The First Salvo under the Plebiscite Act, as Amended: Normalization of Cross-Strait Economics and Trade

  The First Salvo under the Plebiscite Act, as Amended: Normalization of Cross-Strait Economics and Trade

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

December 13, 2017

 Translation of an Excerpt

The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment bill to the "Plebiscite Act" in the third reading, massively lowering the various bars for a plebiscite. A proposal may be introduced by only one ten thousandth of all eligible voters in the preceding general election (approximately 1,800 citizens) and may become valid with the co-sponsorships of 1.5% (approximately 280,000). For the plebiscite to pass, it needs only one quarter (approximately 4.65 million affirmative votes). This lowest bar for a plebiscite in the world will have a tremendous impact on the existing political operations in Taiwan.

The massive lowering of the bars for a plebiscite will indeed have an earth-shaking impact on the existing democratic politics in Taiwan, but everything has two faces. The lowering of the bars will have negative costs, but there are also reasons to look at it with optimism.

The lowering of the plebiscite bars will give to plebiscite elections veritable political power to what was ridiculed as the non-passage of the “Plebiscite Act” in the past. The right of the people to initiate laws, a right stipulated in the ROC Constitution, will no longer be just a slogan in the wind or a castle in the air. In accordance with the revised bars under the current Plebiscite Act, as amended, plebiscite proposals will not only surge like mushrooms after a spring rain, the probability of passing a plebiscite will be hugely enhanced. What can be foreseen is that the initiating of laws by the people will become the "new normal" in future politics of Taiwan.

Will the lowering of the plebiscite bars bring us blessings or wreak havoc? The truth, we are afraid, will be a mixture. The people of Taiwan must strive to let the lowering of bars result in "more blessings than havoc"; fundamentally, it means that when the power of representative democracy declines, the power of direct democracy will ascend; when the weight of the people as hosts of the country is raised, the people must raise themselves, so as not to be manipulated by political whims, but instead morphing into calm and wise "helmsman of destiny."

Public policy-minded people should seize the opportunity to introduce quality plebiscite proposals to rid Taiwan of malaise and try to break through for a turn for the better.

And the most pressing vital crisis is the gradually worsening cross-Strait relations as well as the lost opportunities for Taiwan to participate in the rise of China because of the cross-Strait deadlock, so much so that it becomes more and more marginalized and enters into a treacherously critical situation of economic asphyxiation. However, regardless of well-intentioned urgings on the part of various circles advising the current government to turn around the unfavorable situation, using concrete moves to break the cross-Strait predicament, the ruling DPP is ignorant of the critical situation and remains unmoved. Since the ruling party is not thinking of retrieving Taiwan from the crisis, the people should use their own power and be their own masters to change the critical picture.

For the Blue camp and those who are concerned about the big picture of cross-Strait peaceful development, it may be a good idea to join hands in seizing the opportunity of the lowered bars under the Plebiscite Act, as amended, to launch a plebiscite on the normalization of cross-Strait economic and trade relations, and hold the plebiscite election together with the 2018 local elections. This plebiscite will gear up social concerns and debate; it will be a new opportunity to mobilize for changing old thinking in society, and will enable the people of Taiwan to decide the cross-Strait path and the beginning of their future destiny.

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