He did it all with one stroke on that epoch-making Tuesday last week by proclaiming the revocation of the nation's 38-year-old Emergency Decree.

This is indeed an occasion for general jubilation and celebration. But, more importantly, it seems also a vantage point from which it behooves everyone--both the government and the people, both the ruling party and the opposition--to do some soul-searching and stock-taking at this critical juncture before leaping into an infinitely baffling range of urgent tasks and challenges characterizing the birth of the new era which is here to stay.

The ROC government's decision to lift the Emergency Decree is being hailed both at home and abroad as a historical move of great political significance. The key word here is historical.

For it is human nature that one often tends to lose the historical perspective when carried away by exuberances of the moment.

But, from an historical perspective, it should be remembered that back in 1949 had the government not proclaimed a state of emergency in the Taiwan area to safeguard it from an impending communist onslaught from the mainland, the very survival of our bastion of national reconstruction would have been impossible.

Admittedly, the Emergency Decree has produced both positive and negative effects on the development of Taiwan in the past four decades. Trying hard to survive in extraordinary times, people in Taiwan had to allow some of their freedoms and rights to be curtailed by a mild form of authoritarian rule. But the most noteworthy fact about the Emergency Decree has been the lack of any comprehensive enforcement of its potentially stringent measures. On the contrary, the government has consistently exercised such a maximum degree of self-restraint and self-discipline that only a small portion of the decree has been enforced to ensure the national security and social stability of the island in the past 38 years. And even today, after it has been abolished, many citizens have never heard of its existence.

On the other hand, it was only after the basic question of national survival and social stability was settled that the government on Taiwan was able gradually to build up a booming economy, formulate a fair and effective educational system for all citizens, promote our time-honored Chinese cultural heritage in concrete ways, and bring about a stable and energetic society striving continuously for freedom, equality, and equitable distribution of wealth--the ideals of the Three Principles of the People.

Today, the success of government policies in political, social, economic, and educational developments is obvious in the advent of a new era; and we all agree that the Emergency Decree has served and exhausted its historical function.

And now, with the lifting of the Emergency Decree, at least 16 separate measures and other laws will in turn lapse or become inoperative. The new National Security Law is not a replacement for the Emergency Decree but is a much more limited scheme for minimal security protections. Primacy will be restored to civilian courts within an independent judicial system. Many new laws governing assembly, association, demonstration, petition or strike will be made in the near future. In sum, both the government and the people are ready to embark upon an accelerated movement toward full democratization and the rule of law.

In the post-Emergency-Decree period, it is generally expected that political culture in Taiwan will become steadily pluralistic, pragmatic, and issues-oriented. As shown in the past months, the ruling Kuomintang is making brave political strides toward true democracy in the ROC. Recognizing the direction of trends, and under the able leadership of Lee Huan, the new secretary-general of the KMT Central Committee, the ruling party is generally believed to be on the threshold of a new epoch-making regeneration program involving genuinely structural as well as ideological readjustments.

While the ruling party is showing unmistakable signs of more open-mindedness and flexibility in its general orientation, it is fervently hoped by the society at large that the newly formed opposition political party, the DPP, will move in the same direction. Many people have expressed the worry that some radical DPP members may have become addicted to street-corner mass demonstrations and rabble-rousing as effective means of political struggle.

It is sincerely hoped that in this new era of freedom, democracy and rule of law, nobody--of whatever political background--will ever forget that Taiwan needs social stability for its survival and that the people of Taiwan have earned the right to expect even more peace and prosperity, rather than hysteria and violence spawned of misguided ambition and petty disagreement.