A delegation of politicians, including former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) and Non-Partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), went to China last month for a series of meetings with Chinese officials.
On Thursday last week, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) announced that the office had reached an agreement with the delegation on several matters, including “a common opposition to Taiwanese independence separatism, and joining forces to make progress toward peaceful unification with the motherland.”
Liu’s use of the word “agreement” can mean only one thing: The delegation has signed up to carrying out Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “one country, two systems” model, which he has been attempting to foist on Taiwan since he brought up his version of the idea in a major speech on Jan. 2.
In the speech, Xi called for a “democratic consultation on cross-strait relations” with representatives of Taiwan. It is this consultation that appears to have been the purpose of the delegation’s visit.
As the controversy began to metastasize, KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) issued a flimflam response, saying: “I don’t know anything about this, so I have no comment.”
Wu cannot keep his head in the sand over the issue. He will soon find out that he cannot continue to palm off the public in this way.
The reasons are simple:
First, Hung — a former KMT chairwoman — narrowly missed out on contesting the 2016 presidential election after she was rounded on by an influential faction within her party that viewed her as an electoral liability and replaced her with then-KMT chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) just three months before the vote.
Despite this, Hung is still an influential ambassador for her party, and what she says and does still carries weight. Therefore, Wu cannot brush aside her participation in the delegation to China.
Second, it is precisely because Hung is not a standard KMT member that the TAO chose her to engage in a “democratic consultation” to achieve a consensus on unification. This is no trifling matter. In addition to damaging the party’s image, it might also be misinterpreted as the KMT trying to play a two-handed strategy.
My-Formosa.com president Wu Tsu-chia (吳子嘉) was once a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). A few years ago, Wu started to develop close links with China, making multiple trips to take part in meetings there, at which he rubbed shoulders with high-ranking Chinese officials.
As he did so, his public statements began to take on a distinctly pro-China hue and in the end, he was ejected from the DPP.
The KMT says that it is opposed to the “one country, two systems” model being applied to Taiwan, and Wu Den-yih has even been shut out by the Chinese Communist Party for advocating former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “one China, each side with its own interpretation.”
As Hung’s acceptance of Xi’s “one country, two systems” plan is likely to damage the KMT’s image, in addition to running contrary to the party’s current policy, the question is whether Wu Den-yih’s decision to sit on the fence is a sign that he tacitly approves of her pro-unification stance.
Third, if Hung participated in the TAO meeting as her party’s official representative, this could be in contravention of Article 9 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), as well as Article 58 of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法). Under Article 26 of the Political Parties Act (政黨法), the party could be broken up a result.
If Hung traveled to China as a private citizen to take part in a “democratic consultation,” during which she reached an agreement with Chinese officials, then she could be liable under Article 113 of the Criminal Code, which states: “Any person who without authority makes a secret agreement with a foreign government or its agent shall be sentenced to life imprisonment or imprisonment not less than seven years if the making of such an agreement on the matter requires government authorization.”
Perhaps Wu Den-yih’s silence on the matter is to keep the KMT away from legal indiscretion, or it might be that he wants to uphold the party’s policy of opposing “one country, two systems.”
However, he needs to get off the fence, otherwise — in addition to potentially plunging the party into a legal crisis — his continued silence could mean that “one country, two systems” becomes an official KMT policy by default. Then he really would have a crisis on his hands.
Lee Po-han is a graduate student at National Taiwan University’s college of law.
Translated by Edward Jones
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