ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there is no defined legal concept of confederation which may be applied to solve the cross-Strait conflict. Therefore, the juridical models of the confederations which have existed in the past will need to be examined against the international law pertinent to that time. However, this is not to say that there is no legal concept of sovereignty in international law based on which a juridical model of confederation could be constructed. The difficulty in capturing the right concept of sovereignty, even contemporary, is that sovereignty is presented differently in different legal contexts. As a result, the concept of confederation in the cross-Strait polity becomes a matter of free interpretation according to the political choices of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). At the practical level, the PRC’s principle of “one country and two systems” could be developed as the basis of a confederative model. Equally, the ROC’s sovereignty-based ideal of confederation could be an alternative to the PRC’s “one country and two systems” principle. However, to consider that such a loose and undefined concept of confederation could solve a problem originating in the indivisibility of sovereignty is overoptimistic, if the discussion continues to be based on the legal vacuum. Furthermore, it would be unrealistic to believe that a process of integration could start from a cultural or an economic confederative entity and then progress towards political and legal unity. This is because the distinguishing features of a cultural, economic, political, or legal confederation are not clear. It would also be wrong to assume that sovereignty is only relevant to political integration or to the formation of a legal unity. Even from a purely practical point of view, when the ROC and the PRC are negotiating any arrangement for the purpose of constructing a model of confederation, the issue of sovereignty will continue to be crucial to the proceedings if any viable solution is to be achieved in practice.
