◎ Guo Suo
The Hong Kong "One Country, Two Systems" Research Institute and other institutions recently held a "Symposium on the Practice of 'One Country, Two Systems' in Hong Kong and Macao and the System Design and Effective Governance of the 'Two Systems Taiwan Plan'" at the University of Hong Kong Beijing Center. More than 20 scholars from China and Hong Kong proposed the so-called "Twelve Points Consensus." The content ranges from "all power in Taiwan comes from the authorization of the central government" to "patriots govern Taiwan", and talks about the stationing of the People's Liberation Army in Taiwan, disbanding Taiwan's armed forces, collecting weapons, reorganizing political parties and electoral systems, reforming textbooks, and even proposing "paramilitary rule" for three to five years if reunification is accomplished non-peacefully. China Review News' original report indeed published the above content, and Liang Wenjie, deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, responded on the 17th that the Taiwan government and people "will not accept any of it."
China Review Press "The "One Country, Two Systems" Taiwan Plan Symposium Reached a Twelve-Point Consensus". (Extracted from China Comment News Network)
The problem first lies in the word "consensus". More than two dozen scholars sat in Beijing for a meeting to design the future military, political parties, elections, education, administrative divisions, and legal systems for the more than 23 million Taiwanese people. After reaching consensus, it was called the "Twelve-Point Consensus." However, the people of Taiwan, who really want to live under this system, neither participated in the meeting nor authorized this group of people to decide the future for themselves through democratic procedures. What is even more noteworthy is that although point 12 states that the opinions of Taiwan compatriots, including Taiwan compatriots, will be heard when formulating the Basic Law of the Taiwan Special Administrative Region in the future, the final decision-making power clearly states that it lies with the National People's Congress of China. Therefore, the logic of this system design is not "what the people of Taiwan want", but rather to first assume that Taiwan belongs to the People's Republic of China, and then study how the central government plans to govern Taiwan. What is really missing from this "consensus" is precisely the consensus of the Taiwanese people.
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What’s even more ironic is that when we take today’s 12 o’clock back and compare it with the CCP’s own past commitments, the conditions become less and less negotiated. The "Nine Guidelines" proposed by Ye Jianying in 1981 clearly advocated that after reunification, Taiwan would enjoy a high degree of autonomy, retain its military, and "the central government would not interfere in Taiwan's local affairs." By 1983, Deng Xiaoping became more specific, saying that Taiwan could have its own military and that China would "not send people to Taiwan." These contents can still be found on the Chinese Communist Party News Network. More than 40 years later, the version devised by some Chinese and Hong Kong scholars has become the PLA stationing in Taiwan, the disbandment of the National Army, weapons confiscation, political party reorganization, education reform, and even military rule for 3 to 5 years after the war. This at least shows that the specific institutional imagination of "one country, two systems" that has been proposed at different times is not fixed, let alone that the loose statement in the early years cannot be directly regarded as a guarantee for any future arrangements today.
More than 40 years later, some Chinese and Hong Kong scholars have designed a version of one country, two systems that includes stationing the People's Liberation Army in Taiwan, disbanding the National Army, confiscating weapons, reorganizing political parties, reforming education, and even imposing military control for three to five years after the war. (European News Agency)
When considering these twelve points in the reality of Taiwan's democratic constitutional government today, none of the core system designs are the result of a natural extension of Taiwan's current system. Taiwan now has its own democratic elections, political party competition, national defense system, education system and local autonomy system. Government power must be subject to the constraints of the electoral and constitutional systems. The Twelve-Point Plan first changes the source of power to "central authorization", and then the central government decides who can participate in politics, how to deal with the military, how political parties exist, what education children receive, and how cities are divided. This is no longer simply a discussion of cross-strait exchanges, nor is it a search for how the two systems can accommodate each other. Rather, it is a set of plans for re-establishing Taiwan's political order after reunification is completed. Of course, the people of Taiwan are free to discuss reunification, independence, maintenance of the status quo, and various cross-strait propositions, but the premise of the discussion should be that the people can freely choose, rather than someone writing the answer for more than 23 million people and then asking everyone to accept it.
What is truly worth remembering by Taiwanese society is that this symposium made the abstract words "one country, two systems" concrete. When it is imagined as institutional provisions, what may appear is the central garrison, the disbandment of existing armed forces, the redesign of elections, the restriction of political party activities, the transformation of educational content, and even postwar military rule. Therefore, in the face of any "two systems Taiwan solution", what Taiwanese society really needs to ask is never just how many conditions Beijing is willing to give, but who has the right to determine Taiwan's future system. Twenty or so people can reach a twelve-point consensus in a conference room, but that can only represent the common views of the participants. It involves the political system and lifestyle of more than 23 million people. Without the people's free and real choices, the script written by others for Taiwan cannot be called Taiwan's consensus.
Faced with the 12 points of consensus, Liang Wenjie, deputy chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, responded: The Taiwan government and people "will not accept any of them." (File photo)
(The author is a freelance reviewer)
