a paper-thin margin, and no one appreciates the value of strategic overmatch more than the war planners at the Pentagon. When the stakes are this high, you can bet they want to be super ready. In recent months, we have witnessed a veritable flood of high-level statements from US government leaders on
Over the past year, the world has observed what many of us in the US Congress have warned about for years: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is an unreliable partner intent on chasing its ambitions to be the world’s superpower at the expense of its people, its partners and the international community at large. In December last year, the CCP had evidence that a new strain of the coronavirus was infecting and killing Chinese citizens at an alarming rate. Their response was to censor medical professionals and lie to their own people out of fear of tarnishing China’s global image, and
China has long sought shortcuts to developing semiconductor technologies and local supply chains by poaching engineers and experts from Taiwan and other nations. It is also suspected of stealing trade secrets from Taiwanese and US firms to fulfill its ambition of becoming a major player in the global semiconductor industry in the next decade. However, it takes more than just money and talent to build a semiconductor supply chain like the one which Taiwan and the US started to cultivate more than 30 years ago. Amid rising trade and technology tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, Beijing has become
RSS