2008年3月23日 星期日

Some Suggestions for Ma Ying-Jeou

By Bruce Jacobs 家博

'If Ma pushes a Taiwan-centric, reformist agenda, the people of Taiwan will unite behind him. If, on the other hand, he is weak toward China and relies on Beijing's good will, the future of Taiwan will be bleak.'

Chinese Nationalist Party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) landslide victory confirms Taiwan's democracy is thriving. Many citizens who voted for President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2000 and 2004 blamed Chen and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for the perceived failures of the past eight years. Thus, they quite rationally decided to vote for Ma. In many ways, this voter dissatisfaction with the DPP government continues the trends shown in the legislative election two months ago.

Ma must realize that his massive victory does not come from his cross-strait policies such as the "cross-strait common market." In fact, the most successful part of DPP candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign was his dismantling of vice-presidential candidate Vincent Siew's (蕭萬長) "cross-strait common market" idea, a fact Ma realized as he repeatedly retreated on the common market policy. Tibet also showed the naivete of Ma's cross-strait policy.

Rather, Ma's victory was a defeat for the DPP's economic policies and for its perceived corruption. Ma must bear this in mind as he goes forward.

Ma faces some difficult decisions ahead of his inauguration date on May 20. His most difficult heritage is his reputation for making contradictory statements at different times. For example, when running for re-election as mayor of Taipei in 2002, he told me personally and then said in a major press conference that Taiwan's future should be decided by the 23 million people of Taiwan. Recently, he reiterated this stance. Yet, on Feb. 12, 2006, and at other times, he said the future of Taiwan should be decided by the peoples on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Ma has also emphasized the threats posed by China and has even declared that the withdrawal of China's missiles is a precondition for cross-strait talks. Yet, at other times, he has expressed the opinion that if Taiwan is friendly to China, Beijing will in turn demonstrate friendship for Taiwan and give Taiwan more international space.

Clearly, China's repeated repression in Tibet, including the recent crackdown, has made a mockery of its original 1951 Treaty of Amity with Tibet. This clearly has lessons for Taiwan.

The KMT that Ma leads is very divided. On one hand there are the old, China-centric conservatives, many of whom go back to the dictatorial period. On the other hand, there are the more Taiwan-centric reformers. Ma is a bridge between these groups and frequently leaves both unhappy. Thus, the old conservatives refused to accept Ma's suggestion that the KMT publicly accept defeat in 2004 and they criticized him when he sold the old KMT party headquarters and old party-run enterprises.

So far, he has also proved insufficiently reformist for the younger members of the KMT. Bringing People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) back into the KMT is not a reform move. Neither is giving prominence to former vice president and KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰). And putting such recent criminals as KMT Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) high on the party ticket for the legislature does not send a reform message either

I recommend to Ma that he ally with the reformers in the KMT. Thus, for example, he should not appoint KMT Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤), a former minister of economic affairs, as premier. Chiang, who is already 75 years old, lacks a reformist spirit. As deputy speaker of the legislature, he had a military honor guard snap to attention every time he or his guests entered his chambers. Such behavior belongs in a dictatorship, not a democracy. In addition, Chiang lacks any notion of reform or of a global world.

Rather, Ma should appoint a younger Taiwan-centric, reformist administrator as premier. One such person would be Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫), who has led a large county and implemented a reformist strategy. Chu speaks excellent English, has traveled widely and would present an excellent face for Taiwan to the world. In addition, domestically he would push reform in Taiwan's bureaucratic administrative system. Provided he is healthy, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) might be another possible premier.

In the KMT itself, Ma must also push reform. For example, he must implement separation of the party and government. Thus, the president and Cabinet ministers should not be members of the KMT's Central Standing Committee. Such reforms are essential to reforming the KMT and turning it into a genuine democratic party.

Ma should remember his statement in the second TV debate, when he said he regretted that the KMT in its eight years in opposition had failed to reform. This statement was never followed up in the campaign, but he should also make party reform a matter of priority.

If Ma pushes a Taiwan-centric, reformist agenda, the people of Taiwan will unite behind him. If, on the other hand, he is weak toward China and relies on Beijing's goodwill, the future of Taiwan will be bleak. Only with a genuinely reformist agenda can Ma fulfill his major campaign slogan of "going forward."

Bruce Jacobs is professor of Asian languages and studies and director of the Taiwan Research Unit at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

2008年3月20日 星期四

The West and Beijing Must Share Shame Over the Tibet Crisis

By Simon Tisdall, of The Guardian, London.

Western governments have focused too much on Beijing's economic clout and not enough on its illegitimacy, which helps to explain their meek responses

China's anger and embarrassment over the Tibet protests is keenly felt and will not be easily assuaged. Its sense of betrayal is as striking as its inability to comprehend the cause of it. But Beijing's shame is widely shared. The unrest has confronted Western governments with inconvenient truths for which they plainly have no answers.

In the short term the hosts of the Beijing Olympics know they must act cautiously as the world watches, its running shoes in hand. Having been forced belatedly to acknowledge the scale of the trouble, Beijing cannot afford an even wider, more brutal public crackdown, its instinctive reaction to similar situations in the past.

State retaliation in the weeks and months ahead is likely to be stealthy and silent. For those who dared to make a stand, vengeance will come by night, in an unmarked car or an unheralded knock on the door.

This is typically how China deals with dissent, as Hu Jia (胡佳), a prominent human rights activist who went on trial for subversion on Tuesday, could testify.

Yet in blaming the Dalai Lama and his "clique" for organizing a conspiracy of sabotage, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) missed the mark. Tibet's exiled spiritual leader has long promoted an autonomous accommodation with, not independence from, China. It is younger generations of Tibetans, inside and outside the country, who increasingly call the shots and pursue more robust tactics.

An editorial in the Communist Party mouthpiece the Tibet Daily appeared to acknowledge this shift -- while revealing the true extent of Chinese fury.

`LAWLESS ELEMENTS'

"These lawless elements have insulted, beaten, and wounded duty personnel, shouted reactionary slogans, stormed vital departments, and gone to all lengths in beating, smashing, looting, and burning," it said. "Their atrocities are appalling and too horrible to look at and their frenzy is inhuman. Their atrocities of various kinds teach and alert us to the fact that this is a life-and-death struggle between the enemy and ourselves."

This official "us versus them" view implies there will be no quick end to the disturbances or the retaliation. Horrific photographs of 13 people allegedly killed at Kirtii monastery in Aba (Ngawa) town, Sichuan Province, by Chinese security forces and released on Tuesday by the Free Tibet campaign will meanwhile stoke opposition fires.

The next flashpoint could be Beijing's plan to relay the Olympic torch through Lhasa and other ethnic Tibetan areas on its journey from Greece to Beijing.

Another so-called Chinese "renegade province," Taiwan, has already refused to take part. Tibet was not given a choice.

The broader prospect now, unnerving for a Chinese leadership that has staked so much on a showpiece, self-validating Games, is of trouble continuing right through until August.

This is a worrying prospect for Western leaders, too. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that he will meet the Dalai Lama when he visits Britain in May. If so, it will enrage Beijing, even more than German Chancellor Angela Merkel's recent meeting with the Tibetan leader.

All Brown's commercial and business networking during his China trip earlier this year could be undone.

Earlier, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband tied himself up in knots when asked about a possible meeting, refusing to say whether the government would welcome it while insisting that the issue would be dealt with "in a very straightforward and appropriate way." It's a safe bet that London hopes the Dalai Lama won't come after all.

Brown's decision to attend the Olympics opening ceremony, not normally an essential requirement despite the expected presence of US President George W. Bush, is also beginning to look like a big potential embarrassment. Steven Spielberg and Mia Farrow, attacking China over Darfur, triggered the first round of pre-Olympic, anti-Beijing media frenzy.

ROUND TWO

Tibet is round two. There are more bouts, and many more similar issues, in the pipeline, waiting to trip up an accident-prone prime minister.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pottering on Tuesday urged politicians to reconsider going to Beijing if violence and repression in Tibet continued. Such calls are likely to become more voluble.

Nearly all Western governments have found themselves in the same leaky boat this week, calling meekly for more information, restraint and dialogue in Tibet and knowing their advice will be ignored. All insist that a boycott of the Games is not contemplated. All worry too much about the Chinese government's economic power and not enough about its basic political illegitimacy.

All now face a growing body of international and domestic public opinion that is increasingly questioning what has been dubbed their pre-Olympics "three monkeys policy." See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil could have worked in 1904, when a power-grabbing British expeditionary force butchered thousands of Tibetans without a second thought.

But in the present-day interconnected, globalized world that Brown and Miliband talk about and China perforce inhabits, that dog won't hunt.

Two Rivers, Two Mayors and A Very Clear Choice

By Matthew Lien

The recent election of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak was attributed in part to his restoration of a river running through Seoul. When Lee was elected mayor of Seoul in 2001, one of his key campaign promises was to remove the freeway covering the Cheonggyecheon River and to restore the waterway as a symbol of the city's beauty.

This caused me to reflect on Taiwan's presidential election and the first time I met Kaohsiung environmental activists and academics involved in the clean-up of the Kaoping River.

In 1999, I was appointed "Ambassador to the Aboriginal Cultures of the Kaoping River" by the Kaohsiung County Government and was given a tour of the most beautiful and most polluted sections of the river. I was also shown what efforts were being made to improve it and Kaohsiung City's Love River.

Years later, the results are impressive and the credit must go partly to the commitment of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who was at the time mayor of Kaohsiung.

Both of these rivers are widely known success stories, illustrating the importance of environmentalism and community development.

By contrast, I was invited several years ago by the Taipei City Government when Chinese Nationalist Party presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was mayor to tour the Tamsui River. The Department of Cultural Affairs director at the time, Lung Ying-tai (龍應台), and I took a one-hour tour of the river. Infamous for its severe pollution, a stench rose from the water as we climbed into small boats.

Accompanied by reporters, we saw dead pigs float by in the water, which can fairly be described as toxic. This was clearly an atrocity against the environment and allowing it to continue unchecked was a grievous failure of government at all levels.

Lung asked for my recommendations, which I enthusiastically provided based on my river conservation work in Canada with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Yukon Conservation Society and Friends of Yukon Rivers.

I described in detail an annual river festival that should be held on the banks of the Tamsui River, featuring original music and works by local artists portraying their impressions of the river. A CD and a coffee-table book could be published annually to help fund the festival and educate more people about the issue.

I also suggested that academics and water specialists be involved in the festival, updating the public on the pollution and its causes and documenting any changes in water quality.

They would also suggest which government departments should take responsibility for enforcing laws that penalize offenders and correct the problem. They could issue "report cards" to those departments.

I felt this would bring media attention, increase government accountability and inspire government action.

Lung supported my proposals and we presented the plan to the media.

Years later, the Tamsui River remains one of the most polluted in the country. All the talk of improvements seem to have been nothing more than a media exercise. It looked great on TV, but it resulted in little or nothing being done by Ma's administration.

As Taiwan goes to the polls, I can't help but recall my personal experiences with the two candidates and the adage: "By their fruits will you know them."

As one who believes that government officials bear the responsibility for the entire community and environment in their jurisdiction, I trust in the rivers to endorse the candidate who is best to navigate the currents of change facing Taiwan.

Matthew Lien is an environmentalist and musician from Canada.

US Deploys Two Aircraft Carriers Close to Taiwan

By Charles Snyder, additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu

'RESPONSIBLY POSITIONED': Washington was mum on whether the violent Chinese crackdown in Tibet would have an impact on the presidential election

Two US aircraft carriers, the USS Kitty Hawk and the USS Nimitz, have been sent to the Taiwan region for training exercises during tomorrow's election, a US defense official said on Wednesday.

The two carriers were "responsibly positioned" in the Pacific Ocean somewhere east of Taiwan and would remain in place through Saturday's presidential election and referendum on UN membership, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He declined to elaborate on the positions of the two vessels.

"We feel we are responsibly positioned at this time," the defense official said, adding that the two carriers were not close enough to Taiwan to provoke China, but would be able to "respond if there's a provocative situation."

Navy officials said the Kitty Hawk left its base in Japan en route to Hawaii on Tuesday and would continue on to the continental US later for decommissioning.

In Taipei, the Ministry of National Defense did not comment on the deployment.

American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young said that the vessels were merely making a routine patrol in the Strait and that it had nothing to do with tomorrow's election.

Meanwhile, high-level US State Department officials on Wednesday refused to speculate on how the uprising in Tibet and the violent response by Beijing authorities might affect tomorrow's election in Taiwan, but the officials once again criticized the planned referendum on UN membership.

The officials were responding to a flurry of interest in the Taiwanese elections by journalists in Washington in view of reports from Taiwan about the local impact of the Tibetan uprising and repeated comments by department officials on the referendum.

Meanwhile, four Taiwan supporters in the House of Representatives wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday, urging her to support the referendum.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill sidestepped a question about whether events in Tibet could have "unexpected implications" for the Taiwanese election and "negative implications" for cross-strait relations.

"I'm not going to handicap ... make judgements ... about how the people in Taiwan are going to make their vote. They have information. They'll look at information and I'm not going to start predicting what things that happen in the world can affect their vote," he said.

"Obviously ... we look forward to a free and fair election in Taiwan. We have every reason to expect it to be. But I am not really in a position to tell you what is affecting the vote and what is not affecting the vote," Hill said.

He also said he had nothing to add to the criticism that Rice has leveled at the referendum recently.

"How [the elections] are conducted is a matter for the people of Taiwan to accomplish. I'm not going to give them advice on what to do in their elections," he said.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey, however, took the opportunity to level yet one more barb at the referendum.

"As we've indicated," he told a reporter at the department's regular daily briefing, "the United States is opposed to the specific referendum [on UN entry under the name `Taiwan']. We believe it is unnecessary and unhelpful and will not have an effect on Taiwan's ability to join the UN or other organizations requiring statehood."

Casey also said the US "does look forward to a free and fair election in Taiwan. And we will work within the parameters of our existing relationship with whoever is elected by the Taiwan [sic] people."

The congressional letter to Rice was signed by representatives Robert Andrews, a Democrat, and Scott Garrett of New Jersey, John Linder of Georgia and Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, who are Republicans. Andrews and Garrett have been among Taiwan's biggest champions on Capitol Hill.

"We strongly urge the United States to support the referendum," the lawmakers said.

"The Taiwanese people have the right -- as all people do -- to self-determination," the letter said. "However, the ability to exercise that right is severely compromised when a nation's largest ally turns its back."

"For too long Taiwan has stood its ground as a bulwark of democracy against the encroaching aspirations of an authoritarian communist regime. We should not condemn or oppose the dreams of those who want only to remain free and take their place in the international community," the letter said.

It's Use It or Lose It on Saturday

Anyone who believed that China respects Taiwanese people should have been roused from their stupor after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) on Tuesday reiterated Beijing's line that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.

The timing of Wen's comments -- concurrent with Beijing's bloody crackdown on protesting Tibetans -- drives home the need for Taiwanese to vote in Saturday's referendum and make it known that Taiwan is not a province of China.

Whether one supports the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) proposal on joining the UN under the name "Taiwan," or the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) version of rejoining the UN with the official title of the Republic of China or any other "practical" title -- or both -- the public should make its voice heard by participating in the referendum process.

The more Taiwanese democracy draws the attention of the international community, the better it can demonstrate that Taiwan is a sovereign nation.

Wen also said that Taiwan's referendums on UN membership would threaten peace and stability for the Pacific region and deliver a major strike against Taiwan's interests.

Look who's talking. Which government has hundreds of missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait, creating a situation that has been called a potential flashpoint by international observers? Which government is "threatening peace and stability in the region" with a massive military build-up that draws concern not only from neighboring countries but also from those on the other side of the globe, such as the US and the UK?

And how could a simple exercise in basic human rights in a democratic country constitute a strike against its interests?

Taiwan has come a long way since the days of authoritarian rule. Perhaps some people have started to take democracy for granted, just as one might forget the oxygen in the air. But how miserable it would be if the air of freedom was suddenly sucked away.

Taiwanese know that democracy must be respected, perhaps with the exception of those politicians who urge the public to abandon their privileges and boycott referendums even as people in other corners of the world die for freedom.

Clinging to Wen's coattails, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Christensen also spoke on Tuesday against the referendums, branding them "pointless and destabilizing" and "unnecessary and unhelpful."

Wen and Christensen simply will not concede that Taiwanese democracy is an issue for Taiwanese.

On Saturday, Taiwan has the opportunity to show the world just how different it is from autocratic China.

The issue is all the more important after the UN Office of Legal Affairs on Tuesday again snubbed an expression of support by Taiwan's allies for the nation's admission into the world body.

The new government to be formed on May 20 may very well give up on the UN bid if neither referendum succeeds. Indeed, how can Taiwan ask its allies to speak for it if the nation doesn't stand up for itself on Saturday?

Taipei Times Editorial, March 20, 2008.

Tibet Riots A Meter of Beijing's Rot

By Sushil Seth

First Myanmar and then China. It is quite a coincidence that Buddhist monks in both countries have been leading protests against repression.

It is not surprising, though, that when all other avenues of peaceful protest are denied, people should turn to their church or monasteries for leadership.

It happened in communist Poland. It is happening in Myanmar and now in Tibet, where China exercises a stifling grip over the local population. (Xinjiang is also proving troublesome, though Beijing attributes the trouble there to Islamic terrorism.)

Poland, though, had a happy ending with the Solidarity Movement and the Catholic Church providing inspirational leadership.

And when the time was right and the Soviet Union was heading toward collapse, Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe reclaimed their freedom and independence.

Could this happen to China and its so-called autonomous regions, most notably Tibet?

The generals in Myanmar seem secure, with their international flank covered by China's support.

And the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) oligarchy seems quite self-assured that it is on the right track to make China into a superpower.

Beijing believes that with China's new international status it will be able to ignore or ride out any criticism abroad about its politics and policies.

The hosting of the Beijing Olympics in August seemed a surefire way of introducing a self-confident and powerful China to the world. But it is not all going according to script.

First, there is continuing criticism that Beijing is not opening up, as it promised, to international media, and is suppressing internal dissent before the Olympics.

Second, there is international condemnation of its indifference to the suffering of people of Darfur at the hands of the Sudanese government.

Sudan is a prime example of China's policy of fraternizing with unpalatable regimes to access their oil, gas and other natural resources.

Third, the eruption of Tibetan protests led by Buddhist monks has focused the international spotlight on Tibet. China has brought out the heavy artillery, reminiscent of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

According to exiled Tibetan sources, there have been, at the time of writing, 80 to 100 fatalities from China's heavy-handed response to a popular movement against what the Dalai Lama has called "cultural genocide."

Tibet is proving again and again that Beijing needs to start a dialogue with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people to accommodate their aspirations as a distinct ethnic and cultural entity.

The CCP's one-size-fits-all approach of swamping outlying regions with Han Chinese and obliterating minority cultures is not conducive to creating a "harmonious society," a buzz word in the Chinese political lexicon.

The Soviets tried this and it eventually failed because the entire system was top-heavy with the Communist Party controlling levers of power within Russia proper and its outlying regions.

China's leaders believe that they have learnt from the Soviet Union's mistakes and are, therefore, doing things differently.

Late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) believed that former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was a crucial factor in the Soviet Union's collapse. Deng wasn't going to make the same mistake -- hence the tanks let loose on students during the 1989 democracy movement.

Deng looked for economic growth to make China a powerful country. And the prerequisite for this was the CCP's monopoly of power to maintain and ensure political and social stability.

For him, the Western model of democracy was a recipe for chaos and disaster. His successors continue to follow him on this course.

China's guiding mantra is economic growth at all costs to build up the military capability to throw its weight around.

It is as if all China's problems will somehow be resolved once its economic, political and military power make it a force to be reckoned with.

It is as if all the humiliations suffered under Western tutelage and Japanese aggression will be washed away with China's rebirth as the new Middle Kingdom.

Only then might its communist rulers attend to issues of social equity and some form of political participation. But it is a decision the CCP will make on its own schedule.

But as the events in Tibet show, things have a way of getting out of control unless channels and institutions are created to involve people in their own governance.

It is not that the Tibetans are asking for separation. Indeed, the Dalai Lama is advocating only genuine autonomy, with China remaining the sovereign power.

But Beijing doesn't trust the Dalai Lama. They are waiting for him to die so they can appoint their own Dalai Lama, having outlawed the process of reincarnation as traditionally practiced in the selection of a new Dalai Lama.

It is the arrogance of the system and its leaders, whether it is in relation to Tibet or China proper, which is at the root of China's problems. This will be their undoing, as happened with the Soviet Union.

Beijing believes that by choosing economic growth as its priority it has managed to avoid the fate of the Soviet Union after Gorbachev sought to push relative political liberalism.

But it collapsed largely because it was too late for Gorbachev or any other leader to save it.

The rot that consumed the Soviet Union over the years had much to do with the lack of a connection between its political system (a monopoly of power wielded by the Communist Party) and the people.

Its leadership thought it knew best, and people had virtually no input into the decision-making process of a narrow cabal that was dismally ignorant, indifferent and brutal.

China and the former Soviet Union are not comparable in all respects, but their Leninist political system, where the Communist Party exercises a monopoly on power, is a common thread.

And if the Soviet Union eventually collapsed because its leadership had no use for political diversity and popular participation, China is unlikely to fare any better over time.

The developments in Tibet are a barometer of things to come. All of China is racked by social unrest, with thousands of reported and unreported incidents of popular protest every year.

According to official figures, there were 87,000 cases of social unrest involving 15 or more people in China in 2006.

And this despite all the machinery of repression available to the authorities.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.

Whatever China Does, Tibet Will Demand Freedom

By Ed Douglas of The Observer, London

Putting the Olympic flame on the summit of Mount Everest must have seemed a great idea to the planning committee of the Beijing Olympics. What better expression of China's inexorable rise to superpower status could there be? Everest was the crowning glory for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. So it would be for China's political elite.

Now the game is up. On Friday, a friend who organizes expeditions to Everest called me on his way to Kathmandu for the start of the climbing season. He had just heard that the Nepalese authorities, at China's request, had decided to stop climbers going on the mountain until after those carrying the Olympic flame had been and gone.

It was, on China's part, an act of frantic paranoia. Beijing had only just banned foreign climbers from China's side of the mountain, fearing pro-Tibet demonstrations. Now Beijing was bullying Nepal, distracted by a chaotic election campaign, to do China's bidding. China recently offered Nepal more than US$200 million for two new hydroelectric dams and increasingly calls the tune in Kathmandu, so there wasn't much argument.

With people dying in Lhasa and Tibetan exiles agitating in India and Nepal, what happens to a bunch of Western tourists may not seem so important. True, people living around Everest will lose a lot of money, but that's no big deal in the scheme of things.

It's what this says about China's position in Tibet that is so revealing. In a matter of days, the self-assurance of a regime that promised to light a beacon to the world on the summit of Everest has been utterly undermined.

For the last 60 years of Chinese occupation and colonialism, the Tibetan people have been starved, murdered, tortured, imprisoned and marginalized in their own land.

But even now, after decades of effort to subjugate Tibet, the Chinese authorities couldn't guarantee that they wouldn't be humiliated in Tibet's most remote, and easily controlled, location -- the slopes of the peak Tibetans call Chomolungma.

Dreadful abuses

Rather than have Western climbers unfurling banners to demand a free Tibet during a live broadcast beamed around the world, they have preferred the embarrassment of closing the peak to outsiders, as they did until 1980, four years after the death of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).

It's an admission of failure. It must be galling for Beijing. Following violence in the late 1980s and another period of dreadful human-rights abuses, the Chinese Communist Party had embarked on a policy of colossal capital investment in Tibet to develop its sclerotic economy. If old-school oppression didn't work, why not try consumerism?

Leaving aside the inequalities between Tibetans and migrant Han Chinese, there's no question that the Chinese have done a huge amount to improve the economic conditions of the indigenous population. Drive along the highway between Lhasa and Shigatse, seat of the disputed Panchen Lama, No. 2 in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, and you can see bright new houses being built to replace the smoky hovels many Tibetans used to occupy.

True, part of this resettlement program is aimed at settling nomadic herders whose mobility threatens China's grip. China recalls how nomads in eastern Tibet put up strong resistance following the invasion in 1950. But it would be a gross caricature to deny China's attempts to bring economic development to a disadvantaged region.

China says it rehoused 10 percent of Tibet's population by 2006, building 279,000 new homes. Now that's progress. The high-tech, high-altitude railway, opened in 2006 and tying China more firmly to its Tibetan fiefdom, has brought a wave of new investment along with more migration. When I first visited Lhasa in 1993, people still defecated in the street. Now it is a modern and much bigger city, albeit a largely Chinese one.

Tibet campaigners often argue that this combination of investment and migration will swamp Tibetan's ancient culture and snuff out resistance to China's annexation. If that was the plan, it seems to have failed.

Beijing predictably blamed the Dalai Lama and his "splittist clique" for masterminding the riots that gripped Lhasa last week. But reports filtering out from the Jokhang temple area, the holiest of holies for Tibetan Buddhists, suggest the anger on the streets is real and instinctive. It is the resentment Tibetans feel at the inequality they face in their day-to-day lives.

Han migrants

Life might have got better for some Tibetans, but they see Han Chinese migrants doing a whole lot better and at their expense. The new railway might bring more money to Lhasa, but it is also carrying back Tibet's vast mineral deposits and timber to feed China's galloping economic growth.

It's inevitable, given his huge profile and the popularity of his cause, that many Westerners see the Dalai Lama and Tibet as synonymous. The Dalai Lama remains a source of hope for many Tibetans, but beneath the charm and exoticism of his story, Tibet's agonies should be familiar ground to any student of colonialism. It is that inequality, and the despair it brings, that feeds Tibet's resistance.

But Beijing is fixated by a personal and bitter campaign against a man regarded as an icon around the world. Rather than allow the possibility that he has influence inside Tibet, and affection outside it, China courts ridicule by peddling transparently false statements about him. An example. In November, the Dalai Lama used his prerogative as a reincarnate lama to suggest his rebirth wouldn't take place within Tibet.

He has said this before, but the statement launched a typically petulant response from Beijing, suggesting the Dalai Lama's statement "violated [the] religious rituals and historical conventions of Tibetan Buddhism."

Given the wholesale destruction of monasteries in the 1950s and 1960s, and renewed efforts in the 1990s to crack down on religious freedoms and the strict controls placed on monks within Tibet, the idea that atheist Beijing should offer advice on the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism was understandably laughed off by the Dalai Lama's office.

China must hope, and friends of Tibet must fear, that when the Dalai Lama dies, much of the momentum toward Tibet's eventual freedom will die with him. Don't count on it. Tibet will still be a country that is ethnically and culturally very different from China. It's not a question of preserving Tibet's ancient culture -- that hangs on in remote villages -- but it's mostly gone in Lhasa. It would have changed anyway. Mobile phones and the Internet would have undermined Tibet's oppressively religious polity, already being reformed by the current Dalai Lama, just as they are doing to China's version of communism.

It's a question of identity. The fact remains that Tibetans feel Tibetan. No amount of economic development will change that. It's also true that China is implacable in its determination to stay put. Only a settlement that allows Tibetans genuine freedoms and economic equality will bring lasting peace. And that means meaningful agreements with the Dalai Lama. Only then will Tibetans begin to trust the Chinese.

Right now, China is stoking a future of ethnic conflict that will take generations and huge resources to solve. That conflict is deeply damaging to China's image abroad as a progressive and modern country.

The real question is what does China have to fear from a more independent Tibet?

It is the risk of difference, of heterogeneity that frightens China -- a fear of multiculturalism.

Beijing's Not Bringing Cookies

Lee Long-Hwa of New York

As Taiwan goes to the presidential polls, it is imperative the nation notes and understands the situation in Tibet. For those Taiwanese who dream of becoming an integral part of China, it is important to understand that the treatment of Tibet and Tibetans is only a small sample of what lies in store for Taiwan should it become part of China.

For those Taiwanese who believe that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) represents a new day for big money in Taiwan, where Taiwan can co-exist with China in peace and prosperity, it is important to understand that there is no "co-existence" in Beijing's vocabulary.

The only definition of "co-existence" for Beijing is "undying loyalty to the Communist Party, upon pain of death."

Ma talks about 30 years of peace with Beijing. But Beijing has murdered Tibet's culture and autonomy over a period of 50 years.

Are you skeptical? Fifty years of Beijing's relationship with the Dalai Lama should have proved this point to the world already.

If a nation cannot co-exist with the Dalai Lama, a leader who personifies peace, just who in the world can they co-exist with?

Nor will Beijing march into Taipei with guns drawn. Its annexation of Taiwan is being planned in far more subtle ways, with or without the KMT's full complicity.

Wearing grins on their faces and talking about social harmony, cross-strait peace and a "one-China market," politicians on both sides are misrepresenting the underlying predatory nature of Beijing to the Taiwanese public.

The plans call for peace, but as soon as the guard is down, as soon as someone decides there is no immediate threat, the dam will burst and the flood of China's overwhelming tide will overwhelm Taiwan.

It will first come from the sheer numbers of Chinese visitors and then immigrants, money, millions of workers, hollowing out invaluable industries, and -- when Taiwan is utterly cowed and dependent on Beijing's succor -- blackmail.

Once overwhelmed, all hope is lost.

Beijing will not treat Taiwan like Hong Kong (which is bad enough), but rather like Tibet, where right now, today, at this very moment, soldiers are conducting house-to-house searches for monks supporting the Dalai Lama, looking for pictures of him or any other evidence of loyalty.

How long before Chinese soldiers are running from house to house in Taipei searching for "splittists"? Where will Ma be then? Standing in front, protecting those houses? Or running along beside the soldiers, aiding and abetting?

You decide.

With President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) at least I know they would die fighting.

They've already sacrificed themselves for Taiwan's democracy before.

I haven't heard anything from Ma that would convince me he wouldn't be on the first plane to Hong Kong (or New York or Beijing)

For those going to the polls, Tibet should serve as a loud and blaring wake up call. For those who think things have changed and that Beijing is a kinder and gentler adversary, wake up.

The predatory neighbor is not coming to visit Taiwan bearing cookies. It is coming bearing dictatorship and tyranny. Vote for anything less than complete vigilance against it, and you are inviting the beast to a dinner where you are the main dish.

And if you doubt that, if you are skeptical that Beijing could do that, just read about Tibet right now.

It's real. It's happening. The actions of Beijing in Tibet are no different than its attitude toward Taiwan.

And it's coming, unless you vote to keep it out.

You decide.

Passion of the Protesters

Nothing to Hide

2008年3月18日 星期二

Can Ma Control the KMT Old Guard?

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in full damage control mode last week, profusely apologizing for the arrogant behavior of his party's legislators and demonstrating, once again, that he has a long way to go before he can control the party that he is effectively supposed to lead.

When Ma became KMT party chairman in 2005, he promised to lead an opposition that would be willing to work with the ruling party. But time and again, from the failure to pass a reasonable arms budget to the KMT's stonewalling of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) choice of prosecutor general -- a candidate Ma openly supported -- conservative elements in the party threw egg on Ma's face.

Last week's apology came on the heels of KMT legislators Alex Fai (費鴻泰), Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才), Chen Chieh (陳杰) and Luo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) barging into Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) Taipei campaign office on Wednesday, alleging that state-owned First Commercial Bank had waived the office's rent.

The legislators' behavior sparked verbal and physical clashes with Hsieh supporters, who accusedethem of trespassing. One might call this kind of behavior astounding if it weren't in keeping with what we have come to expect from politicians not held accountable for their actions.

Exceptional, however, were statements made by Ma at a press conference a few days later, which fell on the third anniversary of China's enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law -- which allows Beijing to use "non-peaceful" means against Taiwan if it sees fit.

"Taiwan enjoys sovereignty, and Taiwan's future should only be decided by Taiwanese people," Ma said.

He then went on to say that he adheres to a "three noes policy" of no unification, no independence and no use of force.

This was a significant departure from statements he made in 2006 to a Hong Kong newspaper, when he said that the "Taiwan problem should be jointly decided by the people on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait."

Leaving aside the bizarre logic of a "sovereign country" needing to avoid statements on whether or not it is independent, Ma's remarks about Taiwan's sovereignty should be seen as a partial reaction to the behavior of Fai and his ilk.

His language has as much to do with attracting middle-of-the-road voters and distracting the electorate from the presumptuous behavior of KMT legislators as it does sending a symbolic message to the old-boy network that Ma wants to put his stamp on the party. This is why he broke ranks with party ideology.

Ma is not stupid. He knows that the anachronistic pro-China policies of the KMT must give way to localization. But it isn't hard to imagine that a Ma presidency would see him apologizing for and battling with the KMT's old guard still holding on to the reins of power behind the scenes.

Many voters perceive Ma as a politician with integrity and the best chance the KMT has at reform. He has promoted this image for three years without being able to back it up through concrete action.

So the question remains: Can he drag the KMT out of its authoritarian past and bring it more in line with Taiwan's democratic future? And more specifically, does Ma have the ability to take control of his party?

The behavior of KMT legislators and Ma's aura of weakness suggest that he does not.

Taipei Times Editorial, March 19, 2008.

Siew's Ideas Contradict KMT Policy

By Yang Wei-chung 楊偉中, translated by Angela Hong

As the debate over the "cross-strait common market" heats up, how the average citizen understands the issue is becoming important. Faced with public doubt, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his running mate, Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), have provided several basic responses.

First, the "cross-strait common market" is not their campaign platform. Second, the "cross-strait common market" focuses on economics, whereas the "one China market" is a political label. Last, they do not wish to open Taiwan to Chinese labor or agricultural products that are now banned.

But these arguments are dishonest and contradictory. The foreword, policy outline and action plan of the KMT's policy guidelines, passed during the 17th KMT National Congress in August 2005, all promote the "cross-strait common market." Would the KMT presidential candidate not implement the party's plans? If the guidelines passed by the highest authority of the KMT are empty words, how can we trust other promises of the party?

In Siew's book One Plus One is Two ? the Road Toward a Cross-Strait Common Market, he mentions the great political significance of such a market on page 17, debunking the explanation that the common market is limited to economic importance. On page 31, Siew claims that the "cross-strait common market" will become the foundational structure for the integration of cross-strait politics. He believes that Taiwan should participate in the peaceful rise of China.

On page 121, Siew says that economic partnership is the best starting point for peaceful cross-strait integration. Economic integration has various degrees. Why is the high-level goal of a common market the main policy objective?

Siew says on page 142 that only the emergence of a "cross-strait common market" can bring about total economic, social and political integration. To use the common market as the main strategy for cross-strait political integration is Siew's core concern. By claiming that the common market is purely economic, the pan-blue camp is contradicting itself.

On pages 144 and 152, Siew further emphasizes that the so-called "1992 consensus" must be accepted as the basis of negotiation for cross-strait economic integration. From this perspective, how is the Democratic Progressive Party's labeling of Siew's policy a "one China market" an insult?

The pan-blue camp's list of things that will not be open to China in a common market is also self-contradictory. In his book, Siew says on page 158 that the creation of a free-trade area and the progression toward a common market relies most importantly upon a series of policy and regulation adjustments, based on the free and liberal flow of goods, labor, funds, services, information and other production resources.

To achieve a common market, there needs to be intermediate stages -- such as establishing a free trade agreement (FTA) or a closer economic partnership agreement, as in the case between China and Hong Kong -- both of which involve the free flow of products and labor.

Siew is clearly aware of this, but he ignores the implications of the common market without providing any solutions to its possible problems. Is this the attitude of a responsible politician?

In the negotiations of the WTO or other FTAs, non-democratic and black-box procedures often draw heavy criticism from social rights groups. Ma and Siew have promised that future cross-strait negotiations will be transparent. However, though they have not yet been elected, and the negotiations have not yet begun, there are already a number of lies and contradictions. How can people believe their promises?

Narrow protectionist policies are of course not the final solution for average citizens. However, unlimited deregulation of trade and investment would also cause corresponding problems.

Faced with the "one China market" debate, we don't need lies or a war of words. We need honest politicians and active concern from the public to forge our own future with our own actions.

Yang Wei-chung is spokesman for the Third Society Party.

Ma Unclear on Chinese Diplomas

By Tung Chen-yuan 童振源, translated by Angela Hong

With only a few days to the presidential election, we're still seeing Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) dodge and deny various important policies that he had previously proposed, including the "cross-strait common market" and recognition of Chinese diplomas.

As election day arrives, Ma is purposefully distorting his own proposals and does not dare to stand up for or defend his own policies -- to the point of accusing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) of discrediting him.

Take the issue of whether the government should recognize Chinese diplomas for example: This is a serious public policy concern, and Ma should give a clear explanation to the voters.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Hsieh have both clearly said that they are unwilling to recognize Chinese diplomas. KMT and People First Party legislators have repeatedly demanded that the government do otherwise. They have done all they can to pressure the government and they often encourage Taiwanese students to seek education in China.

In April 2006, after the Chinese Communist Party-KMT economic forums, Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), a KMT legislator and an important member of the Ma camp, immediately pushed for a petition in the legislature and successfully changed Article 22 of the Act Governing Relations Between Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例), demanding that the government recognize Chinese diplomas obtained by Taiwanese students so that they can qualify for professional and government examinations and be allowed to work in the Taiwanese education system.

On April 26, 2006, Ma, as the chairman of the KMT, promised that the party would push for the recognition of Chinese diplomas and complimented Cheng Kung University president Wu Jing (吳京) for daring to recommend the recognition of Chinese diplomas while minister of education.

On April 28, Ma went so far as to say that if the future chair of the Mainland Affairs Council had a diploma from Beijing University, then the two sides could better communicate, and cited this as a supporting argument for his proposal of diploma recognition.

After becoming the KMT's presidential candidate, Ma, in a speech at National Chung Hsing University on June 18 last year, criticized the DPP government's refusal to recognize Chinese diplomas as an isolationist policy.

Regardless of whether one supports recognizing Chinese diplomas or not, as a presidential candidate, Ma should explain himself clearly to Taiwanese voters.

When Hsieh criticized the potential impact of Ma's proposal to recognize Chinese diplomas, Ma responded that Hsieh was twisting the truth.

On Feb. 29, after three years of openly proposing that Taiwan recognize Chinese diplomas, Ma amended the proposal for the first time, claiming that while Chinese diplomas would be recognized, people with Chinese diplomas would not be allowed to take examinations for professional qualifications. This obscures the focus of the policy debate and goes against Ma's original intent.

On March 8, Ma changed tack again and said that his proposal to recognize Chinese diplomas was aimed at facilitating cross-strait academic exchange, since otherwise it would be unreasonable to have to consider professors of Beijing University as uneducated if they came to Taiwan. Then Ma altered the focus further by emphasizing that he would not allow Chinese nationals to take qualification exams in Taiwan.

From demanding that the government recognize Chinese diplomas, to not allowing holders of Chinese diplomas to take professional examinations, to claiming that Chinese professors need to have diplomas to conduct academic exchanges in Taiwan, to not allowing Chinese nationals to take professional examinations in Taiwan -- Ma is constantly changing his position.

The pan-blue camp already controls almost three quarters of the legislature. If Ma becomes president, no one would be able to stop the government from recognizing Chinese diplomas.

Mr. Ma, please demonstrate your accountability and character by explaining and defending your policies: What is the purpose, and what would be the result of recognizing Chinese diplomas? Don't obscure and redirect the focus, and don't lie to voters just to become president.

Tung Chen-yuan is an assistant professor at the Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities at National Chengchi University.

Time to End the Media's Distortion of the Truth

By Lillian Wang 王泰俐, translated by Eddy Chang

The economy has been the main focus of the presidential campaign. In addition to the unfavorable domestic and global economic situation, this is the result of the "relative deprivation" created by some media outlets in recent years.

They have used the public's enthusiasm for comparison to generate a sense of envy if others have something that they do not; or a sense of frustration if people believe they deserve something that they do not have.

The manipulation of "relative deprivation" has successfully dominated the campaign, crowding out other issues. The influence of the media on this issue should not be underestimated.

By controlling the social atmosphere, the media is able to shape public opinion in such a way that it can achieve predictable results.

Even voters who aren't particularly interested in the economy -- preferring to focus on Taiwan's democratic development, sovereignty and future direction -- also suffer deeply from "relative deprivation." The issues they value have been overlooked by much of the media, as if they don't exist. This is also why the Intellectuals' Alliance has attempted to provide diverse options for thought to voters before the election.

Much of the public has a sense of "relative deprivation" because of the media's unbalanced reporting, which has been lacking in diversity since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in 2000.

Take the major political events and social conflicts for example. Certain media channels report only parts of such stories to create a so-called "social reality" that meets their own objectives.

The public has been deprived of its right to know the truth. The biased coverage of the intrusion into DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign headquarters by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers last Wednesday was an excellent example of this kind of manipulation.

Judging from the media's preset issues, the interpretation of both political and economic events, the partial reporting of certain news and political commentary shows, there appears to be a large gap between the supporters of the two camps in terms of access to media information, an important social resource.

Taiwan will elect a new president on Saturday. Some media outlets are portraying the political situation as the coming of a "new dawn."

However, given the prevailing media bias, we can hardly be so optimistic. If KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is elected, the media's practice of "what we say counts" will only worsen. Media resource distribution may even become more uneven.

But if Hsieh is elected, couldn't such uneven distribution be improved in the face of a ruling minority and an opposition majority?

Now is the time to keep such "relative deprivation" by the media from being employed again in the next election, causing even more social conflict.

Lillian Wang is an associate professor of journalism at National Chengchi University.

It Could Happen To You

By Anonymous, of Guangzhou, China

I am Italian. I live and work in China. All the news about Tibet is blocked and filtered out, including YouTube. People here are blind.

No one has any interest in politics: This is the way China is; this is not freedom.

Taiwan is one of the most free countries on this planet, according to its Freedom House ranking -- more free than my own nation. In Taiwan, news is not censored and people have the freedom to hold different opinions.

I really hope and wish that before the coming election, Taiwanese realize what Taiwan would become if it moved closer to China.

I really hope Taiwanese will wake up and choose the party farthest from Chinese ideology, because what is happening in Lhasa could one day happen in Taipei, too.

For years, Beijing has been sending hundreds and hundreds of Chinese people to Tibet in order to make Tibetans a minority in their own land. In my country we call this ethnic cleansing and one day that could happen in Taiwan, too.

Identity is very important. Where we're from and who we are -- don't let that ever be erased, because our identity is our DNA. It is all we are about.

People here in China have no identity, no rights and no hope -- just some stupid TV programs to brainwash them.

2008年3月17日 星期一

Has Ma Ying-Jeou Seen the Light?

It seemed like a welcome shift last week when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the fate of Taiwan should be decided by Taiwanese alone. Ma reiterated that position in newspaper ads and signed a declaration condemning the "Anti-Secession" Law enacted by China in 2005 or any other policies that would "hurt the Taiwanese people's feelings."

Even Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has applauded Ma's apparent turnaround, the same Ma who, in 2006, had argued that the future of Taiwan should be decided by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Whether this rhetorical shift is heartfelt -- a coming out of sorts, a la former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in the 1990s -- or mere politicking has yet to be clarified, but the fact remains that Ma is saying these things publicly and within earshot of Beijing. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of democratic politics that, as election day looms, parties drift toward the center.

And in Taiwan, the center is the "status quo." However uncomfortable it is, the "status quo" is, ironically, quite comfortable. It is the invisible enemy we know rather than the unknown of a sudden shift. It's also a vote-winner, as maintaining that comfortable level of uncertainty seems to be what Taiwanese of all stripes want most.

Welcome as Ma's "determination to defend Taiwan's sovereignty" might be -- and let us assume, for the sake of argument, that he means what he said -- his vow to create friendly cross-strait relations might be more difficult to achieve than he thinks. For upon hearing his comments, Beijing could be forgiven for accusing Ma of himself "heightening cross-strait tensions," in similar fashion to what Ma in the same breath accused the DPP of doing over the past eight years.

Should Ma decide to go down this path, he would soon find -- as every other president before him has found -- that peace across the Taiwan Strait, or its absence, is not in the hands of Taiwanese and their leaders, but in those of the regime in Beijing, which seems to think that time is on its side and that the annexation of Taiwan is inevitable.

In recent years, Beijing had placed its hopes in the KMT, which it saw as a surrogate, a backdoor entry to Taiwan. If Ma shuts that door, it will be 1996 all over again, with the additional layer of 12 years of budding Taiwanese consciousness. Should that happen, all that talk about a common market, of small, medium and big links and friendlier ties will mean very little.

If Ma becomes president, he will soon find out why his predecessors Lee and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were so reviled in Beijing.

And soon enough, following his rude awakening, life would go back to normal, back to the "status quo." The economy would be no better, no worse, and the main question Ma would need to answer would be the one Lee and Chen had to juggle: How to defend Taiwan against a giant whose pride has yet again been hurt, and who is realizing that the longer the "status quo" prevails, the more time is on Taiwan's side.

Ultimately, Beijing's eyesight is blurry. Lee, Chen, Ma -- for all it cares, Taiwanese on Saturday will be voting for "Ma Teng-bian" or "Hsieh Ying-hui." It doesn't care who is in power in Taiwan. What Beijing covets is real estate, all 35,980km2 of it.

Taipei Times Editorial, March 18, 2008.

2008年3月16日 星期日

Choosing Taiwan's Future

By Andreas Forster

As a long-time resident in Taiwan and someone with the bad experience of living for 24 years under communist rule in East Germany, I want to say: Wake up, Taiwanese. Wake up now as you are going to choose where Taiwan will go in future. The tragic events in Tibet should make it clear for everyone what will happen if China rules Taiwan and if the KMT returns to power in Taiwan.

A return to KMT rule in Taiwan will lead to China ruling Taiwan someday, and all the hard earned achievements of developing a democracy will be gone forever.

Making the right choice on Saturday is essential. Never before in history have people had such a big responsibility as they do with the presidential election in Taiwan.

Taiwanese will choose the way their country will go. You will not get a second chance. Take it and protect Taiwan.

Our thoughts are with the upright people in Tibet, and we should encourage them. If the Taiwanese choose correctly on Saturday they will ensure that China's war against independence, freedom and democracy will not happen here.

Colonialism in Taiwan

By Samuel Yang of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

For many Taiwanese, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime was another unfriendly foreign colonial power.

When President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected in 2000, the people of Taiwan celebrated a major breakthrough in their struggle for democracy. Unfortunately,Taiwan's democracy has been sabotaged by the KMT.

Despite the election of a DPP administration, the KMT has been able to control the schools, local governments and military with unfair distribution of governmental funds and privileges.

The guaranteed 18 percent interest offered specifically to those privileged groups is just one of the many examples.

Such undemocratic tactics have been supported by the KMT-dominated legislature, judiciary and the media. The resounding defeat of the DPP in the January legislative election attests to the KMT's continued influence.

Nonetheless, Taiwan's democracy has been able to prevent the KMT from perpetrating its autocracy. Therefore, the party is now cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and advocates eventual unification with China.

Taiwanese should be alert to not only the rising political power of the KMT, which might lead to a resurrection of the old autocracy, but also to the possibility of annexation by China, the colonial rule of which would be worse than that of the past KMT regime or Japan.

Both the KMT and CCP have made a show of becoming more democratic to deflect criticisms of their autocracy and rampant corruption.

The inability of the KMT and CCP to embrace democracy is deeply rooted in Chinese culture, which instills the virtue of citizens' loyalty to the rulers but grossly neglects the fact that the citizens are the masters of the government -- the fundamental principle of modern civilized governance.

The KMT's autocracy and undemocratic disregard of law and order is largely responsible for the recurrent political turmoil in Taiwan since World War II. It is most ironic that media biased in favor of the KMT and CCP have shaped domestic and international opinions that have been detrimental to the democratic development.

The public has been misled to believe that the KMT and CCP are the salvation of Taiwan and China.

While China repeatedly condemns past colonial occupations by foreign powers, it practices the same old colonialism by occupying Tibet with force and repression. It also intends to invade Taiwan against the will of the Taiwanese.

The expectation that China will become a democracy might be the underlying motivation of foreign investors. Unfortunately, China's population is so misled by a biased media that China's democratization is impossible for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, the country is a security threat to not only Taiwan, but the entire world.

On March 22, the people of Taiwan must use their votes to reject the undemocratic KMT, and send an unequivocal signal to China that a Tibet-style colonial occupation of Taiwan is not acceptable.

Referendum Act Must Be Overhauled to Be Valid

By Lin Kien-tsu 林健次, translated by Anna Stiggelbout

The public is the master of the country. When the public elects representatives, this does not change the fact that the public is the master, and the representatives are their servants. If servants turn around and limit the rights of the public to have a choice in resolving public matters, then the servants lose their legitimacy, and the public has the right to tell these servants to step down.

The Referendum Act (公投法) stipulates that for a referendum to be valid, there must be a turnout of more than half of all eligible voters. This threshold is even higher than that of the presidential and legislative elections, and basically limits the right of the public to make policy decisions. In making this law, the legislature violated the fundamental spirit of the representative system and thus lost its legitimacy.

The legislature is now made up of lawmakers who have been elected under the single member district, two vote system. To be elected, they only needed to win more votes than their opponents. For the legislators-at-large, the number of votes cast for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) combined amounted to less than half of the population. If a legislature made up of legislators elected by these amounts of votes doesn't see a problem with the Referendum Act turning the servants into masters, then it has lost its legitimacy.

The KMT has won an almost three-quarter majority in the legislature in an election with conditions far less strict than those in the Referendum Act. Many people, including some KMT supporters, are concerned that absolute power will lead to absolute corruption. These concerns are another indication of the lack of legitimacy of the legislature.

Many people worry that if Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) becomes president, this will bring the KMT even more power and corruption. Ma emphasizes that he respects the will of the public. KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) also says referendums are sacred, and that the KMT would never abuse its power, even if it was the sole ruling party. If this is true, the easiest way to convince the public of the sincerity of Ma and the KMT, and solve the legislature's legitimacy crisis, would be to lower the referendum threshold to the same level as that for the legislative elections.

The KMT is against holding two referendums in tandem with the presidential election; they say this is using the referendum to "hijack" the poll. But in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, the number of votes cast for the DPP and KMT combined was equivalent to less than half of the population. This shows that even if the referendums were held in accordance with the same standards as the elections, and the DPP and KMT worked together, the referendums would still not necessarily obtain the minimum number of votes, let alone if they were held separately.

If the KMT really has misgivings about elections being "hijacked," it should insist on holding the referendums separately, instead of finding excuses to suppress public opinion and referendums. The legislature should amend the Referendum Act. Only in this way can the KMT lend any legitimacy to its position of holding the referendums separately from the presidential election.

Ma is the one in control of the KMT. If he could lead the KMT- controlled legislature to amend the Referendum Act before the elections and show his ability to lead the KMT's legislators, he would eradicate any suspicion among the public that his election would lead to an abuse of power by the KMT.

This article supports the Nuke-4 Referendum Initiative Association, and its hunger strike in front of the legislature, and expresses my respect for the group.

Lin Kien-tsu is a member of Taiwan Heart and the Taiwan Association of University Professors.

Ma Is On the Wrong Side of History

By Gerrit van der Wees

As Taiwan prepares for the presidential election, the people face a choice for their future. This goes beyond a choice for the next four years: It is more than a continuation of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government under the new leadership of Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), or a return to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) under new leadership, that of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

The choice between the two men also harbors longer-term consequences for the future of the country: continuation of the trend towards increasing emphasis on Taiwan's own identity and treatment of Taiwan as a nation-state in its own right, or closer ties with Beijing, eventually drifting towards absorption by China in one way or another.

Hsieh is an advocate of the former line: Building on the legacy of the fight for democracy in the 1970s and 1980s, and the consolidation of democracy under former president Lee Teng-hui and President Chen Shui-bian(陳水扁), he will carefully maneuver to safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty and expand its international position, while attempting to keep China at bay.

Ma is an advocate of eventual unification, but realizes that he cannot move too swiftly since this would anger the Taiwanese majority and make the US and Japan -- already apprehensive about China's military buildup -- increasingly nervous, so he will emphasize the "status quo" while gradually pushing the envelope toward closer ties with China.

How will they perform if they are elected? How will they stand up to pressure from China -- or from the US for that matter? Are they committed to democracy?

To get a glimpse into their character, it is useful to examine how they acted and reacted in an earlier era: when Taiwan was suffering under martial law in the 1970s and 1980s, and when they rose to prominence, each in his own right.

Both Hsieh and Ma were educated to be lawyers. But there the similarity ends.

Hsieh is a native Taiwanese, who became well-known in Taiwan in 1980, when -- together with a number of other lawyers including Chen -- he voluntarily took up the defense of eight prominent leaders of the tangwai (outside-the-party) democracy movement (including Vice President Annette Lu [呂秀蓮] and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu [陳菊]), who had been arrested and imprisoned by the KMT regime on spurious political charges.

Hsieh was thus willing to stick his neck out and stand up for justice when it counted -- and when few others dared to do so. In the 1980s he became a member of the Taipei City Council, and later was elected to the Legislative Yuan. He was a founding member of the DPP in 1986. Ten years later, in 1996, he was the DPP's vice presidential candidate in Taiwan's first-ever democratic presidential elections (together with Peng Ming-min), but lost to Lee.

Ma, on the other hand, is a Mainlander, who was born in Hong Kong and whose parents came over to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). His father was a high-ranking KMT official, and young Ma grew up in the political elite of the Chinese Nationalists. In the 1970s he went to Harvard for his graduate studies, but several of his Taiwanese fellow students complained that Ma was a "student spy" who collected data for the secret police in Taiwan.

After his return to Taiwan In 1981, he quickly rose to prominence within the KMT. He started as an aide and personal translator for then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), and in 1984 became deputy-secretary general of the KMT. In 1993 he was appointed minister of justice by Lee and served in that position until 1996.

Let us examine what his position was during the crucial moments in Taiwan's transition to democracy: In 1985-1986, when Taiwan was still under martial law, he was an ardent defender of martial law, arguing that it enhanced "stability" on the island. He also defended the long prison sentences given to proponents of democracy and human rights.

In lengthy letters to foreign governments and political parties which expressed concern about the lack of democracy in Taiwan, Ma waxed eloquently in defense of the indefensible.

Finally, after many hearings and resolutions in the US Congress by senators such as Ted Kennedy and Claiborne Pell and representatives Jim Leach and Steven Solarz, and after increasing pressure from the bottom up in Taiwan, Chiang Ching-kuo relented and lifted martial law in 1987. Ma had been on the wrong side of history.

Almost the same thing happened in 1991 and 1992, when the democratic movement started to push for abolishment of the "eternal" legislators who had been elected in China in 1947, and who were in their 80s and 90s still representing "China" in the legislature and National Assembly. Again, Ma came out against such changes and wanted to maintain a semblance of "China" representation in the legislature.

Fortunately, Lee had vision and pushed through the legislative reforms. Again, Ma was on the wrong side of history.

Fascinatingly, three years later, the same pattern occurred: Lee started to push for direct presidential elections -- to replace the anachronistic system in which the KMT-controlled National Assembly had rubberstamped the KMT choice for president.

Ma was one of the KMT opponents of this move toward full-fledged democracy. Again, his instincts had been to preserve an outdated status quo, and oppose democratic change.

Ma was a follower, who went along with developments when they became inevitable, while Hsieh stood up when it counted, and defended his principles.

The choice for the people of Taiwan is thus between someone who has opposed democratic change, and wants to edge closer to a repressive, undemocratic China, and someone who has been at the forefront of democratic change, and wants to propel Taiwan forwards in the international family of nations.

It will be a decisive moment in Taiwan's history.

Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, a publication based in Washington.

2008年3月12日 星期三

Ma Misleading on Unity

Hanna Shen of Taipei

During Sunday's televised presidential debate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) used the cooperation between EU members as a model for successful economic cooperation between China and Taiwan, or what has been called a "one China market policy."

The comparison is misleading. EU cooperation has been built over years on very strict principles, none of which apply to Taiwan and China.

The EU is composed of 27 independent countries. In other words, each member of the EU recognizes the other members as sovereign nations. This is the foundation for cooperation between European countries and a fundamental condition that does not apply to the relationship between China and Taiwan, as Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province.

To join the EU a nation must meet the Copenhagen criteria laid down at the June 1993 European Council in Copenhagen, Denmark, which states that a nation must be a stable democracy, respect human rights and the rule of law, protect minorities and have a functioning market economy.

In other words, most of European countries want to form a unity with nations that are politically and economically free, humanitarian and believe that no one is above the law.

Again, none of the above-mentioned applies to China.

Is it then in the interest of Taiwan to join a "one China market" and economically unify with a country that believes in the rule of power, violates human rights and oppresses minorities -- a country that is still far from a free market economy.

Using the EU as an example shows that cooperation and a common market can be built only among countries that have the institutions to preserve democratic governance and human rights.

A New Twist On "Made in India"

By Amelia Gentleman, of the New York Times news service, Mumbai, India

Outsourcing is taking a new direction as India's skilled doctors and liberal laws combine to create a new kind of baby boom

Gher and his partner, who are Israeli, plan eventually to tell their child about being made in India, in the womb of a stranger, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked from an Internet lineup.

The embryo was formed in January in an Indian fertility clinic about 4,000km from the couple's home in Tel Aviv, produced by doctors who have begun specializing in surrogacy services for couples from around the world.

"The child will know early on that he or she is unique, that it came into the world in a very special way," said Gher, 29, a communications officer for the environmental group Greenpeace.

An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests from the US and Europe, as word spreads of India's mix of skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.

Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about US$25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the US. That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother, which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization and a second to collect the baby).

"People are increasingly exposed to the idea of surrogacy in India; Oprah Winfrey talked about it on her show," said Kaushal Kadam at the Rotunda clinic in Mumbai.

Just an hour earlier she had created an embryo for Gher and his partner with sperm from one of them (they would not say which) and an egg removed from a donor just minutes before in another part of the clinic.

The clinic, known more formally as Rotunda -- The Center for Human Reproduction, does not permit contact between egg donor, surrogate mother or future parents. The donor and surrogate are always different women; doctors say surrogates are less likely to bond with the babies if there is no genetic connection.

There are no firm statistics on how many surrogacies are being arranged in India for foreigners, but anecdotal evidence suggests a sharp increase.

Rudy Rupak, co-founder and president of PlanetHospital, a medical tourism agency with headquarters in California, said he expected to send at least 100 couples to India this year for surrogacy, up from 25 last year, the first year he offered the service.

"Every time there is a success story, hundreds of inquiries follow," he said.

FREE OF VICE

In Anand, a city in the eastern state of Gujarat where the practice was pioneered in India, more than 50 surrogate mothers are pregnant with the children of couples from the US, Britain and elsewhere. Fifteen of them live together in a hostel attached to the clinic there.

Naina Patel, who runs the Anand clinic, said that even Americans who could afford to hire surrogates at home were coming to her for women "free of vices like alcohol, smoking and drugs." She said she gets about 10 e-mailed inquiries a day from couples abroad.

Under guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research, surrogate mothers sign away their rights to any children. A surrogate's name is not even on the birth certificate.

This eases the process of taking the baby out of the country. But for many, like Lisa Switzer, 40, a medical technician from San Antonio, Texas, whose twins are being carried by a surrogate mother from the Rotunda clinic, the overwhelming attraction is the price.

"Doctors, lawyers, accountants, they can afford it, but the rest of us -- the teachers, the nurses, the secretaries -- we can't. Unless we go to India," she said.

Surrogacy is an area fraught with ethical and legal uncertainties. Critics argue that the ease with which relatively rich foreigners are able to "rent" the wombs of poor Indians creates the potential for exploitation. Although the government is actively promoting India as a medical tourism destination, what some see as an exchange of money for babies has made many here uncomfortable.

India's Ministry of Women and Child Development said last month that it was weighing recommending legislation to govern surrogacy, but it is not imminent.

An article published in the Times of India in last month questioned how such a law would be enforced.

"In a country crippled by abject poverty, how will the government body guarantee that women will not agree to surrogacy just to be able to eat two square meals a day?" the paper asked.

Even some of those involved in the business of organizing surrogates want greater regulation.

"There must be protection for the surrogates," Rupak said. "Inevitably, people are going to smell the money and unscrupulous operators will get into the game. I don't trust the industry to police itself."

He said that the few doctors offering the service now were ethical and took good care of the surrogates but that he was concerned this might change as the business expanded.

Gher and his partner, who asked not to be named to preserve his privacy, have worked through their doubts and are certain they are doing a good thing.

"People can believe me when I say that if I could bear the baby myself I would," Gher said. "But this is a mutually beneficial answer. The surrogate gets a fair amount of money for being part of the process."

The couple is paying about US$30,000, of which the surrogate gets about US$7,500.

"Surrogates do it to give their children a better education, to buy a home, to start up a small business, a shop," Kadam said. "This is as much money as they could earn in maybe three years. I really don't think that this is exploiting the women. I feel it is two people who are helping out each other."

Gher agreed.

"You cannot ignore the discrepancies between Indian poverty and Western wealth," he said. "We try our best not to abuse this power. Part of our choice to come here was the idea that there was an opportunity to help someone in India."

THUMBPRINT

In the Mumbai clinic, it is clear that an exchange between rich and poor is under way. On some contracts, the thumbprint of an illiterate surrogate stands out against the clients' signatures.

Although some Indian clinics allow surrogates and clients to meet, Gher said he preferred anonymity. When his surrogate gives birth later this year, he and his partner will be in the hospital, but not in the ward where she is in labor, and will be handed the baby by a nurse.

The surrogate mother does not know that she is working for foreigners, Kadam said, and has not been told that the future parents are both men. Gay sex is illegal in India.

Israel legalized adoption by same-sex couples last month, but such couples are not permitted to hire surrogates in Israel to become parents. A fertility doctor recommended Rotunda, which made news in November when its doctors delivered twins for another gay Israeli couple.

Rotunda did not allow interviews with its surrogate mothers, but a 32-year-old woman at a fertility clinic in New Delhi explained why she is planning on her second surrogacy in two years.

Separated from her husband, she found that her monthly wages of 2,800 rupees, about US$69, as a midwife were not enough to raise her nine-year-old son. With the money she earned from the first surrogacy, more than US$13,600, she bought a house. She expects to pay for her son's education with what she earns for the second, about US$8,600. (Fees are typically fixed by the doctor and can vary.)

"I will save the money for my child's future," she said.

The process requires some subterfuge in this socially conservative country. The woman has told her mother, who lives with her, but not her son or their neighbors. She has told the few who have asked her outright that she is bearing a child for a relative.

So far, for the Israeli couple, the experience of having a baby has been strangely virtual. They perused profiles of egg donors that were sent by e-mail ("We picked the one with the highest level of education," Gher said).

From information that followed, they rejected a factory worker in favor of a housewife, who they thought would have a less stressful lifestyle.

Gher posts updates about the process on Facebook. And soon the clinic will start sending ultrasound images of their developing child by e-mail. Highly pixilated, blown-up passport photos of the egg donor and surrogate mother adorn a wall of their apartment in Israel.

"We've been trying to half close our eyes and look at it in a more holistic way to imagine what she would actually look like," Gher said of the donor's blurred image. "These are women we don't know, will never know, who will become in a way part of our lives."

Ma's China Policy Lacks A Sense of Realpolitik

By Liu Kuan-teh 劉冠德

Sunday's presidential debate rarely touched upon foreign policy. The main reason lies in the fact that China's diplomatic suppression and international isolation of Taipei is not contingent upon any "blue or green" policy.

During the debate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) continued to criticize what he called the Democratic Progressive Party's(DPP) "fire-setting diplomacy" and blamed it for Taiwan's loss of diplomatic allies under President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Ma also blamed the DPP's bids to use the name "Taiwan" to apply for memberships in the WHO and the UN for creating distrust between Taiwan and many allies, including the US.

Since China is behind Taiwan's diplomatic difficulties, Ma promised to start negotiating with China over international space.

For Ma to characterize the DPP government with what he called a "confrontational approach" to Beijing and to overlook the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the real threat to Taiwan's international recognition and security was not surprising.

What concerns most voters is Ma's theory of using the so-called "1992 consensus" as the starting point to resume talks with Beijing. There are inherent contradictions to Ma's approach.

Ma seems to assume that seeking an improvement in cross-strait relations will automatically make China give Taiwan more international space and better treatment. Therefore he argues that both Taiwan and China should stop talking about "mutual recognition" and focus on "no mutual denial."

Ma's idea is wishful thinking and fails to address the question of the different definitions of "one China" made by the KMT and Beijing.

Even though there is no such thing as the "1992 consensus," the KMT advocates the "Republic of China [ROC]" as "one China," while the Chinese Communist Party insists the "People's Republic of China" represents "one China" and that "Taiwan is a part of the PRC."

Beijing does not accept the "Republic of China" as "one China" and has been excluding the ROC's participation in almost every international arena under the KMT's rule.

The then-KMT government enacted the so-called National Unification Guidelines and established the National Unification Council in 1991. Both governments engaged in political dialogue in 1992 and 1993.

The political atmosphere between Taipei and Beijing should have been moderate. However, between 1992 and 1998, Taiwan severed diplomatic relations with South Korea, Saint Lucia, South Africa and the Central Africa Republic. The diplomatic warfare continued even though cross-strait relations seemed relaxed.

How can Ma insist that he is for maintaining Taiwan's sovereignty while engaging Beijing with "no mutual denial?"

The assumption that Beijing would give Taiwan more international respect and space if Taiwan improves cross-strait relations is not realistic.

The most inconvenient truth is: If Ma is elected, Beijing will still not allow Taiwan to have observer status during the World Health Assembly in May.

The newly-elected president of Taiwan will be rejected a transit stop in Washington en route to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in Central America.

Even with a new electoral mandate, Beijing will not accept Ma's attendance at the APEC leadership summit in October.

Unless of course Ma plans to wait until his counterparts accept the so-called "1992 consensus" and then starts to perform his duty as a democratically-elected president of Taiwan. In that case, why would the voters waste their ballots and chose such a coward?

Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.

China Wants to Manage US Policy

By Sushil Seth

China's leadership has tended to largely follow Deng Xiaoping's (鄧小平) advice to "hide our capacities and bide our time." What it means is that Beijing should avoid confrontation with the West, principally the US, until it is in a position to prevail.

And its priority area to prevail is Taiwan. Since the US is committed to help Taiwan defend itself in the event of a Chinese attack, it would mean having to confront the US.

A virtual showdown in the Taiwan Strait in 1996, with two US warships cruising in that direction, had a sobering effect on China.

Since then Beijing has followed a mixture of strategies, including legislative annexation of Taiwan and declaring in essence that any declaration of independence in Taiwan would require China, under its domestic legislation, to take military action.

And to impress its seriousness, Beijing is building up a huge arsenal of missiles targeted at Taiwan by reportedly adding "more than 100 missiles a year to the 1,000 already aimed across the Taiwan Strait."

The context for this new evaluation of the Chinese threat is the Pentagon's annual report to the US Congress on China's military buildup, with another double-digit increase of about 18 percent in its military budget.

China's military spending, according to official figures, recorded an average annual rise of close to 15.8 percent between 2003 and last year.

The official figures, in any case, are a gross underestimation and the real annual defense spending is likely to have been double the official figure, or US$150 billion.

The People's Liberation Army is being transformed, according to the Pentagon evaluation, from a mass army "designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration wars along its periphery against high-tech adversaries."

And here Taiwan fits into the Chinese scheme of things, if Beijing were to consider a military option.

Even if the military option is not exercised, it nevertheless has to be pretty serious and credible to have the desired effect, as with the massing of hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan.

China would like to avoid military confrontation with the US over Taiwan or anywhere else, with the US being by far the strongest military power.

Hence it has a mix of other strategies. Within Taiwan, for instance, it has managed to create important political and business constituencies that favor accommodation with Beijing regarding Taiwan's political status.

These groups, like the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), do not necessarily want to abandon Taiwan's identity but might explore an arrangement to maintain autonomy within the "one China" principle.

Beijing has often maintained that it is prepared for talks within the "one China" formula. And if China, and a KMT government in Taipei, were to work out a formula that rules out a separate Taiwan, any US commitment to defend Taiwan might become redundant.

But it might not be all that simple because any working arrangement between Beijing and Taipei will have a long time frame. And a new government in Taiwan will not be all that keen to abjure US protection during a long transitional relationship between Beijing and Taipei.

At the same time, there is also the "little" matter of considering the popular opinion in Taiwan. The Taiwanese do not want confrontation with China.

But, at the same time, they don't seem keen to be absorbed into it. With Taiwan's vibrant democracy, any ruling political party rash enough to embed with China might not have long to rule.

While China might find living with a new KMT government (if voted into power) congenial, it cannot count on a smooth political trajectory. And the US commitment to defend Taiwan is likely to remain relevant.

Beijing is aware of this, and hence is continuing to build its military capability designed, in the short and medium term, to deter the US from taking on China.

In other words, the US might find the cost of confronting China prohibitive.

And here China's rapid buildup of its submarine fleet is quite instructive. In a recent report from Beijing, New York Times correspondent David Lague wrote: "American and other Western military analysts estimate that China now has more than 30 advanced and increasingly stealthy submarines, and dozens of older obsolete types."

They believe that "by the end of the decade ? China will have more submarines than the United States, although it will still lag behind in overall ability," Lague said.

Another way by which China seeks to manage the US is by creating political leverage on international issues that are important to Washington.

So much so that a view is gaining in some quarters in Washington that Beijing could be a useful partner in managing some of these issues.

This view is reflected in a recent Foreign Affairs article. Authors Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt and Andrew Small wrote: "In just two years, China has moved from outright obstructionism and a defensive insistence on solidarity with the developing world to an attempt to balance its material needs with its acknowledged responsibilities as a major power."

"And so when Washington and its allies formulate their policies toward pariah states, they should assume that China, although in some respects an obstacle, is now also a critical partner," they wrote.

With the US looking to Beijing for support on international issues at a time when Washington is overstretched, Taiwan tends to become a side issue.

The problem, though, is any sign of appeasement on Taiwan would be read by China as the US' faltering resolve to keep actively engaged in the Asia-Pacific.

Some of the regional countries are already factoring this into their policy formulations by seeking political accommodation with China as the pre-eminent regional power.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.

Making "Referendum" A Dirty Word

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Po-hsiung's (吳伯雄) announcement yesterday that his party would boycott the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) referendum on UN entry using the name "Taiwan" and back the KMT's own on "returning to the UN" would appear to be the final nail in the coffin of the DPP's plebiscite.

Taking into account that previous KMT boycotts have ensured the failure of all four referendums staged since the Referendum Law was promulgated in November 2003, it signals that the DPP version now has very little chance of passing.

Passage of the KMT's referendum, however, also remains uncertain. Despite Wu's support of the party's plebiscite, several party legislators have already gone public with their intention to boycott both referendums.

The KMT is obviously split along its China-Taiwan divide on the issue and the party's spat can only add to the public's sense of confusion, which has resulted in the term "referendum" almost becoming a dirty word among Taiwanese.

The KMT must take the lion's share of the blame for this phenomenon because from day one they have treated the issue of referendums -- with the initiation of "smokescreen" rival plebiscites and irrational arguments about extra ballots "confusing" voters -- with disdain.

The KMT had no qualms about dumping the sham "corruption" referendum it proposed during January's legislative elections, but there was no practical way that it could have done the same this time around, as a boycott of its UN referendum would have put presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his running mate Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) in an extremely difficult position.

Ma's "flexible diplomacy" platform is more or less identical to the KMT's referendum question and he had publicly backed the plebiscite on more than one occasion, while Siew was the referendum's initiator.

But the KMT does not deserve all the blame, as the DPP, having waited too long for referendums to become a reality, is equally guilty of damaging what it terms "the sanctity" of the plebiscite.

As polls have repeatedly shown throughout the years, the majority of people in Taiwan are happy with the current state of affairs in cross-strait relations and they do not want to vote on issues that are likely to anger China.

The DPP, however, with its provocative choices for referendum topics, ignored this fact, as well as the concerns of the nation's main security guarantor -- the US -- in the hope of deepening Taiwan consciousness while rallying partisan support on election day.

The DPP would have done better to hold polls on less controversial issues to help the concept of the plebiscite become ingrained in the minds of the electorate, as this would eventually lead to a situation where no political party -- no matter how big its legislative majority -- would be able to make decisions concerning issues of national importance without first putting it to the people.

As it stands now, a huge chunk of the population have been turned off by the idea of referendums, despite the fact that the issue at stake on this occasion is of extreme importance to the nation's future.

Let's hope that a week from Saturday these people can overcome their apathy and come out in support of the referendums, as at least this would send a message, however muddled, to the world that despite all Taiwan's problems, its people are at least united on one issue.

Taipei Times Editorial, March 13, 2008.