The National Day of the Republic of China, commonly known as Double Ten National Day, was celebrated on Monday. Four days before the event, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he was against calling it “Taiwan National Day.”
“Let us hope that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), in her address to the Republic of China National Day ceremony, will clarify the Constitution of the Republic of China and make it clear that our nation’s relations with the mainland consist of non-recognition of each other’s sovereignty and non-denial of each other’s power of governance, and definitely not two countries,” Ma wrote on Facebook.
Ma’s remarks stirred ire, with United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) accusing him of “ganging up with China to bully Taiwanese.”
Ma might have a doctorate in law, but he clearly needs to retake a course in constitutional law, because the Constitution does not contain a single mention of “mutual non-recognition of sovereignty and mutual non-denial of governance,” and no constitutional interpretation by the former council of grand justices, which has been renamed the Constitutional Court, says anything to support his statement.
On the contrary, the court has in its interpretations identified the “constitutional order of liberal democracy” as being integral and indispensable to the essential nature of the Constitution. This makes deliberately confusing the sovereignties of Taiwan and China tantamount to pushing Taiwan’s “constitutional order of liberal democracy” toward China’s authoritarian dictatorship. The court would really find that to be unconstitutional.
Interpretation No. 499 states: “Some constitutional provisions are integral to the essential nature of the Constitution and underpin the constitutional normative order. If such provisions are open to change through constitutional amendment, adoption of such constitutional amendments would bring down the constitutional normative order in its entirety. Therefore, any such constitutional amendment shall be considered illegitimate, in and of itself. Among various constitutional provisions, Article 1 (the principle of a democratic republic), Article 2 (the principle of popular sovereignty), Chapter II (the protection of constitutional rights), and those providing for the separation of powers and the principle of checks and balances are integral to the essential nature of the Constitution and constitute the foundational principles of the entire constitutional order. All the constitutionally-established organs must adhere to the constitutional order of liberal democracy, as emanating from the said constitutional provisions, on which the current Constitution is founded.”
In so stating, the court affirmed that the most essential nature of the Constitution is the “constitutional order of liberal democracy” and not Ma’s “one country, two regions” or “mutual non-recognition of sovereignty.”
The idea of “mutual non-recognition of sovereignty” is not just completely unsupported by the Constitution and by the interpretation, but also unintelligible and unacceptable to all the world’s democracies. By deliberately confusing the sovereignties of democratic Taiwan and dictatorial China, Ma pushes Taiwan’s constitutional order toward China’s dictatorship under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), whose terms in office are unlimited. This runs contrary to the essential nature of a democratic constitution, as laid out in Interpretation No. 499.
Ma’s education in constitutional law is out of date, and he has a habit of willfully misinterpreting the Constitution and imagining things that it does not say. He should really retake that course.
Huang Di-ying is a lawyer and chairman of the Taiwan Forever Association.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US