Chen urges China to drop threat of force

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 19, 2006. It reports that according to President Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan can never consider unification with China, unless Beijing openly abandons any threat to use force against Taiwan and to fully respect the right of free choice of the Taiwanese people.

In an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, Chen defends the right of the Taiwanese people to pursue democracy. "China itself is not democratic and opposes Taiwan's implementation of genuine democracy. During the process of Taiwan's democratic consolidation and deepening, there is not one thing that China has not opposed," the president said. Every democratic reform in Taiwan has been distorted by China as a move towards Taiwanese independence.

According to the president, there is no so-called "Mainland China tradition of legitimacy" because Taiwan's government is elected in Taiwan by its 23 million citizens. As a result, Taiwan's Constitution has long ago ceased being a "one-China constitution", but is now a localized and "Taiwanized" constitution.

Taiwan passed a referendum law in 2003 and implemented two (failed) referendums on March 20, 2004. After that, a constitutional amendment was passed, which requires that future amendments to the Constitution should be ratified by national citizen referendums. These moves, as well as the government's recent decision to cease the functions of the National Unification Council and the application of the National Unification Guidelines, are all part of Taiwan's democratic consolidation. In other words, they are not moves "toward de jure Taiwanese independence" as charged by China.

According to Chen, the constitutional re-engineering is necessary for the effective enhancement of the quality and competitiveness of the governance of the Taiwanese government. Because of the high threshold set by the constitutional amendment, any change in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait will require three-quarters approval by the Legislative Yuan and further ratification by at least half of Taiwan's eligible voters - which is unlikely to happen in the near future.

When asked about the possible preconditions for moving toward unification with China, Chen said: "We do not exclude the possibility that the people [in Taiwan] may one day choose unification. But we absolutely cannot make ultimate unification the only option for the people." As long as Taiwan's citizens agree, any possible form of political relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait is possible.

According to the president, several preconditions need to be realized before the people of Taiwan will seriously consider unification. First, China must abandon the one party and totalitarian dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party. Second, China must realize a system of genuine democracy, freedom and human rights with full freedom of expression, press freedom and religious freedom. Third, China must never again suppress Taiwan with its military, political and economic powers. Fourth, China must openly declare its abandonment of any intention or preparations to use force against Taiwan, remove all missiles deployed against Taiwan, and retract its anti-separation law. Finally, China must genuinely and completely respect the right of free will choice of Taiwanese people. It must never again appeal to the threat of force or the use of non-peaceful measures against Taiwan.