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| Sunday, 20 March 2005 |
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PRC enacts anti-secession law Globescan by M.p. Muttiah China's National People's Congress enacted the Anti-Secession Law last Monday with 2896 deputies voting in favour and two abstentions. The law came into effect after Chinese President Hu Jintao signed Presidential order to promulgate it. The law was first put on the legislative agenda of the National People's Congress last December in response to the growing calls and proposals for such legislation in recent years. The Anti-Secession Law provides for the nature of Taiwan's issues, the pursuit of national re-unification through peaceful means, and the use of non-peaceful means to check Taiwan's secession from China as the last resort. Scholars and several countries, including France, welcomed the law as it promotes national re-unification by peaceful means, the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, the safeguarding of national sovereignty and Chinese national integrity. However, it is not a surprise that the United States, as usual, criticised the law and said that it did not serve the cause of peace and stability in the region. In the Cairo Conference of 1943, the Allied Powers declared an intention to hand-over Taiwan to the Republic of China. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China ceased to be a legitimate government in 1949. Since 1930s a civil war was under way in China between Chiang Kai-Shek's government and the Communist Party of China led by Chairman Mao Zedung. When the civil war ended in October 1949, the PRC was founded on the mainland by the victorious communists. Several months before, Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland with the gold reserves of China to Taipei, and moved his government there from Nanjing. With the support of the United States, the Taiwan regime represented Chinese people at the United Nations and became a permanent member of the Security Council. In 1971, Taiwan was ousted from UN membership and the seat was handed over to the real representative of the Chinese people, the PRC. By 1971, most of the countries had severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan and established them with PRC. In 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited Beijing, and in 1979 full diplomatic relations were established between the United States and China. The international community, including China, recognised the existence of one-China, the PRC, and Taiwan as a territory belonged to Beijing. Since 1979, the mainland has opened its markets to Taiwan products, and offered them preferential treatment such as tax exemptions or reduction. The cross-Strait trade volume which was a mere US $ 46 million in 1978 grew to US $ 309.18 billion in 2002. Recently, air cargo links too had been stabilised across the Straits. However, developments in recent years compelled the mainland to promulgate an Anti-Secession Law. Demands in China for a law aimed at keeping Taiwan in check have grown in the past several years in response to plans by Taiwan's President Chen-Shui-bian to revise the territory's constitution. He also intended to change the Island's name or territorial definition. The United States and Japan sent diplomatic personnel to Taiwan under commercial cover and traded with that territory. The US wanted Japan to play a bigger role in Taiwan Straits. Japanese corporations are the biggest foreign investors in Taiwan after the United States. Last month, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machumura and Defence Minister Yoshimori Ono joined US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in declaring security in the Taiwan Strait 'as a common strategic objective'. Rice said in New Delhi the new law approved by the NPC authorising is an invasion of Taiwan, if the territory seeks independence would dissuade Europe from resuming arms sales to Beijing. European countries wanted to lift their arms embargo imposed in 1989, and said that it would be an important way to improve business and political relations with China. France, which supports the lifting of embargo, said that it firmly supported China's policy of re-unification and adhere to the one-China principle. French Foreign Ministry's Deputy Spokeswoman Cecile Pozza di Borgo said that France understood China's stance on promoting dialogue across the Taiwan Straits and firmly supported China's efforts to realise national re-unification. Adviser to former US President Bill Clinton, Kenneth Lieberthal said that the new Anti-secession law was designed to avoid conflict across the Straits, expressed the willingness of the Chinese mainland to negotiate with Taiwan on an equal footing and the law was miscalculated in Taiwan. Many are of the view that this Law provides the return to '1992 consensus' on the one-China principle, and is favourable to peaceful and steady development of cross-strait relations. |
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