China’s “Anti-Secession” Law is a “ticking time bomb,” former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) chairman James Moriarty said in Washington on Tuesday.
Moriarty made the remarks during a panel discussion entitled “Employing ‘Non-Peaceful’ Means Against Taiwan: The Implications of China’s Anti-Secession Law,” cohosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank and the Taiwan-based Prospect Foundation.
The 2005 “Anti-Secession” Law is China’s legal basis for punishing Taiwanese desires for independence, the panel said, as Article 8 reserves the right for China to resort to force to “unify” with Taiwan if the possibility of peaceful “reunification” is ever lost.
Photo: CNA
China on June 21 published 22 new guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwanese independence separatists.”
Moriarty called the law “a horrible thing” and said that it “asserted a sovereignty over Taiwan” that the People’s Republic of China lacks.
Article 8 allows China to decide when the hope of “unifying” with Taiwan has been lost, he said.
In giving context to the period when the law was passed, Moriarty admitted that former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) did “have us scared” when he attempted to push for a referendum for Taiwan to enter the UN, which could have unilaterally altered the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, a situation opposed by the US.
Moriarty said that the situation has now changed and that on his recent visit to Taiwan, there was no evidence that the nation was moving toward independence under three consecutive Democratic Progressive Party presidential terms.
When bringing up the potential for a peaceful, non-coercive unification between the two sides of the Strait, he said he “certainly” does not see it in the foreseeable future, citing global events such as the Hong Kong protest movement and the war in Ukraine, that have provided lessons for Taiwanese voters.
Given Taiwan’s democratic system, the “well-informed electorate” is “in control” of any unification process, Moriarty said.
While Taiwan has changed in the past two decades, China is no longer flexible or “willing to kick the can down the road” as it was under former Chinese presidents Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Jiang Zemin (江澤民), he said.
The new guidelines have put pressure on the Chinese authorities to act against Taiwanese independence and that under one-man rule, China has become increasingly unpredictable.
“We don’t want [Chinese President] Xi Jinping (習近平) to wake up one day and say ‘today is the day we can make it work’” he said about a potential invasion of Taiwan.
He called for other nations to provide an effective deterrent and to do so quickly, so that Xi would choose not to start a war, and to push back against legislation such as the “Anti-Secession” Law.
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