Taiwan needs a new constitution to reflect its current sovereign status, clarify its political structures and define its relationship with China, former president Lee Teng-hui (
Lee was speaking in Taichung at a forum held by the thinktank Taiwan Advocates to promote the drafting of a new constitution.
PHOTO: LIAO YAO-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
As well as the new constitution the forum also discussed referendums and the importance of preventing Taiwan from regressing politically by allowing old and discredited political forces to make a comeback.
In his opening speech Lee said that the forum was meant to enlighten people about their own rights as the bosses of the country and about Taiwan's current status, to consolidate the value of Taiwan's sovereignty and the notion of "Taiwan First," to define the roles of Taiwan and China clearly and to define the hostility of China toward Taiwan.
Lee said that Taiwanese should use three core principles in defining their relationship with China: first that Taiwan and the People's Republic of China are two separate countries which do not belong to each other; second, the confirmation of "Taiwan First," ie, thinking from a nationalist perspective centered on the interests of Taiwan; third, counting China as a hostile country until it renounces its military threats against Taiwan.
Much of the discussion of the need for a new constitution centered on the lack of clarity about who should actually govern in Taiwan's semi-presidential system.
"Taiwan is a political system neither led by the president nor by the Cabinet. The president cannot dismiss the legislature when the legislature is running amok and vice versa," Lee Hung-hsi said.
He said it was necessary to draft a new constitution because it was impossible to amend the current one.
"To have the Constitution amended, regulations require that the amendment has to be proposed by at least one fourth of the legislators, at least three-fourths of the legislators have to be present at the session and at least three-fourths of the legislators present at the session must support the amendment. But with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dominating the legislature, any amendment is destined to fail. So we can only resort to making a new constitution," he said.
Lee Hung-hsi pointed out that the current Constitution was written in 1946 and promulgated in 1947 in China. It reflected the needs of China, and it had nothing to do with Taiwan. Taiwan needed a constitution of its own, he said.
"Someone has even been saying amending the Constitution would cause chaos in the country, but even China has amended its Constitution in the past and we didn't see Chinese people running amok after that," he said.
According to Chen Po-chih (
"Several years back when I was involved in amending the Constitution, I dined with a politician from a certain party who was also involved in the process. I asked that politician why his party supported a political system with two heads and two legislatures. That politician explained that his party did so because if the party lost the presidency, then it could still control the Cabinet; if the party lost the Legislative Yuan, then it could still continue to control the National Assembly," Chen said.
Ruan Ming, a Chinese visiting professor at Tamkang University, attacked KMT without reservation.
Ruan said that Lien Chan (
"China had ceased to use external threats and turned to manipulating Taiwan's internal struggles instead, turning Taiwanese against Taiwanese. China has come to realize its military threat is useless, and the old political power in Taiwan is useless. Only by combining the two can China achieve what it wants. So what China wants this year to install Lien Chan as Taiwan's president," Ruan said.
"Making a new Constitution, meanwhile, is to allow Taiwan's fate to be controlled by Taiwanese people instead of by those who oppose Taiwan's independence. This is our mission," he said.
"We are not pan-blue nor pan-green. We are pan-Taiwan. We are pure Taiwanese while Lien Chan is pure Chinese," he said.
Ruan's fellow countryman, Chinese dissident writer Cao Chang-ching (曹長青) was also unreserved in disparaging the Lien-Soong ticket and China.
Cao pointed out that the pan-blue camp's stress on "One China" was advantageous to China but hurtful toward Taiwan.
"Lien supports and stresses the notion of `One China,' and says there is only one China, and it is the Republic of China. But he cannot deny there is another country called the PRC. He said he wants to put aside the issue of sovereignty, but that actually means he gives up Taiwan's sovereignty. Where else can you find a presidential candidate who abandons the sovereignty of his country?" Cao said.
"Added to this, the [Chinese] Communist Party supports the Lien-Soong ticket and we cannot support candidates supported by the Communist Party. We should use our ballots in this election to show the whole world that Taiwan is not a part of China, but a part of the whole world, and Taiwan belongs to Taiwanese," Cao said.
Cao also mocked Soong: "US Democratic hopeful Howard Dean is losing his nomination campaign due to his `I have a scream' speech because Americans cannot accept an overemotional person to be their leader. On the same basis, Americans would surely not accept a person like James Soong, who frequently kneels down and begs in front of the public, to be their leader. If Soong gets emotional when he goes to meet Jiang Zemin in Beijing and kneels, it would not be a small matter," he said.
Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), a political commentator and editor in chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine, said that the current Constitution and the Republic of China have become myths now.
"Former President Lee Teng-hui has said that the Republic of China no longer exists, but still some people are saying that name, together with the Constitution, exists. These two things have become myths, but Roland Barthes writes that `the myth is a semiological system which has the pretension of transcending itself into a factual system,'" Chin said.
"If the Chen-Lu ticket wins again this year, then certain things are destined to happen: first, KMT has to be Taiwanized then, following the KMT's name change, China's theory that the issue of Taiwan is the continuation of a domestic struggle between the Communist Party and the KMT will collapse. China will lose on its claim on Taiwan," Chin said.
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