Constitutional reform is difficult

By the Liberty Times editorial

The amendments put to vote by the National Assembly have been approved. All the political parties had voted in accordance with their declared positions of either opposing or supporting these amendments, fully living up to their promises to the voters.

As a result, the National Assembly has become a thing of the past, since one of the amendments was to abolish the assembly. In addition to expressing satisfaction, President Chen Shui-bian also seized the opportunity to declare the start of a second-phase of constitutional reform.

He also emphasized the fact that the abolishment of the National Assembly suggests that the conservative and rigid beliefs about the Constitution had been broken, and that the country was fully prepared for comprehensive amendments of the Constitution.

He expressed the hope that the opposition and ruling camps cast aside their differences and work together for a second time to complete the second phase of reform.

Before the National Assembly's approval of the amendment to the Constitution, all kind of disputes had led to talk about whether the amendment could be passed without a hitch, suggesting unpredictability about the final result. In the end, the parties proved to the people that they can live up to their promises, indicating that they can still be trusted by the people. This is indeed most encouraging.

As for the amendments' impacts on Taiwan's political developments, there are both up sides and down sides. An irreconcilable gap appears to still exist between ideals and reality. It is hard to conclude whether the design and operation of the existing political systems had been improved for the better. Further observation is required.

Regardless of the people's varying views about the accomplishments or faults of these amendments, Chen declared that they are only the beginning, rather than the end. According to Chen, he will appoint Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun to facilitate and push for the organization of a constitutional and political reform committee, and to invite people from all sectors to work for a consensus over the scope and procedure of the second-phase of constitutional amendment in 2008.

The contents of the second phase of proposed reforms revealed by Chen do not involve territory, sovereignty or title of the country. Instead, they deal with the governmental system; trimming the government to three branches, supplemental measures for legislative reforms; the abolishment of the provincial government; lowering the voting age; abolishing the military conscription system; incorporating basic workers' rights into the Constitution; creating a chapter on Aboriginal rights; and strengthening human rights. In other words, the intention is to tailor and customize the Constitution -- which was founded on the concept of Greater-China framework -- to suit the practical needs of Taiwan.

Obviously the underlying ideals are far reaching and the reform goal is to deal with the predicaments that Taiwan currently faces yet must resolved. However, procedure-wise, these proposed amendments are destined for failure. We say this not because we disagree with Chen's ideals or because we hope that the amendments will fail.

First, according to the recently approved amendments to the Constitution, in the future, all amendments to the Constitution or constitutionally-defined territories of the country will require the following: A proposal endorsed by one-fourth of the Legislative Yuan members; the approval of the bill by three-fourths of the attending legislators; a quorum of three-fourths of the Legislative Yuan. These thresholds at the legislature are very high to begin with.

This is not to mention that the pan-green and pan-blue's two highly polarized camps have roughly around the same numbers of seats in the legislature. It is virtually impossible for a bill to amend the constitution to get approved there. Besides, even if the bill makes it through the legislature, now that the National Assembly no longer exists, amendments to the Constitution must be approved through referendum.

The threshold for approval is one-half of all the citizens with the right to vote. The voter turnout rate for this past National Assembly election was only 23 percent, leaving aside the issue of how many voted for parties in support of the amendments and how many for parties against.

In view of this, it is likely that even if all those who vote in the referendum vote in favor of amendments, there may not be enough votes for approval of the amendments. In the referendum over the arms purchase held at the same time with the presidential election last year, the same thing happened -- around 97 or 98 percent of those who voted in the referendum were in favor of the arms purchase, but enough for approval because it requires approval by 50 percent or more of all registered voters.

Under the circumstances, the odds of further amendments getting approved are very slim. No wonder that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Cho-shui said that Article 12 of the amendments should not be called "article on constitutional amendment," since it in fact "bans" constitutional amendment by imposing such extremely high thresholds for amendments.

This article has officially declared that more controversial bills for amendment, such as those over the form or system of government, will not be approved. Therefore, the second phase of amendment to constitution faces serious bottleneck. Next, it is not only difficult for the second phase of amendment to be approved through a referendum. The bill could very well be killed and aborted prematurely in the legislature.

Therefore, after Chen made the proposal for a second phase of amendments, the pan-blue camp indicated strong opposition. In the future, with the reduction in the number of seats at the Legislative Yuan and the adoption of a new legislative system -- the "single-member district, two-vote system" -- a two-party system will begin to emerge in Taiwan. The smaller political parties will gradually decline.

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the DPP will dominate the legislature. In particular, regardless of how voting districts are carved out, as the Constitution requires that every municipality and county shall have at least one seat, and that Aboriginals from the mountain areas and other areas shall respectively have three seats, each vote caste by a voter will carry different weight. Some less-populated and remote counties and municipalities traditionally support certain parties. The pan blue camp obviously has the most to gain from the constitutionals amendments.

Since the pan-blues have already indicated opposition against the second-phase of amendments, and it is unlikely for the pan-greens to have enough seats in the legislature to approve any amendments before 2008, all the hard work done for a second phase of amendments will most likely be in vain.

The constitutional amendment to reduce the number of legislative seat is the result of people's resentment of the chaos at the Legislative Yuan.

Actually, the US has a population of 327 million and only 435 members in the House of Representatives, and 100 in the Senate.

Taiwan has 23 million people and as many as 225 seats at the Legislative Yuan. There is indeed a need for reduction in number. However, is there a need to reduce by half? That is an issue that should be decided based on objective assessment and discussion, rather than spur of the moment resentment.

Furthermore, how to carve out single-member voting districts in a manner that will lessen the discrepancy in the weight of the votes and protect the rights of different ethnic groups and geographical groups, so as that the legislative election may more faithfully reflect the popular will, as well as how to overcome the high thresholds for constitutional amendments, these are all issues that need to be dealt with. In other words, this past amendment to the Constitution has produced a lot of side effects, compromising the accomplishments of the amendments and casting a shadow over the future political development of the country.

Beijing's attempted fruit attack won't work

By Woo Rhung-jieh

Taiwan and China are both member nations of the WTO. Although the WTO encourages its members to actively promote free trade of agricultural produce, due to the unique cross-strait political situation, trade between Taiwan and China is not completely bound by the constraints of WTO regulations.

After the bout of "China fever" triggered by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong's China visits, Beijing showed some "goodwill" toward Taiwan by approving the import of up to 18 types of Taiwanese fruits, 15 of which may be exempt from tariffs (but not the 15 percent of commodity tax), and pledged billions of NT dollars for purchasing Taiwan's agricultural products. In order to safeguard the long-term interests of Taiwanese farmers, Taiwan has demanded government-to-government negotiations under the WTO structure, but China seems to show no interest of such a request. Instead, it advocates engaging in a dialogue with Taiwan's non-governmental organizations.

In fact, China was originally one of Taiwan's target markets for agricultural exports. Despite China's disparity in wealth and income, its coastal cities have many high income people, including Taiwanese businesspeople.

There are many benefits to be had from exporting Taiwan's agricultural produce to China in a planned way, for this will help relieve the negative pressure on Taiwanese farmers brought by the deregulation of trade in agricultural produce.

But the preconditions of establishing trade relations with China are the absence of political interference, respecting the WTO regulations and the free operation of the market under a "normal" situation. Only in this way could we prevent the possibility of suffering a big loss for a little gain, and only by doing this can we refrain from being confronted with a predicament nobody wants.

In a country where the income of farmers and the prices of agricultural produce are low, it is inconceivable why the government should so "generously" proclaim the import of higher-priced agricultural produce without first solving its domestic agricultural problems. If China's promise of preferential treatment is just a propaganda ploy, we would not be surprised. What concerns people is that Beijing may have some dirty trick up its sleeve. If China enters a business for political reasons, it could pull out for the same reasons. It will be worse if China has malevolent intentions.

The prospect of short-term benefits may cause domestic farmers to increase production to meet the demands of an illusory market, disrupting Taiwan's agricultural export development plan. After some businesspeople are drawn by the bait, China can go back on its promise on various pretexts, to achieve political ends. Unable to halt or redirect production when the market is no longer able to absorb production, large investments of money and effort will find no outlet. As a result, the price of Taiwan's agricultural produce for exports will fall sharply, and at the end, farmers will suffer severe losses. Who will be there to listen to the complaints of the farmers? Who will shoulder responsibility for farmers' losses and the consequent social unrest?

Speaking of national defense in particular, if China uses its preferential tariff treatment to cajole Taiwan into reciprocally opening imports of China's agricultural produce, China could flood Taiwan with its agricultural produce, which is cheap, but of questionable quality. The victims will not be limited to disadvantaged farmers and the agricultural sector.

Woo Rhung-jieh is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at National Taiwan University.