By Locking Up the Procedure for Cross-Strait Agreements, Do We Seek War?

 By Locking Up the Procedure for Cross-Strait Agreements, Do We Seek War?

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

April 2, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

For the two sides to engage in any consultations, reaching any agreements, the proposed amended law would require that this needed democratic procedures, securing the people’s consent; the people are the most effective safeguard net, which is the reasonable and fundamental principle of a democratic society. Nevertheless, the DPP government, however, took the opposite direction, using the pretext of "democratic safeguard net" to legislate, rendering it impossible to conclude any cross-Strait agreements, attempting to cut off the cross-Strait road to peaceful development. We could not but question whether the DPP government was seeking war.

The Cabinet recently adopted a draft amendment bill to Article 5-3 of the Statute Governing Relations of People Across the Strait, specifically stipulating that vital cross-Strait agreements must undergo duel legislative review as well as a popular plebiscite. The so-called "duel legislative review" means that 90 days before the start of cross-Strait political consultations, the Cabinet shall submit a “plan for the concluding of an agreement" along with “an assessment report on the political impact of the agreement." Only after passage by two-thirds of the legislators of the Legislative Yuan (LY) with a quorum of two-thirds of all legislators, can negotiations proceed. After having reached an agreement, the draft agreement shall again be submitted to the LY for review. After receiving the consent of 3/4 of the legislators with a quorum of 3/4 of all legislators, the Cabinet shall submit the agreement as an appendix of a plebiscite proposition in a plebiscite election. The valid ballots in the plebiscite election must be a majority of all eligible voters before the agreement is considered as officially adopted. The DPP government claims that the design of the super-high bar aims at avoiding any impact on Taiwan's democratic institutions caused by cross-Strait political agreements.

This rhetoric is totally unconvincing. The procedures and bars for passage of cross-Strait agreements under the proposed amended law is even higher than those for amending the Constitution; the objective is to make the bars unsurpassable, cutting off the possibility of the adoption of any cross-Strait agreements, even if when the DPP is no longer in power in the future, as long as it controls over one quarter of the legislative seats, it may block the passage of any cross-Strait agreement.

This mentality and approach indicating that blocking and forestalling rule supreme will not only exclude opportunities for Taiwan to pursue its own welfare and peaceful coexistence in cross-Strait relations; what is most worrisome is that after our side has erected an unsurpassable bar, it will greatly reduce the possibility for the two sides of the Strait to pursue the peaceful resolution of disputes through democratic approaches.

The most advantageous roadmap for Taiwan is to create conditions making the other side of the Strait, in the progression of realizing reunification, willing to follow a democratic approach. If we pile difficulty upon difficulty on the democratic path, making it impossible to realize in actuality, wouldn’t it create incentives and conditions for compulsory reunification?

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