Unpacking China’s Anti-Secession Law: A Conversation with Dr. I-Chung Lai and Professor Jacques deLisle
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I'm Bonnie Lin, Director of the China Power Project and Senior Fellow for Asian Security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In this episode of the China Power podcast, we're discussing insights from a recent international conference about Chinese lawfare against Taiwan, specifically China's 2005 anti-secession law and a June 2024 follow-on PRC interpretation of the anti-secession law titled Opinions on Punishing Taiwan's Independence Diehards for Crimes of Separatism and Inciting Separatism in Accordance with Law.

The anti-secession law is a piece of domestic legislation that lays out China's approach to prevent Taiwan independence. The opinions, sometimes referred to as the 22 opinions or articles, is China's most recent effort to strengthen the anti-secession law and imposes criminal penalty, including the death penalty, for those who advocate for Taiwan independence.

What do these mean for China's overall approach to Taiwan and cross-strait relations? How does China interpret and use these measures and what are the international ramifications? To answer these questions and more, Dr. Yizhong Lai and Professor Jacques DeLille join us to discuss. Dr. Yizhong Lai is the president of Prospect Foundation, a Taiwan-based think tank. Prior to joining the Prospect Foundation, he held several prominent positions with Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party,

serving as Executive Director of the DPP Mission to the United States and as the Director General of the Department of International Affairs. He also worked as a Special Assistant with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo. Professor Jacques DeLille is a Stephen A. Kozin Professor of International Law and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. His research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law politics,

include legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-strait relations, China's engagement with international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and of course, U.S.-China relations. Professor DeLille is a director of the Center for Study of Contemporary China, co-director of the Center for Asian Law, and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Yizhong and Jacques, thank you very much for joining me today. Yizhong, let me start with you. And thank you for partnering with me to co-host international conference on the anti-secession law. So what is China's 2005 anti-secession law? And why is it such an important piece of legislation when it comes to Chinese lawfare and thinking through China's approach to Taiwan?

Yeah, the anti-secession law is actually a law passed by China in 2005 during the so-called "two session". That's basically the law passed by the National Congress.

So that the anti-secession itself specifically talk about how the Taiwan independence and the Taiwan status that should be defined and how the violation of the PRC defined Taiwan status could be criminalized. And the anti-secession there are about nine articles. Among them, the eighth article is the most controversial because it inscribed the issue about how China can employ the so-called non-peaceful means

against Taiwan, should China consider that the peaceful unification or Taiwan declare independence, or there are movements that make the Italian independence to be permanently established, then China could employ the so-called non-peaceful means against Taiwan. So that's for the first time that China start to legalize its military or violent action against Taiwan for the issue about the Italian independence.

And Yizhong, you mentioned that there are nine articles in the anti-secession law. And of course, there's also the 10th one that states the law will come into force. You mentioned Article 8. What are in the other articles before Article 8?

I think the article from Article 1 to Article 5 basically restated about what Chinese position regarding Taiwan. Taiwan is an integral part of China, that everyone should support the Taiwan should be a part of China, and the work make that to become the reality.

Article 6 and Article 7 is about how China should do regarding fostering the issue for the unifications. Like China will go to do the issues about the broadening exchange between people on both sides, whether that's a culture exchange, sports, human economic exchange, and all that. And Article 7 is something that specifically talks about how the cross-strait negotiation and the political negotiation should be conducted and on what issues.

And Article 8, just we mentioned earlier, is that China laid down the three conditions. Should those three conditions, any one of them, become the reality that China can legally and lawfully employ the so-called non-peaceful means against Taiwan?

So those are the things that were discussed and passed. And then, of course, there was the strong rejection by Taiwan's government at that time. It happened in 2005. And Jacques, at our conference, there was a lot of discussion about how short the anti-secession law is with only 10 articles and how vague and flexible some of the wording in the legislation is.

One of the topics we also discussed and debated at the conference is how should we view the anti-secession law? Is it more of a Chinese legislation or more of a Chinese policy or political document? Where do you stand on this and how do you view the anti-secession law? The evasive answer, but I think it has the virtue of being true, is that it's a bit of both.

So Chinese legislation is often fairly sparse. It often leaves a lot of room for interpretation. It's often followed by interpretive documents that clarify its meaning. But the anti-secession law, even by Chinese legislative standards, is extremely sparse and extremely short. That partly, I think, reflects...

the especially political nature of the document. I think it was meant to signal that China was taking a step forward in the formality in which it was going to put what had been longstanding policies. And as Yijun mentioned, those policies include the assertion that Taiwan is now a part of China and that to separate from China would be the change in the status quo. It expresses a preference for peaceful unification, but

a reserved right to use force to achieve unification under any of the three conditions mentioned. And it sets forth the basic idea that while Beijing prefers peaceful unification and it will use force if need be, that ultimately the goal is some version of what in the Hong Kong context was called the one country, two systems arrangement. That is a negotiated arrangement whereby Taiwan would be brought under Chinese rule, promised a high degree of autonomy in some form or another, which would then be a matter of how it would be implemented.

Thank you. And Yizhou, back to you. As Jacques mentioned, given how vague the anti-secession law is, how has China's interpretation or use of the law evolved over the years? I think the anti-secession law passing year 2005, at that time it was more or less interpreted as how China wants to legalize its military action against Taiwan.

And then over the years, there are speculation within China and outside China whether due to the fact that China want to push forward for the unification with Taiwan, China wanted to add more details about the anti-secession law. So there will be an amendment to the anti-secession law. And also the issue about unification, there are also speculation whether China also would like to push for the so-called unification law in addition to the anti-secession law.

And the results recently we found out that is that this June, Time and Affair Office, along with the highest court as well as highest people's prosecution department, along with Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Public Security, and other relevant departments, they come out with, based on the anti-secession divide,

the issue on Taiwan, they started to pass and come out with 22 articles of opinions about how to criminalize for the offense action against anti-secession law. Those criminal actions involves how many years of the imprisonment,

even to the death penalty, and also how the person's property committed about the violation of anti-secession law could be confiscated. So basically add up the issue about how the individuals, should they deem to be in violation of anti-secession law, and those individuals or even a social group could be criminalized. It brings up the impression within Taiwan that

The 2005 Anti-Secession Law, the Article 8, about the non-peaceful means, that basically means that it is how China will act on Taiwan as a whole. So more like a state in action against Taiwan. But then the 22 opinions regarding the punishment for the Taiwan independence, which drive from the definition about criminal offenses, the concept of criminal offenses,

That basically drives from the issue about the anti-secession law, but that 22 opinions and articles operates on the individuals. So that's how the people started to perceive those and the evolution during the years. And Jacques, let me bring you into this conversation. As a lawyer and professor in the United States, what are your thoughts on how the anti-secession law has evolved? And of course, the new 22 articles that Yizhou mentioned.

I think it's important to sort of set this in a bit of a frame. When the anti-secession law was adopted, there had been consideration of a unification law as an alternative and in more recent years we've seen a return to discussion of

of that. And I think the juxtaposition is important because the anti-secession law asserts that Taiwan has not yet left and says what would happen if it tried to, whereas the unification law at some level would admit that Taiwan had gotten away and it was a matter of getting it back. And that meant that there might be a timetable and one might have to specify more detail. So that's always been in the mix.

But in terms of the 22 articles opinions that Yicheng just mentioned, they really do represent a bit of a shift in focus. So under the anti-secession law and the notional unification law, the target was really the prospect that a Taiwanese leader would –

push the envelope on declaring formal independence. It was targeting this kind of Chen Shui-bian type scenario of declaring a separate Republic of Taiwan. And we've seen Taiwanese leaders over the years go farther and farther down the path of saying that Taiwan or the ROC is an independent sovereign country. But what the 22 articles opinions do is shift this focus to

concerns about what the Chinese would call creeping or gradual independence, the idea that Taiwan is slipping away through the actions of ordinary Taiwanese as well as political leaders and through just sort of a loss of a sense of connection to China. So if you look at what's in the 22 opinions that flesh out what could lead to individual criminal liability, we see things like depicting Taiwan as not a part of China in education, culture, history, or news media, or

or suppressing political parties, organizations, or individuals that support unification, or establishing a separatist organization, or creating or acting to implement separatist principles, plans, or programs. These are targeting individual and organizational actions and even thoughts that are seen as promoting this sort of creeping independence agenda. So we do see that different focus.

One of the topics we discussed at our recent conference was the extent to which China's anti-secession law is much more than just domestic legislation. It forms a critical part of China's cognitive warfare against the island, but also China's increasing leveraging of the law against the United States, against Taiwan, and other countries supporting Taiwan. As you look at the anti-secession law, it recently passed 22 opinions.

What worries you the most, Yizhong? I think especially with regard to the 22 articles of opinions recently just announced in association with the anti-secession law, what we found out is that right now the target audience is not just about Taiwanese people, but also the international, whether that international citizens or the foreign countries.

Because in the 22 articles of opinions, which basically did not specify any specific areas of the citizens. So that, in principle, that could apply to everyone, including all the foreign country citizens outside China. They are not Taiwanese. So the, for example, Chinese.

When the former Secretary of State Pompeo in Taiwan twice talks about how the United States should recognize Taiwan's independence, in principle, that could, in Chinese, 22 opinions or articles that put Mr. Pompeo will be in violation of that and could be charged with a criminalization action against him. So that is one example. And then the effect, of course, that really depends on the four individuals. But it seems that China do

wanted to deter other countries and other citizens from assisting Taiwan. As Jack Delisle earlier just said that the 22 opinions of articles not just about dealing with in Chinese perception about creeping Taiwan independence, that is Taiwan is not yet declaring independence, but the action and the activities Taiwan doing in Chinese, it seemed like Taiwan just drifting away and the Taiwan-China relation has been drifting apart and further and further.

This action also goes to the issue about the foreign individual, foreign entities. Should they, in Chinese view, assisting or helping Taiwan in broadening its national space, establishing Taiwan's independent identity and its individual presence?

Anything that China does not perceive does not like it to happen. And so this new development, I would say, sort of responds to the current international support for Taiwan in the face of the Chinese coercion. Let me follow up on this, Yizhong. What does it mean if China's opinion says it wants to criminalize foreign entities for recognizing Taiwan independence? So, for example, if we're talking about former Secretary of State Pompeo, could he be potentially arrested in China based on his remarks?

Yeah, I think you're exactly right. There's a possibility that should China really want to employ that law against Mr. Pompeo, and should Pompeo travel to China, or even should he just transit through China, or transit through Hong Kong and Macau, there's a possibility that China can charge him with a violation of the anti-secession law and start criminalizations, bring him to the court within China. So that's possible.

But also any activities or the entity associated with Mr. Pompeo could also be implicated about their relationship with Pompeo due to the perception that Pompeo is part of the assisting Taiwan independence. And that's not just about the foreign national, but also the Taiwanese, should they work in other foreign company, or the Taiwanese, they are working on

they are residing in other foreign countries, and their relationship with other foreign countries could also be the cause for the concern. And Jacques, how does China's anti-secession law or the 22 opinions align with international law, if any at all? I think what you see is a complex pattern here. So as Yizhong was saying, this does, in terms of 22 opinions in particular, target individuals. This is not entirely new. I mean, this is framed as

an interpretation of the anti-secession law, but it's also an interpretation of China's criminal law and criminal procedure law. Anti-secession law aside, there's already a provision in the Chinese criminal law about supporting secession. And as broader principles of Chinese criminal law, they can apply to Chinese citizens doing anything anywhere in the world, and they can apply to actions in Chinese territory, whether committed by foreigners or

or by citizens. And of course, under the premise of the anti-secession law, Taiwan, like Hong Kong, is part of Chinese territory. So it is potentially quite broad reach. And then you add to that the Chinese criminal law also includes a provision that says actions outside of China with consequences inside China can also be reached. So in that sense, it's quite broad and would have the chilling effect that goes with that. And it is meant to deter

individuals and as Yizhong suggests, the US and other states from intervening. And some of that gets to your question about international law. That is much of what the anti-secession law does, and this is in the broader context of China's long-term strategy toward Taiwan, is to try to establish

essentially as a matter of international law, that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory. And if you accept that, that really sort of changes the ballgame, right? Then any intervention by the United States to support Taiwan's autonomy, sales of arms, defending Taiwan in the event of an attack or other coercion from the mainland, that

That could be framed and China would frame it as interfering in China's internal affairs, a threat to Chinese sovereignty over the territory and people that include Taiwan and so on. Whereas you go to the other end of the spectrum and say that Taiwan is in effect an independent sovereign country as you will hear from Taiwanese leaders, then that makes it a question of China using force in violation of international legal principles of not challenging the territorial integrity or sovereign autonomy of another state.

and so on. The other part of the international law story here though is that even if you were to accept

the PRC's premise that Taiwan is definitively part of Chinese territory, that doesn't mean international law has nothing to say. And so some of the restrictions in the 22 articles, opinions and so on, would violate what we understand to be general international human rights, including essentially what in American terms would be called freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, and many measures that China might ostensibly take

in the enforcement of the anti-secession law or the 22 opinions could run afoul of international legal limits. After all, international human rights obligations are generally owed by the governments of states to their own people or people under their jurisdiction and certainly some of the coercive methods that the anti-secession law purports

to authorize could transgress international humanitarian law, the kinds of tactics you can use, the kind of methods you can use in warfare, and so on. So there's a lot going on there. And depending on how it is applied and interpreted, many actions that China might take

ostensibly pursuant to the anti-secession law would raise those kinds of international legal concerns. Even civil wars, domestic conflicts, which of course is how China likes to characterize the origin of what it calls the Taiwan question, even those are subject to international legal constraints. That is domestic conflicts can raise questions of international peace and security.

So one pushback against the notion that if China wins the game on how to characterize sovereignty over Taiwan, that international law disappears. It doesn't. A lot of things that China might do would still raise international legal questions and be subject to condemnation for violating international legal limits.

From my understanding, Jacques, China's anti-secession law is not the first type of domestic legislation that countries have put in place to deal with what they worry about as independence or secessionist forces. But how does China's anti-secession law compare to existing legislation that we already see in other countries? Yes, well, at our conference, our colleague Julianne Koo, I thought, did a very nice job discussing these issues. If you look in comparative perspective,

Of course, many countries proscribe and impose criminal punishments for certain secessionist efforts.

There's a great deal of variety out there, but in most cases, there has to be some kind of violent act, conspiracy to commit a violent act or incitement to violence or to actually toppling a government and so on. And that kind of restriction does not appear anywhere in the 22 articles opinions or in the anti-secession law itself where the net is cast quite broadly. So in that sense, the Chinese law in this area is much less tolerant of

of expressions of opinion or even forms of advocacy for separation than we see in many other countries around the world. I mean, you know, the US famously, as Wen Jiabao used to like to quote to American leaders, the US famously fought a civil war to prevent secession, but that was in the face of a truly armed rebellion, not somebody who simply advocated the southern states leaving the US. We have Wang Yi referring to how would the US feel if Hawaii left? Well, there is a Hawaiian independence movement.

And people have not been jailed for making that kind of argument of advocacy. But what a lot of these so-called secessionist movements involve are questions of a group within a larger state that has the distinct identity and that wants some degree of autonomy and self-governance. And here again we get back to international law, questions of self-determination.

And here's another principle where if China were to impose particularly harsh rule over Taiwan in the circumstances of return, and we had a sort of Hong Kong-like situation or a Xinjiang or a Tibet-like situation, those kinds of questions would come into play as well. And Yizhong, how has the William Lai administration in Taiwan responded to your 22 opinions? And what is the general perception within Taiwan right now?

or at least the public understanding of the 22 opinions, as well as the anti-secession law. I think after the announcement of the 22 articles regarding how to punish the so-called Taiwan independence by China, the main affair councils come out and label China with the travel warning signs, discourage Taiwan citizens to travel to China due to the fear that many of them could be criminalized for whatever they said in Taiwan and then held in China.

And also, there was an interesting opinion survey that was released, I think, sometime last week regarding how the people's perception about China. Of course, the general perception regarding China, the government is negative. That is, the attitude by the Chinese government to the Taiwan citizen is negative. That's over 70%. But then when people have been asked about whether you're concerned about your safety,

due to this passage of this or the 22 opinions of articles. And then we have 49% of Taiwanese people responding by saying that they are not too worried about it. And 46% of them said that they are worried about their personal safety. It came out with an interesting twist.

Whether the Italian people are so naive or so insensitive, or they are so brave that they care less about the issues. So that is an interesting number, about 49%.

It could also mean that should China want to deter Taiwan or try to scare off Taiwan, the fear-mongering does not seem to be working due to the sheer number of the close to half of their population are not concerned about the 22 articles about the punishment against Taiwan independence. And in terms of the Taiwan government's response, you mentioned the recommendation to not travel to China, but was there any additional legal or political pushback against the 22 opinions?

I think right now that the government is still trying to find some delicate balance regarding this.

Because if we are pushing too hard, then the people concerned about the worsening the cross-strait situation could get worse. And before we even reach the issue about the military contingencies. And there are also the issues about how the international community, as well as multinational companies, how much should they be worried about their engagement with Taiwan or about their employment of the Taiwanese citizens?

because potential Taiwanese citizens and multinational companies could be deterred from working in those companies or from investing in Taiwan. So basically, that is a very fine balance that people want to have, especially the government internally still discussing what would be the best way to defend and also to be able to respond to the Chinese lawfare.

And from my understanding, Chinese legislation doesn't just apply after they're established. They may also apply retroactively and even before we know that certain activities are either criminalized or prohibited. Is this also a major concern from the 22 articles?

So I wouldn't focus on retroactivity as being the big problem here. Indeed, one of the striking things about the way this has played out in terms of the nerdish question of sources of Chinese law here is that let's remember that the 22 articles opinions

are ostensibly interpretation. They're interpretations of existing law. So ostensibly, these do not make any new law or any new rules. So the technical legal argument here would be all of those things that people might be punished for, consistent with the 22 articles,

was already there, either in the anti-secession law or to a significant degree in the provisions of the criminal law, which are arguably what really the 22 opinions are primarily interpreting. So what we have here is not so much a problem of retroactivity, although there are issues about how that might be handled, but really a question of what happens when you have a very vague and sparse underlying set of

pre-existing laws, the provisions in the criminal law about secession and the anti-secession law itself more broadly, which are ostensibly just explained to us by the additional terms that are put into the 22 articles. And even there, you've got what is a fairly familiar catch-all provision. I think I gave you much of the list before, but the end of that list of prescribed and criminally punishable activities is basically

other conduct seeking to separate Taiwan from China. So your first question, I think, to me was about the vagueness of the anti-secession law. Well, there's a vagueness or at least an open-endedness to the opinions as well. There's a lot of traps for the unwary there. I think everyone has to be wary about what that might mean if you're in a position where you might run afoul of that. As to the public opinion poll that Yicheng cites,

I don't know how to read what people's motives are in answering that that way. I think for a lot of people, it's probably a reasonable inference that they're not doing anything that is likely to get them into trouble or they're not going to be in a position where this law would be applied to them. But of course, the chilling effect and the tensions that can arise from this can occur if it's only a very small percentage of the potentially targetable people who might come within the scope of interpretations of the law itself or of the opinions.

Yizhong, next year is the 20th anniversary of the passing of the anti-secession law. I think there is some worry that we might see either revisions to the law or additional interpretations and perhaps extensions of the law. Just looking at the next couple of years, particularly as we think of Xi Jinping continuing his term,

Do you expect any changes in how China may use the anti-secession law? Yeah, I would say that if we look at Xi Jinping's behavior pattern, like year 2019, Xi Jinping came out with a redefinition about an attitude consensus by redefining it as a one-China principle and a Taiwan solution or one country, two systems and Taiwan solutions.

And there's a reason to believe that Xi Jinping, about his willingness to push forward the unification on Taiwan, that he might or very possibly he could do something or utilize something next year about the 20th anniversary of the anti-secession law.

There's definitely a worry there. But how and what Xi Jinping will do, no one knows. Because in principle, Xi Jinping right now is controlling everything. And whether he would like to take the anti-secession law as something positive at his disposal, because there are mechanisms inscribed in Article 8 about how to employ the non-peaceful means against Taiwan, it needs the joint agreement.

by both State Council and the Central Committee Commissions, and then it also needs to be reported to get the approval by the National People's Congress.

And, of course, right now, Xi Jinping is the leader of everything. He has all the power in himself so that he should have no problem in getting a pass or getting the people who are head of those organs to being in agreement with him. However, we also noticed that the recent announced 22 opinions and articles, which actually try to respond to some of the recent developments,

and also broaden targets from the collective entity into something that's basically individual or some social groups. So how Xi Jinping look at this, it is very difficult to read. But the next year is something that everyone is watching, especially not just about the 20th anniversary of the anti-secession, but also 10 years anniversary of the Xi Jinping-Mainjiao meeting in Singapore.

So I think the next year is going to be the year that everyone is watching America flood. Yizhong, you do bring up an important point about how the original anti-secession law had some built-in checks and balances, particularly if China were to invoke Article 8 and consider using non-peaceful means against Taiwan. Let me turn to you, Jacques.

In what ways can China interpret non-peaceful means and therefore invoke the anti-secession law in the near future? Well, you're right to say that the non-peaceful means provision, like many other provisions in the anti-secession law, are quite vague and subject to interpretation.

And Yi Zhong was, of course, right to say that the procedural checks don't mean a whole lot when you've got a sort of unified, centralized leadership. But I actually think the circumstances we're facing now, parsing what exactly is non-peaceful means, may not really be where the action is. That is, when the anti-secession law was first passed—

The pushback was relatively mild. I mean the United States and others said this was unhelpful and it would be – others said it would be a regrettable move away from what had then been progress in warming cross-strait relations and so on. We're now in a very different world where if China were to pursue non-peaceful means even if those go beyond war to other coercive means, you're likely to see more pushback from

from the United States and others who have begun to see China as a more assertive actor and who have in many cases, certainly Japan and the US, linked Taiwan's security to their own. And so I think if anything, China is working to avoid full-fledged invocations of the non-peaceful means clause in the anti-secession law when it seeks to justify what we would call gray zone tactics.

So things like the military exercises and short of that, exercises of jurisdiction to regulate fishing boats and civilian crafts and all that. China is trying to frame those not as things which are potentially used against secession, but to normalize this as part of the exercise of powers, including somewhat coercive powers within areas that China claims to be.

Fully under its jurisdiction. So I think we've kind of moved in that direction Partly as a reflection of how the anti-secession law so interpreted can serve China's agenda of saying this is a purely domestic matter and partly because anything that Looks like it's edging up to the cross-strait conflict that article 8 seemed to raise as a prospect is something that that will provoke under current circumstances a

harsher pushback than China would have seen and was contemplating when it adopted this law nearly 20 years ago.

So just to make sure you're saying that we're seeing two different phenomena. On one hand, we're seeing the anti-secession law being referenced again and again and more by the Chinese media and Chinese leaders as China threatens to use large-scale military force against Taiwan. But at the same time, on the other hand, at least when it comes to linking the anti-secession law to specific military action, we haven't seen any evidence so far that any of China's recent military activities

have specifically cited the anti-secession law. Right, and I don't think there's any real inconsistency there, right? The point of Article 8 was to put in formal legal form what had long been the Chinese position that under certain circumstances, which include secession or too much movement towards secession as essentially defined by Beijing, then the use of force, full military force was certainly on the table, as of course were lesser means.

And at the same time saying that what we're doing now isn't that, right? So it's this statement essentially of under certain circumstances, this right is reserved and will be used. But what we're doing now is not that. So the rest of the world should not react to that the way it would with something that would be in the form of an Article 8 anti-secession law use of force to prevent Taiwan secession.

So in some ways, you can have it both ways. If you look at the discourse among Chinese official and quasi-official sources, you see a lot of this. When we see these gray zone activities, these military exercises,

There's a little hint at the anti-secession law, but it's almost never referenced and never really fully invoked. But you see these kind of more abstract statements that says the anti-secession law is an effective deterrent of secession. It's like a sword hanging over the independence or secessionist activists. So it's really this kind of two-pronged strategy, as you just described it in your question. And Yidong, what are your thoughts on how China could use non-peaceful means?

I think the Article 8 about how China will employ non-peaceful means, although it is still very vague about what does that mean by the non-peaceful means. And of course, the three conditions trigger China to employ the non-peaceful means. Those are also as vague as well. But then I think when we focus on the mechanism for the decision-making,

It seems that if China really wanted to have a war on Taiwan, as right now everyone is very concerned about, whether that's year 2007 or year 2032 or sometime down the line, it seems to me that the Chinese leaders, whether Xi Jinping or who else,

has to pass through the anti-secession law and had to go through all the procedure in order to make this happen. If she or whoever did this, firing the shot against Taiwan, and people probably started to ask him that this is based on what and for how long and what is your aim? So if that understanding has a certain currency,

then we might be able to look at the procedure inscribed in the Article 8 for the employment of non-peaceful means could be a useful signal to understand about the Chinese possible action against Taiwan, that is,

If China really wanted to work on the military against Taiwan, and somewhere down the line, they had to go through the procedure. They have to announce that it's a joint decision by the State Council and the CMC. It has to report it to the National People's Congress. And even if those conjectures are correct, then even we could say that for the bimonthly meeting of National People's Congress Standing Committee and the CMC's meeting, could

be the important major point regarding the timing or the procedure for China to employ military action against Taiwan. And I think that aspect seems to be the one that when we talk about the military action on Taiwan, right now the current discussion very much focuses on the military movement, how

how the military will act against Taiwan, how much capable they are, how effective they will be, and what kind of warfare it's going to be like. But we're seldom connected those military aspects with the internal legal procedure that it seems that Chinese leader has to go through. And if we're able to combine both of them together, probably we'll have a wider and a more broader picture regarding the Chinese possible action against Taiwan. And Yizhong, just to make sure I understand what you're saying,

When it comes to analyzing how China may use military force against Taiwan, I think there's a lot of concern in the United States and elsewhere that China may try to act very fast and move with such a speed that we might not have enough indicators and warnings that China may use significant force against Taiwan.

But what you're saying is that the anti-secession law, if China abides by what's written in the law, could actually require a number of processes that China would actually have to go through before invoking it to justify a major use of military force against Taiwan. And that by itself could provide the international community with more response time or more indicators and warning. Is that right?

Yeah, that's pretty much it. But of course, China could also go through the process in retrospect rather than as a preconditions for China to employ the military usage against Taiwan. But of course, we do not know. But if your Chinese leader wanted to have the wider legitimacy about their military usage against Taiwan, I think sooner or later they had to go through all those procedures inscribed in the Article 8 within anti-secession law. So exactly as you said that

if this procedure is Chinese leader have to go by, then you also give us a very important window in picking about what Chinese possible actions. And Jacques, do you want to weigh in on this as well?

I mean, if you look at the text of the anti-secession law, it does contemplate, I think, a prior approval through the institutional processes that Yijun was describing. But I wouldn't lean too, too heavily on the anti-secession law here. I don't think this kind of law in its sparseness and given the national security, national unity topics that it addresses, I don't think it meaningfully empowers or constrains

the regime. That is, China as a general matter of policy before the anti-secession law said it had the right and the authority to do this and invokes a lot of principles about protecting sovereign territory and national unity and all that sort of stuff. And I don't think the kinds of substantive provisions put into Article 8 or the processes

that Yijun was talking about meaningfully constrain how China would choose to exercise this power. So we're really in a somewhat different realm. And I think the adoption of the anti-secession law and other things that have followed from it, including broader rhetoric and the opinions as well, are meant to sort of signal seriousness and attempt to deter certain kinds of behavior. And so the question he asks is what can be done to push back against that?

Well, I mean, I think if we take that the interest here is in peace and stability and therefore protection of the cross-strait status quo, how can one push back? Well, one is that in a sense by committing to the anti-secession law, even if it's not fully constraining,

China has set forth conditions under which it would resort to non-peaceful means. And although China has a lot of discretion about how to interpret its own law there, it's not infinitely flexible. And so there are certain circumstances where China is getting impatient with where Taiwan is, but it would be very hard from a sort of fair-minded perspective to say those constitute

the complete exhaustion of the possibility of peaceful unification or constitute secession and so on. So I think one can address the not infinite flexibility of the terms in play. To return to a theme from earlier in our conversation, I think it's worth underscoring that even if one were to grant China's position on Taiwan's status,

and its lack of separation from China, that doesn't mean the outside world and international legal principles have no purchase. There are still restraints on what China could do even in those circumstances and that its ostensibly domestic action would affect international peace and security and so on. And I think it's also worth playing the values card to some degree here. What the opinions, the 22 article opinions have underscored is that there is a willingness or an interest in punishing or threatening to punish China

what are essentially matters of speech and advocacy and opinion, and that's a sort of set of illiberal values. And then finally, if you look at what the contemplated process for reintegrating or integrating Taiwan contemplated in the anti-secession law, it's essentially some form of the one country, two systems model that we've seen in Hong Kong. And of course, that is a model that

China in its 2022 white paper on Taiwan has touted as a success story, but it's clearly not viewed as the fulfillment of the promises of autonomy and persistence of a relatively liberal democratic rule of law order in Hong Kong. And it's a model that has no purchase in Taiwan. So I think there are those kinds of values issues which can be used to push back on several fronts against a more assertive use of the anti-secession law or an insistence that

The way to avoid that use is to accept unification on terms that there would be reason to distrust. And Yizhong, how do you think Taiwan, the United States, and international community should respond or push back against China's use of the anti-secession law? I will say that in the last 20 years, the focus on anti-secession law has very much singled out the Article 8 issue.

But it seems that the response to the Article 1 to the Article 5th, not enough action about that has been done. I'm not suggesting that U.S. or our international community should assist the so-called Taiwan independence. But to express that Taiwan is not a part of PRC, PRC does not have the ownership of Taiwan, does not have the right to have ownership of Taiwan. That is more important right now. Fail to respond to the Article 1 all the way to the 5th,

within the anti-secession law, but only focus on Article 8, seem to suggest to the other people that the non-peaceful means is not good, but if it is done by peaceful means, then it is good, even though the peaceful means could be coercive, or the peaceful means could be the elite captures to corrupt Taiwan democracies in order to achieve their objective. But I think that not significant attention is being paid

to Article 1 to Article 5, and not enough action to counter that, that is something we need to correspond right now.

So just to make sure, you don't think right now there's much willingness in the United States or elsewhere to push back against China's anti-secession law? Because pushing back would go directly against the one China policy that many countries follow. Is that right? Yeah. And I will say that not being able to push back to a certain extent, we are not challenging the Chinese assertion that China is a part of PRC. So this is not just about a part of China, but a part of PRC. And that needs to be addressed.

Thank you, Yitong. And thank you, Jacques.

Regardless of whether there is desire or interest within the United States and the broader international community pushback, I think it's important to raise awareness of how China is using the anti-secession law in both its foreign and domestic policy. So please stay tuned. CSIS will be publishing a volume that includes a collection of essays from leading international experts on the anti-secession law this September. We hope that this volume and this podcast

can better help people understand how China is using the anti-secession law. So thank you again, Jacques, and thank you again, Yizhong. Thank you.