AUTHOR'S NOTE: Having pubilshed my book chapter section on "The Transnational Islamic State" on 23 September 2014 as an international coalition began military operations in Syria, and my book chapter section on "The Submerged State." on 24 September 2014 in the wake of the United Nations climate change conference in New York, I might as well publish other section of the chapter, "Transnationalizing Earth," which speculates on trends that are influencing changes in the Westphalian nation-state system, or outright challenging it. The book manuscript is far from being in shape for publication, but I would like to circulate some of my ideas and hopefully stimulate discussion in the academic and policy communities. --TG
The case of the Ukrainian and Belarussian SSRs is one of non-sovereign states having some international personality, and
although their UN membership was unique, and in no other way did they have the
“capacity to enter into relations with the other states,” other
non-sovereign states, while not being accorded UN membership, do have that
capacity in other venues. Today, China is the outstanding example of a state
with multiple personalities in the international sense.
The creation of
the [Hong Kong Special Administrative Region] under China’s “one country, two
systems” policy challenges the existing concepts and theories on constitutional
and international law. The HKSAR amounts to a new type of local territorial
unit with a unique governmental system that is different from China’s
provinces, autonomous regions, or centrally directed municipalities. It also
differs from the Swiss canton, the German of American federal state, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Canadian province, or any other existing
variant of autonomous local government known to us….
In international
law as well, the “one country, two systems” notion is an innovation…. [I]t is a
formula, hitherto unknown and untried in international relations…. Thus
conceived, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) is effectively a
quasi-state, an international personality that enjoys a status higher, and
autonomous rights more substantial, than a colony or an American state (Weng
2000, 92-93).
Robert H.
Jackson distinguishes between negative sovereignty and positive sovereignty in
discussing quasi-states (Jackson 1990). Governments have negative sovereignty
“when the international society has conferred upon them a formal-legal
entitlement for constitutional independence and freedom from outside
interference.” Negative sovereignty is socially constructed by the international
system, sovereignties recognizing each other as having the right to exercise
power, unanswerable to a higher authority, within each others’ territories. It
is “negative” sovereignty in the sense that the sovereign power of other
entities is excluded within a territory. In contrast, Jackson recognizes
positive sovereignty to exist when governments “can provide political goods for
their citizens and are capable of collaborating with other governments in international
arrangements and reciprocating in international commerce and finance.” As Byron S. J.
Weng observes, negative sovereignty refers to a “formal condition,”
whereas positive sovereignty refers to a “substantive condition.” Jackson uses
the term “quasi-state” to describe a political entity that possesses positive
sovereignty but not negative sovereignty.
James Tang
applies Jackson’s definition of a quasi-state to Hong Kong. As Weng details,
the international personality of Hong Kong is considerable:
By the provisions
of the Basic Law, the HKSAR issues its own currency and passports. It maintains
a separate customs area. It may, “using the name ‘Hong Kong, China,’ maintain
and develop relations on its own and conclude and implement agreements with
foreign states and regions and relevant international organizations in the
appropriate fields, including the economic, trade, financial and monetary,
shipping, communications, tourism, cultural, and sports fields (Basic Law,
Article 151).” Indeed, Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of international
recognition. It is already a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
most of the international organizations in the United Nations family, and will
qualify for membership in many others…. It is not wrong to say Hong Kong’s
formal authority to conduct its external economic, cultural and social
relations, and to take part in regional affairs in its own right is unmatched
by other substate entities (Weng 2000, 94).
Hong Kong’s rise
as an international personality since its transition from a British colony to a
Special Administrative Region within the People’s Republic of China in 1997 is
in marked contrast to the declining international recognition of Taiwan’s
sovereignty. For more than twenty years after its loss of control over the
mainland in 1949, the Republic of China was recognized by most states in the
international system as being a fellow state, possessing both positive and
negative sovereignty. In the 1970s, its international personality began to be
deconstructed by the international community as more governments recognized the
People’s Republic of China as the legitimate government of “one China,” and
ultimately China’s membership in the United Nations was transferred from the
Taipei government to the Beijing government. In the 21st century, Taiwan has few
remaining formal diplomatic relations with sovereign states, and it can be said
to have lost a large degree of its “formal-legal entitlement for constitutional
independence and freedom from outside interference,” and therefore its negative
sovereignty. Nevertheless, its informal, de
facto entitlement for constitutional independence and freedom from outside
interference is defended by its own military force in conjunction of its
special security understandings with other states. Also, the Taipei government
maintains relations below the ambassadorial level with sovereign states. As a
pragmatic concern, its informal status in the international system is bolstered
by its importance to the global economy, while from a normative viewpoint, it
maintains a certain legitimacy by virtue of its successful transition from
authoritarian to democratic government, an achievement yet to be matched in
Beijing. On the other hand, the Taipei government provides political goods for
its citizens in the domestic arena, a component of positive sovereignty, and it
retains some capability of “collaborating with other governments in
international arrangements and reciprocating in international commerce and
finance.”
Thus, while the
Taipei government has descended from its former status as an internationally
recognized sovereign state, arguably it retains elements of sovereignty
commensurate with Jackson’s definition of a quasi-state. Hong Kong’s attributes
as a quasi-state are by the formal permission of the Beijing government, while Taiwan’s
exists as a quasi-state in defiance of Beijing. This gives rise to curious
contrasts. Overall, Hong Kong’s international personality is ascending while
Taiwan’s has declined. Yet, being an entity firmly within the purview of the
People’s Republic of China, “the HKSAR plays little or no significant role in
the military or security sphere (Weng 2000, 94),” while Taiwan’s military
capability and its bilateral security arrangement with the United States makes
it an important component of the security environment of the Asia-Pacific
region. Hong Kong’s status as an SAR and all of its aspects of international
personality are at sole sufferance of Beijing and could be revoked in a
unilateral decision. Given its utility as the Communist Chinese government’s
door to the capitalist global economy, such a decision is as unlikely as
Washington’s abandonment of Taiwan as a security partner. Possessing aspects of
positive and negative sovereignty in differing measures which are varying with
time, both Taiwan and Hong Kong can be viewed as quasi-states.
Although China
has a declared “one country, two systems” policy in reference to Hong Kong,
tacitly it has a “one country, three systems” policy that includes Taiwan. In
the case of Hong Kong, China has permitted the exercise of not just autonomy,
but of considerable international personality. In the case of Taiwan, both
governments have deliberately finessed the issue of sovereignty in the interest
of international political stability and of a deepening trade relationship,
thus Beijing has backed off from earlier attempts to intimidate Taipei into
consenting to direct rule, and Taipei has refrained from declaring
independence. Rather than a resurgent Celestial Empire, today’s China is a
constellation held together by ties of trade and culture. In the case of China
as in the case of Europe, although for very different historical and
geopolitical reasons, we see evidence of Friedrichs’ post-international world, where the
transnational market economy challenges the logic of the nation-state system of
sovereignty.
3: "The Celestial Constellation"
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