Many participants at a recent symposium on a new constitution for Taiwan agreed on the need for constitutional reform.
The symposium sponsored by Taiwan Advocates brought together more than 20 experts on constitutional affairs from Taiwan and abroad to Taipei last weekend, including retired US federal judge Eugene Sullivan, who was appointed to the federal bench in 1986 by the late president Ronald Reagan and named a chief judge in 1990 by former president George Bush.
"Taiwan's democracy is like a house with its foundation built upon a Constitution that was passed by the National Assembly in 1947," Sullivan said.
"Now the base [of the house] is full of cracks and fissures and the best way to fix it is to renovate the foundation," he said.
Given the framing of the 1947 Constitution and the political environment in which it was drafted, John Tkacik, a Heritage Foundation research fellow, argued that "the history of the framing of the 1947 ROC [Republic of China] Constitution and its implementation -- or, more accurately, lack thereof -- in Taiwan suggests that a constitutional reform or revision is both reasonable and long overdue."
"In light of this history, it is very difficult to make the case that the 1947 Constitution was ever relevant to Taiwan, and it is even harder to argue that it is relevant now," Tkacik said.
Dieter Heckelmann, a law professor at Berlin's Freie Universitaet, stressed that since Taiwan possessed the key elements of territory, sovereignty and people, it is a country and therefore has the right to have its own Constitution.
Shiro Odamura, chairman of the Asia Pacific Association in Japan, said that it is clear that the ROC Constitution no longer fits Taiwan.
"Even so, Taiwan must confront its international issues and the opposition coming from China to Taiwan's constitutional reconstruction," Odamura said.
"In face of these issues, the Taiwanese people have no other option but to stay determined and show others their strong will," he said.
His comments were seconded by Olivier Darrason, an associate professor of law at Aix-en-Provence University in France.
Senior presidential adviser Peng Ming-min (
Citing examples from countries such as Poland and Guyana, Mindy Barry, counsel for the US House of Representative's Judiciary Committee, spoke of the historical and cultural aspects of drafting of a constitution.
"Designing a modern constitution is a multi-dimensional process that includes not just layering national goals upon legal constructs, but also obtaining consensus to negotiate by all necessary stakeholders and determining the axiological stance of the constitution," Barry said.
"Taiwan's framers can look to the experiences of other nations to find lessons that put together Taiwan's history, culture, and preferences and develop into a logical approach for designing a new Taiwanese constitution, she said.
Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮), head of the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, said that the drafting of a new constitution should be built upon a foundation that's novel, that's not rushed and that incorporates all issues.
Touching on the issue of Tai-wan's official name, Stephane Corcuff, visiting scholar at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, proposed calling Taiwan the "Chinese Republic of Taiwan."
Using such a name could be as a compromise between the pro-
independence and pro-unification groups and avoid having China use the name as an excuse to declare war, he said.
Corcuff's idea, however, was met with disagreement from several participants.
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a professor at Tamkang University's department of public administration, and Takayuki Munakata, a member of Japan's Asia Security Forum, voiced dissatisfaction with the idea.
Taking Macedonian as an example, Shih said no country wants its official title to include part of another country's name.
He said Macedonians would not want to have their country called the "Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonian."
Shih said there was no need to create ambiguity by incorporate the word "Chinese" in Taiwan's official name.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened 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), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS