Block the Edge-Ball Plebiscite Proposal of the Taiwan Independence Faction

 Block the Edge-Ball Plebiscite Proposal of the Taiwan Independence Faction

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 31, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

The Central Election Commission meeting, in a review session, accepted a plebiscite proposal introduced by former Olympics athlete Chi Cheng titled, “Use the Designation Taiwan in Applications for All International Athletic Meets and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.” This will be the beginning of a super disaster; it may not only seriously hurt the chances of our countrymen to take part in international athletic meets, the substantive meaning of an edge-ball for “changing the national title and authoring a new constitution” may even lead to misgivings of unconstitutionality. It could also cause cross-Strait frictions to boil over.

The text of the proposed plebiscite also has problems of contradictions in semantics: on the one hand, it proposes using the name Taiwan in applications to take part in "all international athletic meets," while at the same time it specifically names the "2020 Tokyo Olympic Games." Should the proposal win in the plebiscite election, would it only apply to the “2020 Olympics,” or should the designation Taiwan be used for all Olympic Games? If we should apply to take part in "all international athletic meets" under the designation of Taiwan, we could foresee that in today’s international situation, the applications would inevitably be rejected by international athletic meets, then, could this country still use the designation "Chinese Taipei" to take part?

In the Olympics plebiscite proposed by Chi Cheng et al. this time, the political impact will be far greater than the 2008 plebiscite proposal “Apply to Join the United Nations under the Name Taiwan.” Since the DPP assumed full control of the government in 2017, it took the lead in amending the "Plebiscite Act," and massively lowered the bars for adoption. For the adoption of the plebiscite under the current system, it requires only that the yes votes are greater than nay votes in number, and that valid votes exceed 25% of the total number of eligible voters. With the existing capacity of political mobilization of the Green camp, it would not be difficult for the yes votes to exceed 25% of the total number of eligible voters. Should the Olympic plebiscite be adopted, it would immediately bring upon us two great disasters on sports and cross-Strait relations.

People with lofty ideals in the Blue camp and anti-Taiwan independence forces who are concerned about Taiwan’s future should adopt an offensive strategy against the Olympic plebiscite proposal by launching a counter-mobilization asking voters to cast “nay votes” so that “nay votes exceed the number of valid yes votes”. In particular, Blue camp candidates in the year-end elections should list "anti-Olympics plebiscite" in their campaign activities as a main strategy and encourage voters to cast nay votes.

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