After the US severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China, China stopped talking about the “liberation of Taiwan” and began using the term “peaceful unification,” emphasizing that this is the official Chinese stance.
Many people dislike China’s ideal of peaceful unification, but I personally do not; in fact, I quite respect it, because the most important ideal in my life has always been peaceful independence for Taiwan.
If Taiwan’s sovereignty and independence were protected peacefully, without bloodshed, it would be the ultimate expression of civilized behavior. People who propose peaceful independence or peaceful unification are not enemies, as they are able to sit down together and discuss how to bring about peace for Taiwanese and Chinese in the 21st century.
What the two sides need to establish first of all are the basic principles of peaceful coexistence — that both sides should guarantee that they would not resort to non-peaceful means to bring about independence or unification.
The UN Charter, signed on June 26, 1945, states that the threat of military force or economic sanctions are non-peaceful measures that should not be used. Therefore, any military deployment on the part of Taiwan or China that the other party sees as a threat violates the peaceful ideals they claim to uphold. This type of activity would have to be stopped before they could claim that they were proponents of peaceful independence or peaceful unification, or they would just be lying.
Under these conditions, which rely on self-discipline and self-respect, Taiwan should not purchase weapons that enable an attack on China, while China should remove the missiles it is aiming at Taiwan, so as to prove the sincerity of their peaceful ideals.
Once the basic principle of peace has been established, the two sides can start to discuss what is meant by “independence” and “unification.” The two stances can take on a variety of meanings depending on the context: whether it be in terms of international law, politics or culture. Independence is not a simple mathematical proposition where “x” minuses one or unification adds one to one.
Many different models for independence have been discussed in Taiwan. They have all been believed to represent independence, from the view that the “Republic of Taiwan” is a sovereign and independent entity to the view that the Republic of China (ROC) is sovereign and independent. All of these are modes of independence. In terms of international law, independence can take many forms.
For example, up to the present day, Canada, New Zealand and Australia are yet to elect their own president, and the British queen is still the nominal head of state of these countries. However, they are without a question sovereign and independent countries.
The 28 countries that make up the EU, such as France, Germany and Italy, do not have their own currencies, but they exercise powers such as requiring entry visas like all other sovereign and independent countries. Nobody doubts that these 28 member states are independent countries. Therefore, it is not as if we are not able to discuss differing forms of independence.
In a similar way, the conditions for unification have varied greatly throughout history. Examples include the British Commonwealth, the EU, which it could be argued represents European unification, and the UN, which could be referred to as representing world unification.
When it comes to Taiwan and China, as long as some point of connection that both sides agreed on was created, then we would be talking about unification. In that sense, unification would not be about transforming Taiwan into a kind of Hong Kong or Fujian Province. New modes of unification could be created.
For Taiwanese, peaceful independence is already an accomplished fact, while China’s peaceful unification remains an unknown variable. After 400 years of colonial rule, 30 more years of repression during the Martial Law era and the rejection and then acceptance of the ROC, it is impossible that Taiwanese could give up the right to decide their own future.
The statement by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesperson Fan Liqing (范麗青) last month that the future of Taiwan “must be decided by all Chinese people, including Taiwanese compatriots” is an example of “a law of the jungle” mentality and also a crazy hegemonic rant.
It is tantamount to saying: “We are going to eat you, it is just a matter of how we are going to do it. Now, should we eat you steamed, fried or baked?”
This is the main reason why TAO Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) did not exactly receive a warm welcome when he visited the nation late last month.
People that are serious about seeking peaceful unification or upholding peaceful independence should not treat each other like enemies, otherwise they cannot be considered true pacifists. After all of the suffering that the Taiwanese and the Chinese experienced in the 20th century, peace should be the main law and principle that both Taiwan and China strive to uphold.
Shih Ming-te is chairman of the Shih Ming-te Foundation and a former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman. He resigned from the DPP in November 2000.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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