A nation has several pillars of national defense, among them are military strength, energy and food security, and national unity. Military strength is very much on the forefront of the debate, while several recent editorials have dealt with energy security. National unity and a sense of shared purpose — especially while a powerful, hostile state is becoming increasingly menacing — are problematic, and would continue to be until the nation’s schizophrenia is properly managed.
The controversy over the past few days over former navy lieutenant commander Lu Li-shih’s (呂禮詩) usage of the term “our China” during an interview about his attendance at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, China, on Tuesday last week is a case in point. Who does this “our” refer to, and how exactly is he defining “China?” However, it is far from the controversy that has emerged recently.
There is also the case of Li Zhenxiu (李貞秀), a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislator-at-large nominee. Li is the Chinese spouse of a Taiwanese national, and there seems to be some uncertainty over whether she must give up her Chinese nationality to qualify as a lawmaker.
What might seem obvious in a well-adjusted country is far from being so in Taiwan. Foreign nationals are prohibited from holding public office, but the texts of major legislation, including the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (中華民國憲法增修條文) and 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), cast some doubt on whether those holding People’s Republic of China (PRC) nationality are considered foreign nationals, or how they might go about renouncing their nationality.
Pro-localization politicians and the public might balk at the idea that there are any questions over the distinction between the PRC and the Republic of China (ROC). Pro-China and pro-unification advocates or members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) committed to safeguarding the integrity of the ROC and KMT ideology would find the issue more nuanced.
Under Article 3 of the Legislators’ Conduct Act (立法委員行為法), it is the responsibility of legislators to perform duties on behalf of nationals, and should therefore observe the Constitution, which makes perfect sense. The problem is that there are considerable issues with the ROC Constitution, which was written in and for China, that simply do not make sense when applied to Taiwan. Any suggestion to rewrite the Constitution is a nonstarter.
For a country facing an existential threat, one would hope that all hands would be on deck to steer the ship of state to safety, battening down the hatches to protect against the coming storm, but that is not what is happening. The KMT and the TPP are set on hobbling the Democratic Progressive Party government with their legislative power-grab and budget boycott. That is one good reason to add urgency to the question of Li’s nomination by the TPP.
Then there are the proposals of KMT Legislator Weng Hsiao-ling (翁曉玲), first to amend Article 9-3 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area to remove restrictions on retired public servants and military brass participating in and endorsing Chinese Communist Party activities and messaging, and another to change quorum rules for the Constitutional Court to issue rulings that would effectively hobble the court and make it impossible to address the nation’s schizophrenic contradictions.
So much for battening down the hatches.
With Taiwan’s schizophrenia, things only seem to make sense when you choose which parts to cling to, and how best to suspend your belief for the nonsensical.
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
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