In US President George W. Bush's State of the Union address last month, he said that the continuing push for democracy remains the nation's key overseas mission.
Yet a recent suggestion by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) that the time has come to seriously consider scrapping the National Unification Council and the guidelines for national unification upset the US Department of State, which believes that Chen's plans may result in a change of the cross-strait status quo.
Suspicions have also been raised by several media outlets in Taiwan, which have been eager to point out that the guidelines are the foundation on which cross-strait relations are built and that they therefore they must not be abolished arbitrarily.
But if we take a closer look at the guidelines, whose historical implications have been regarded as sacred by Taiwan's opposition parties, Chinese authorities and some US politicians, we see that they are in fact not sacred at all.
The guidelines were enacted in 1991, and the main force behind them, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), was elected in 1990 by the first National Assembly.
Although the first National Assembly -- which didn't face elections for more than 40 years -- had a legal foundation, it lost all legitimacy amid vigorous calls for new elections to be held.
As a result, the legitimacy of a president elected only by the assembly was in doubt. The fact that the guidelines were hammered out by the Presidential Office without consulting the public highlights their expedient nature.
The guidelines removed the restrictions of former president Chiang Ching-kuo's (蔣經國) "three noes" policy -- "no contact, no compromise, and no negotiation" with the Chinese Communists.
This played an important role in helping to kick-start landmark talks between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait in the early 1990s.
But since the guidelines were implemented without first gaining public consent, however, their legitimacy was clearly questionable. After Lee became the first popularly elected president in 1996, the guidelines were shelved.
The guidelines set out short-, mid- and long-term goals for achieving the unification of Taiwan and China, but from the perspective of legal theory, they are only a policy statement or a basis for short-term administrative expediency. In the absence of public consent, the guidelines should not be used to plan Taiwan's cross-strait policies.
Strangely, the US government does not hesitate to send soldiers to Iraq, but when faced with the thorny cross-strait situation, it ignores the guidelines' undemocratic character.
The US tolerates China's "Anti-Secession" Law, which amounts to a unilateral change to the cross-strait status quo, but it does not support the abrogation of a policy statement which is not even a law.
When a great global power, which has declared that it will defend democracy unnecessarily criticizes democratic Taiwan in this way, its double standards are laid bare for all to see.
The opposition parties' worship of the guidelines -- which have not been approved by any elected institution or been given any other form of authorization by the public -- ignores the damage the guidelines inflict on Taiwan's democracy. They continue to backpedal by standing on the opposite side of democracy.
Li To-tzu has a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Lin Ya-ti
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS