Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan’s new constitutional moment

Yeh Chieh-ting 葉介庭

Within the past month, the world has witnessed the collapse of governments in France and Germany, while South Korea went through a surprise six hours of martial law, resulting in the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. In Canada, there have been calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to step down after the resignation of his finance minister.

Amid all this turmoil, Taiwan’s “vibrant” democracy is also facing its own crisis — again. Taiwan has long been thought to have made solid gains in consolidating its democratic systems, but as democracies around the world face increasing pressures, Taiwan is not immune.

Taiwan’s status isn’t undetermined

Sim Kiantek 沈建德

Supporters of Taiwan in Taipei assert that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has no authority to represent Taiwan. Some say the Cairo Declaration is not a treaty and lacks legal standing — in other words, it should be ignored. Others say that Japan gave up control over Taiwan and Penghu in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, but never stipulated to whom Taiwan’s sovereignty would be transferred, meaning Taiwan’s status is undetermined.

However, both arguments are outdated and should be revised based on new information.

First, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has previously ruled that all international agreements are legally binding — this means that the Cairo Declaration has legal effect. However, the Cairo Declaration does not involve Taiwan. This was clearly explained by the declaration’s drafter, then-UK prime minister Winston Churchill, on Feb. 1, 1955. The Academia Historica’s archives about the Cairo communique also state as much.

KMT, TPP pass controversial changes

Taipei Times

Portions of controversial amendments to tighten requirements for recalling officials and Constitutional Court procedures were passed by opposition lawmakers yesterday following clashes between lawmakers in the morning, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members tried to block Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from entering the chamber.

Parts of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) passed the third reading yesterday.

The legislature was still voting on various amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) as of press time last night, after the session was extended to midnight.

Remarks by Wu Sz-huai on martial law ironic

Fang Ping-sheng 方屏生

On Wednesday morning last week, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator-at-large Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷) published an op-ed in the United Daily News titled “Unconstitutional martial law: Soldiers should have moral integrity.” Upon reading the words “moral integrity,” I nearly fell off my chair.

In the article, Wu references South Korea’s short-lived declaration of martial law and the KMT’s recently proposed amendments to the Martial Law Act (戒嚴法). He wrote nonsensically, saying lofty things like: “A soldier’s loyalty must be to the country, to their team, to their duties and to the people” — without skipping a beat.

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