Talks between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yulin (陳雲林) start this week. We know that the talks will cover four major issues: the direct shipping of goods, proposals for more direct flight routes for air cargo, postal issues and food safety and sanitation.
These discussions will involve possible amendments to our laws and to Article 5 of the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).
That law states: “Where the content of the agreement requires any amendment to laws or any new legislation, the administration authorities of the agreement shall submit the agreement through the Executive Yuan to the Legislative Yuan for consideration within 30 days after the execution of the agreement; where its content does not require any amendment to laws or any new legislation, the administration authorities of the agreement shall submit the agreement to the Executive Yuan for approval and to the Legislative Yuan for record, with a confidential procedure if necessary.”
However, the Cabinet continues to insist that the issues to be discussed during the talks will not require an amendment to any of our laws so it would only need to inform the legislature about any agreements for “reference.” That means if any agreements are signed as a result of future cross-strait talks, this same strategy can be used to evade legislative oversight. This would turn the legislature into a law-making bureau subordinate to the Cabinet.
What is of greater concern, however, is whether the government will uphold our national dignity and self-respect in the negotiations, and take the position that Taiwan and China are diplomatic equals. This is the only way our government can benefit the Taiwanese.
However, if the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) signs secret deals with China, it will not be serving our national interests. If the legislature is unable to monitor such deals or come up with any countermeasures, the rights and interests of Taiwanese will be damaged.
The Ma administration and the SEF must remember that all SEF-ARATS agreements should be sent to the legislature for review to allow the oversight that will safeguard Taiwan’s rights and interests.
Gao Jyh-peng is a Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS