Chinese secession law may seek basis for use of force against Taiwan

A secession law being drafted by China could provide the legal basis for using force against Taiwan, but it is unlikely to include a clear deadline for when reunification must take place, analysts said yesterday.

Top legislators will debate the law at a key meeting in Beijing next week, reflecting growing concern in the Chinese leadership about its ability to halt and reverse the island's drift towards independence, they argued.

"The reason it is put forward now is that the situation in the Taiwan Straits requires it," said Wu Nengyuan, a scholar from the Fujian Academy of Social Sciences and one of China's leading experts on Taiwan.

Sketchy reports in the Chinese media about the law have not mentioned Taiwan by name, but said the law is to promote reunification, a phrase used only to refer to the island.

Chinese political scientists have said it could make it illegal for Taiwan to declare independence and might create more leeway for Beijing to take the island by force or pressure it to accept reunification.

The timing of the discussion of the draft law has been carefully chosen, following elections on Taiwan that kept independence supporters in a minority in parliament, weakening the island's President Chen Shui-bian, observers said.

"The Chinese authorities didn't want to release this before the election, because they didn't want to be seen as exerting pressure, which could backlash," said Joseph Cheng, a China watcher at City University of Hong Kong.

"Now after the election is a good time to do it. The general purpose is to clarify the baseline and exert pressure on the Chen Shui-bian administration," he said.