找得到嗎?感謝了
ROC exists only in the imagination
By Yen Chueh-an 顏厥安
Friday, Dec 26, 2003,Page 8
Lately, stupid comments have been filling the air.
The economy, the Legislative Yuan and the president have all become real issues
invisible to stupid people. But all observations miss out on something, so I w
ill not dare say that I understand the real issues, but I do feel that the Repu
blic of China (ROC) is an important source of these issues.
From an historical point of view, the ROC has, objectively speaking, ceased to
exist, though it continues to exist in the imaginations of certain people.
The idea that both China and Taiwan are part of the same country, and the idea
of national "splittism," have marked Taiwan and the Taiwanese people with the s
tamp "Chinese property." Okay, let's assume that this is correct. What conclusi
on does that lead to?
Based on the commonly accepted premise that Taiwan will not be able to defend i
tself from China without the US' help, the ROC only exists because China tolera
tes it.
More correctly, the existence of the ROC is in fact an exceptional situation ap
proved by the sovereign Chinese people. From this perspective, the ROC Constitu
tion is in fact a piece of special legislation under China's constitution, and
the ROC's territory a special capitalist region tolerated and accepted by China
.
This is why "one country, two systems" has been in existence for a long time. I
f the history of the ROC's staunchest supporter, the Chinese Nationalist Party
(KMT), can be retraced all the way back to the Society for Regenerating China (
興中會), it is in fact a political group that has been rebelling and that has b
een rebelled against for a long time.
After much effort, it finally launched a successful rebellion against the Qing
dynasty, but its leaders traded off the presidency and then retreated to the so
uth to set up a rebel group. The presidency was given to the warlord Yuan Shih-
kai (袁世凱), who helped the KMT's uprising against the Qing dynasty. The KMT r
etreated to southern China and started a rebellion against Yuan when he made hi
mself emperor.
The KMT established a constitutional government after a great deal of effort, o
nly to see a communist rebellion launched against it immediately, forcing it to
suppress the rebellion. Once the KMT lost momentum, the ROC Constitution only
held force in Taiwan, a place occupied by what China saw as a rebel group. The
ROC Constitution became like an old religious symbol to be stored in a cellar a
nd not used anymore.
Did this political power truly want to implement constitutional government? Whe
n was this Constitution the basic law of a nation? Where is that nation?
When the New Party gave up its longstanding opposition to nuclear power and sup
ported the continued construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the name
of the constitution, the high priests of the ROC were happy enough to leave nu
clear waste here while they ran off to the other side of the Taiwan Strait to l
ive a life of splendor.
The KMT proposed that the president, according to the Constitution, should call
on the majority party to create a Cabinet, forgetting that the majority party
could simply topple the Cabinet. It was difficult to understand why the KMT, be
ing the majority party, couldn't simply engineer a no-confidence vote and bring
down the DPP Cabinet.
When the legislative speaker said he didn't rule out the option of future Taiwa
nese independence, but neglected to propose any constitutional process for its
realization, we all were alerted to the possibility that the empty ROC Constitu
tion was not meant to serve the expansion of a nationalist Chinese sacred mothe
rland, but rather to serve a liberal democratic republic in its efforts to tran
sform and educate the vulgar people of Taiwan.
Since all stupid people have problems, the clever ones should work together to
draft a new constitution. A constitution without a nation and a nation without
a constitution: such a situation is but a soap opera in which lovers keep missi
ng out on each other, and that should be quickly ended. Otherwise, we will all
forget that there are other issues, such as the domestic violence problem.
Yen Chueh-an is a law professor at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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