Chinese Secession Law Gets 1st Airing

A controversial law that aims to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence says that China would use military force as a last resort, an official told members of parliament today.

The speech by Wang Zhaoguo, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and a member of the elite Politburo, provided the first glimpse of the proposed anti-secession measure.

Beijing has always maintained that the self-governing island of 23 million people is part of Chinese territory and that China is willing to back it up by force if necessary. The new law, expected to pass at the end of the National People’s Congress next week, makes unification by force legally binding, if all other options have been exhausted.

“Using non-peaceful means to stop secession in defense of our sovereignty and territorial integrity would be our last resort when all our efforts for a peaceful unification should prove futile,” Wang said. “So long as there is a glimmer of hope for peaceful unification, we will exert our utmost to make it happen rather than give up.”

Few details were given as to what Taiwanese actions could lead to war. Wang said only that military force was possible “in the event that Taiwan independence forces should act under any name or by any means to cause the fact of Taiwan’s secession from China, or that major incidents entailing Taiwan’s secession from China should occur.”

Some observers said the vague wording was probably deliberate. “They want to maintain the flexibility; it gives Beijing room to maneuver,” said Andrew Yang, head of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taiwan.

Beijing has described the law as a preemptive move against the administration of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, who had angered the mainland last year by proposing to hold a referendum on independence.

Chen has since softened his rhetoric and even suggested that he would not rule out the possibility of unification. That makes some Taiwanese believe that the anti-secession law is unnecessary.

More than 17,000 people on the island demonstrated over the weekend against the proposed legislation, which they say gives Beijing a legal basis to attack. Washington also has expressed concern that the new law could alter the region’s status quo and heighten tensions.

Despite the continuing animosity, social and economic ties across the Taiwan Strait are booming. About 1 million Taiwanese are believed to be living and working in China. Beijing was careful to note that any attack “would be targeted against the Taiwan independence forces rather than against our Taiwanese compatriots.”

“We all know there is no way for weapons to tell who is a political leader, who is an ordinary person,” said Arthur Ding at the Institute of International Relations at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. “But if the wording is vague enough and the emphasis is on peaceful unification and not on the use of force, then the impact of the law can be minimized and can help the political development of cross-strait relations.”