The China Times is reporting that Chen Shui-bian has 'terminated' zhong1zhi3 the National Unification Council and the National Unification Guidelines. More specifically, he has terminated the operations of the Council, halted its funding, transferred its personnel, and will notify the Executive Yuan. The 'applicability' shi4yong4 of the Guidelines has also been terminated. The terms 'terminate' and 'applicability' are legal terms. A party to a contract may terminate a contract while a court decides whether a law applies to a given set of facts. Rank raises the issue because in the countdown to the announcement, some of the local press spilled a lot of ink about how the US was pressuring Chen not to 'abolish' fei4chu2 the council.
Chen will issue a presidential decree formalizing the decision tomorrow "if time permits." This is obviously symbolic since tomorrow is the 59th anniversary of the February 28th uprising on 28 February 1947 against the KMT and the second anniversary of the 2004 'Hands across Taiwan' rally.
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I was interviewed about this yesterday and I wish I'd seen Feiren's post beforehand. I said I hadn't seen the official translation, but I (as a reporter) would go with "terminate" for (zhongzhi) because it has a harder sound and has more emotional resonance. I guessed that the government would use "cease" when explaininng the move to friends like the US because it is a softer word and it doesn't have the same sense of finality that "terminate" does. Our ditzy reporter had spoken to a ditzy "English Teacher" who suggested we use "freeze" (dongjie) because she thought that came closest to the government's intent. The teacher's comments went into the report, but my rebuttal did not. Hmmm
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