BEIJING, 15 March 2005 — China yesterday passed a controversial “anti-secession law” that authorizes the use of force against Taiwan under three conditions, but it played down the threat of military conflict and stressed that the law aims to promote “peacfeful reunification” with the island that Beijing sees as a renegade province.
As President Hu Jintao ordered the immediate promulgation of the law, 2,900 delegates to the National People’s Congress, China’s nominal Parliament, gave it their unanimous approval.
Although the law codifies mainland policies on Taiwan that have developed over the last 20 years, it omits any reference to the “one country, two systems” principles used to administer the former colonial territories of Hong Kong and Macao since their handover to China in the late 1990s.
“After the country is reunified peacefully, Taiwan may practice systems different from those on the mainland and enjoy a high degree of autonomy,” it says.
This wording has a “wider meaning” that is intended to make unification with the mainland more attractive, said Zhang Tongxin, director of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Research Center at People’s University in Beijing. “It should make Taiwanese people relax more, instead of hearing (Taiwan President) Chen Shui-bian’s remarks that to accept ‘one country, two systems’ is to surrender to the mainland,” Zhang said.
Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) plans to rally some 500,000 people on March 26 to oppose the anti-secession law.
“If he is indeed supporting the interests of our (Chinese) nationality, he should not do this,” Jin said of Chen’s call for a protest against the law.
Some critics in Taiwan, the United States and other countries have expressed concern that the wording of the law gives China a carte blanche to attack the island.
“In the event that the ‘Taiwan independence’ secessionist 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, or that possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ nonpeaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” it says.
But most Chinese analysts see only a distant prospect of military action. “Of course the best thing is to unify peacefully. Nobody wants war,” Wei Xiaochun, an NPC delegate from the northern province of Shanxi, said yesterday. “But if some Taiwanese people keep up (efforts toward) secession, it will probably lead to war,” Wei said.
After discussions on the draft law, NPC delegates softened it slightly by amending a phrase allowing military action when “conditions for peaceful reunification are completely exhausted” to read “possibilities” instead.
Following its unanimous approval by the NPC yesterday, Premier Wen Jiabao said war was “the last thing we want to see”. “So long as there is a glimmer of hope, we will do our best for peaceful reunification,” Wen said. “This is a law for peaceful reunification. It is not targeted against the people of Taiwan, nor is it a war bill.”
