Proposed National Unification Promotion Law - Provisions of The Initial Proposal By Yu Yuanzhou

Provisions of The Initial Proposal By Yu Yuanzhou

The draft document has 31 articles, organized in 8 chapters. Its provisions touch mostly constitutional law.

Article 2 establishes Taiwan as the "Taiwan Special Political Area of PRC, or Taiwan SPA of PRC for short" (simplified Chinese: 中华人民共和国台湾特别政治区; traditional Chinese: 中華人民共和國台灣特別政治區); this appears to be an administrative division of the PRC distinct from the Special Administrative Region espoused by the PRC government for Taiwan. Curiously, it allows Chinese people loyal (or having affinity) to the Republic of China to transiently view the mainland as "The Mainland Special Political Area of ROC, or The Mainland SPA of ROC" (中華民國大陸特別政治區). Article 3 reiterated the PRC's aim to implement the 'one country, two systems' policy for Taiwan, which would be brought into reality with military force if necessary.

Article 8 exempts Taiwan from any PRC imposed taxes. Chapter 3 proposes the establishment of a new, common currency called the Chinese dollar set by fiat to be worth 0.1 grams of gold forever.

Two methods of unification are laid out as options: Constitutional arrangement for peaceful unification is contained in Chapter 4: the Constitution of the Republic of China which is used in Taiwan is said to be obsolete; a federation is proposed. Chapter 5 provides the legal basis for non-peaceful (military) methods of unification. The conditions for the use of armed force are set out, and explicitly states that the PRC may not limit itself to the use of conventional weapons, implying the use of weapons of mass destruction. Article 18 also stipulates that Taiwan will be subject to attack should it defy policy set by the PRC government.

Chapter 6 provides for honours for those promoting unification, whereas Chapter 7 sets out criminal penalties against separatism -- limited to acts carried out within Chinese territory, and acts carried out anywhere by Chinese residents in the Mainland, Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Article 30, section 1 provides that the law and subsequent changes thereof are to be carried out by the National People's Congress and signed into force by the President of the People's Republic of China -- parenthetically, 'Head of State', probably to infer the possibility of a different position once the law takes effect; section 2 provides that permanent sections of the law cannot be changed unless later agreements contain promises that are 'more favourable' (更加优惠, but the beneficiary is unspecified); section 3 states that the law is lower than the Constitution of the People's Republic of China but higher than any other laws of the land.