After a long period of silence, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) has finally made his move: Trying to jump onto the China bandwagon, he has proposed a draft bill for handling cross-strait agreements.
This is an odd move for two reasons. First, the head of the legislature must remain neutral and does not customarily propose bills as Wang did. Second, Wang thinks the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) should hold secret consultations with the legislature before entering into negotiations with China and, when necessary, legislators should be allowed to participate in negotiations.
It is the norm in democratic nations for the Cabinet to obtain the legislature’s consensus prior to arranging negotiations with other countries and for the meetings to be subject to legislative supervision. However, I have never heard of secret negotiations being held beforehand with the legislature about the text of an agreement.
Furthermore, the SEF is just an arm of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC); without authorization from the MAC, it cannot change the text of an agreement after listening to the opinions of the legislature. If prior secret consultations are required, they should be held with the MAC and the National Security Council — both of which decide on fundamental policies on cross-strait issues.
Finally, it is also common practice that the Cabinet take the lead in foreign affairs, while the legislature takes a supervisory, back-seat position. If the legislature were also to dispatch representatives, Wang would be turning the whole system of government on its head. There are clearly big problems with his proposal.
Although the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has reservations about sending legislative representatives to participate in negotiations, it agrees that strict supervision is necessary. The party thus proposed its own draft supervisory bill demanding that SEF representatives avoid conflicts of interest — thus offering conditional support for Wang.
As expected, the strongest opposition has come from the pan-blue camp. Some say the legislature wants to be the “commander-in-chief of negotiations,” while Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) responded by saying that “There isn’t much to avoid as long as negotiations serve the public interest.”
The past few years have seen a huge change in the number of politicians visiting China on a frequent basis. There used to be quite a few from the New Party and the People First Party, such as former finance minister Wang Chien-shien — probably because of their nostalgia for China. But since former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) led a delegation to China three years ago, pro-localization KMT members with good political and business relations have been even busier. They don’t have any clear cross-strait ideals, but many are motivated by concern about their political and business connections. Are they working for the good of Taiwan and is there no need for them to avoid conflicts of interest?
In 2005, to repair the negative image caused by its passing of the “Anti-Secession” Law, China announced that it would scrap import tariffs on various kinds of Taiwanese fruit. At the time, the KMT boycotted the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and insisted that the KMT-controlled Taiwan Provincial Farmers’ Association participate in negotiations on the matter. That’s because TAITRA was affiliated with the DPP government and thus barred from engaging in negotiations with China. As a provincial organization, the farmers’ association was considered a better participant in negotiations — an action that degraded Taiwan’s status into a local government. Is this promoting public interests or betraying national interests?
It is even stranger to have the Sinocon Industrial Standards Foundation — controlled by SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and SEF Secretary-General Pang Chien-kuo (龐建國) — serve as the platform to set industrial standards for the electronics sector on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Safety standards are set by the government, while industrial standards are discussed and determined by industry.
Because Taiwan’s cutting-edge technology is falling behind, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and the Market Intelligence Center (MIC) both play an important role in innovation. For example, the industrial standards for WiMAX are being jointly discussed by the MIC and industry.
Sinocon wants to establish a general platform for the Chinese side, the MIC and Taiwanese companies. It is almost unheard of for politicians to control a platform to set technical standards as it is tantamount to using the state-run ITRI and MAC to line their own pockets.
MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) has always advocated that cross-strait negotiations be held within the WTO framework, but Chiang indirectly expressed his opposition through others, saying that the government should not do so because Beijing wouldn’t be happy with the idea. This position clearly matches the interests of a certain airline and that hurts national interests.
What’s more, although the MAC authorized negotiations on cross-strait cargo charter flights, Chiang only discussed weekend passenger flights during talks with China and tabled the issue of cargo flights. All this obviously involved conflicts of interest, and they are not isolated cases. Despite the fact that some said they were well-treated by the Beijing government during the talks, their motivation behind the negotiation was held in contempt by some officials at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
Has the legislature overstepped its powers? Certainly. Abusing executive power used to be a common KMT practice, including the nomination and appointment of National Communications Commission members and the formulation of a legislative task force to handle cross-strait affairs. Today, if the chairperson of a political party — a civil organization — could participate in cross-strait consultations, why couldn’t a constitutional institution like the legislature play a role in negotiations? I’m afraid the KMT is not the right party to criticize the legislature for overstepping its authority.
Since the KMT has promoted “China fever” and because the rights and responsibilities between the constitutional system and the party system are not clearly distinguished, everyone has been displaying their own personal skills at getting what they want. If the KMT is incapable of preventing conflicts of interest, Wang’s position on supervising cross-strait consultations may be tenable — although his way of going about this supervision is systemically odd. And the game goes on without any rules.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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