To remove legal obstacles for the nation’s “normalization,” a coalition has launched a campaign to scrap the “Taiwan Province” designation and a law defining China as the “Mainland area” of the Republic of China (ROC).
During an academic forum in Taipei yesterday, the first event of the campaign, a coalition of groups and academics called for the termination of the Taiwan Provincial Government and the Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council and for the removal 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).
In the same spirit of the Additional Articles of the Constitution of the ROC, the act stipulates a unification agenda and defines both the “Taiwan area” and the “Mainland area” as part of ROC territory.
Economic Democracy Union convenor Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) urged the government to phase out the two nonfunctional provincial bodies and scrap the act in a bid to end a “misplaced national identity” by changing the “one country, two areas” system.
The act was passed in 1992 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature, and the “one country, two areas” system has remained unchanged despite a decades-long democratization process spanning eight legislative elections, Lai said.
Special laws have to be made to institutionalize exchanges between Taiwan and China in an international context, Lai said.
“Chinese should be redefined from ‘special citizens’ to ‘special foreign nationals,’ and China should be redefined as a special foreign country that harbors aggression toward Taiwan,” Lai said.
The proposals “exercise the democratic rights of a ‘Taiwan Republic’” by challenging the constitutional framework, he said.
Similar forums are to be held in 10 cities and counties to promote the coalition’s cause, and on the 25th anniversary of the promulgation of the act on Sept. 16, a rally is to be held in front of the Straits Exchange Foundation in Taipei, he said.
The campaign aims to create momentum for complete constitutional reform, abolish provincial establishments by 2020 and lobby parties to endorse elimination of the “one country, two areas” framework ahead that year’s general elections, he said.
China and its Taiwanese allies could use the ROC constitutional framework to overturn the nation’s de facto independence and public opinion, Academia Sinica historian Wu Rwei-ren (吳叡人) said.
The restraining effect of the ROC legal framework was evident during former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, which — despite growing public support for localization and independence — was able to lock Taiwan to China while claiming its policies were legally grounded, Wu said.
“While it is politically understandable that the Democratic Progressive Party has shelved the issue [of the ROC framework], it cannot be shelved indefinitely, because safety obtained by compromise is dangerous,” Wu said.
The China-centrism of the Constitution and the “one country, two areas” concept have prevented the full realization of Taiwan’s democracy, Chung Yuan Christian University law professor Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群) said.
While the constitutional reform movement has failed due to the lack of widespread public involvement and President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) pledge to maintain the “status quo” in cross-strait relations, the campaign is an equally legitimate and more attainable way to challenge the constitutional framework, Hsu said.
‘LONE WOLF’: The suspect was difficult to locate, as he did not use a cellphone, did not contact family and often lived in abandoned sites or parks, police said Taipei police on Thursday morning arrested a man accused of numerous burglaries and at least 14 incidents of sexual assault spanning more than 20 years, in what might be the nation’s most notorious crime spree in recent years. Sixty-year-old Tu Ming-lang (涂明朗) — who was yesterday placed in judicial detention, after a judge determined he was a flight risk without a fixed address — faces multiple charges of sexual assault and burglary, police said. A task force comprised of various law enforcement agencies arrested Tu as part of an investigation into an April 28 burglary in Daan District (大安), in which a
Ninth graders were asked to define “trolling” on this year’s standardized exam, reflecting efforts to make the test better reflect real-life situations. Adjustments to this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students were revealed on Sunday, after the last cohort of students completed the test over the weekend. The Ministry of Education solicited feedback about the test from teachers, who approved of the new question in the English portion. Not only was question No. 20 “very much in line with real-life situations,” but it also used a new style in which students were asked to ascertain the correct dictionary definition based
Taiwan is on alert for monkeypox, a rare viral disease that has caused 87 infections in 11 countries over the past three weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Saturday. The WHO on Friday convened an emergency session to discuss a sudden outbreak of monkeypox in North America and Europe. Since the beginning of this month, 87 confirmed cases and 28 possible cases have been identified in 11 countries. The countries with the highest case counts are England with 29 cases, and Portugal and Spain with 23 each. Monkeypox is a viral zoonotic disease occurring primarily in the tropical rainforest areas
Three human skeletons and artifacts believed to be about 400 years old were unearthed by construction workers at National Ilan University in Yilan County, the university said yesterday. The discoveries were made on May 10 as workers were digging to expand the College of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science’s facilities, the university said in a statement. The skeletons were found at three sites, along with glass beads, copper bells and rings, discs and a fish-shaped metal knot, it said. The find is likely connected to the “Old Baili Village” (擺厘舊社, Bai Li Jiu She), an as-yet-undiscovered Kavalan settlement that has been mentioned in
RSS