Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Proposals for a referendum on the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) have been turned down a record four times in a row, prompting widespread demand for the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to be amended. As well as lowering the thresholds for holding referendums in terms of the number of proposers and the number of votes required for a referendum to pass, and defining the effects of referendums more clearly, people are calling for the abolition of the Referendum Review Commission (RRC, 公民投票審議委員會), which is such an obstacle to holding referendums.

A US-based high-ranking official who served under the administration of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) used to offer a standard response to any overseas Taiwanese who wanted Taiwan to be annexed by China. He would say, — and not without a degree of satisfaction — that advocates of this position should first move back to Taiwan and then see how they felt about the issue.

This strikes at the very heart of what democracy is. Any changes to the sovereign status, political system or way of life in Taiwan should be decided by Taiwanese. People living overseas, on the other side of the world, should keep their opinions to themselves if they’re not prepared to live with the consequences.