Dear Mr. President Bill Clinton,
　　 Mr. Prime Minister Tony Blair,
　　 Mr. President Jacques Chirac,
　　 Mrs. Jenny Shipley,
　　 Mr. Trent Lott,
　　 Mr. Denny Hastert,
　　 Mr. Secretary-General George Robertson,

Hong Kong ---
Mainland China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is staging war games in the southeastern coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Guangdong across from Taiwan, a Beijing-backed Hong Kong paper said on Sunday (Sep. 5, 1999).

The Wen Wei Po daily quoted unnamed military sources as saying the main object of the exercises was beach landings. It said the manoeuvers involved troops from the Najnjing and Guangzhou military regions.

The drills will be a closer simulation of war than those performed in 1996, when heightened tensions with Taiwan last prompted mainland China to conduct large-scale exercises and missile tests, the report's source said.

The paper also carried a picture of naval vessels unloading tanks onto a beach.

Passenger flights between Hong Kong and coastal. China were disrupted last weeks as the mainland closed up air spaces apparently on military orders

CANBERRA ---
Australia will warn China's President Jiang Zemin during talks here this week that it strongly opposes the use of force against Taiwan, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday.

Downer also made clear Canberra would see any military attack on Taiwan as a trigger to a war between China and the United States which would be disastrous for the Asia-Pacific region.

"A war between China and the United States is something tantamount to a regional Armageddon," Downer told commercial television on the eve of the first visit to Australia by a Chinese president.

Jiang arrives today on a five-day visit en route to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Auckland. He is due to meet Prime Minister John Howard and senior Australia ministers during talks here.

Australia anxiety about tensions between China and its tiny neighbor was raised by Jiang's insistence to The Australia newspaper last week that China reserved the right to use force to reunited with Taiwan.

Jiang said China's preferred policy was reunification by peaceful means, but this needed the support of a military option to be effective.

"It is the shared aspiration of the entire 1.2 billion Chinese people to settle the question of Taiwan at an early date," he told the paper in Beijing. "If China were to undertake not to use force, the peaceful reunification of China would become hollow words."

Tension in the Taiwan Strait has heightened as Beijing stepped up military pressure on Taiwan to retract a recent affirmation of statehood by President Lee Teng-hui.

Downer described Taiwan as the unconcluded issue of the civil war that otherwise finished in 1949.

Urgently need is that ...

DARWIN, Sep. 6, 1999 ---
Australia's armed forces are gearing up for the last stage of large military exercises with the United States involving nearly 20,000 troops, an Australia defense spokesman said Sunday.

The final phase of the long-planned joint exercise was expected to involve about 10,000 Australia and up to 7,5000 United States personnel and be held in Australia and the Coral Sea from mid September and in October. But defense spokesman Steve Delaney told Reuters there was a possibility the size of the Australia contingent could be scaled back if the country decided to send peacekeepers to nearby East Timor.

History could be changed by religious faith and powerful vitality.

The early Christians, who moved into various parts of the Roman Empire. Facing the oppression of the Rome dictators, the Christian immigrant society demonstrated a strong religious faith and powerful vitality. Not only did they overcome the challenge by the Roman Empire, they eventually acculturated the Romans. The challenges faced by the ancient Greeks and Christians were no different from those facing the Taiwan people today.

Challenges are necessarily met with counterattacks. Taiwan must suffer China's counterattack now that they have challenged China with the "special state-tot-state" formula. Only if its people can face up to this test can Taiwan grow, mature and thrive as a country, and eventually change the course of history for China.

Indonesia Armed Forces chief General Wiranto arrived in East Timor yesterday to arrange the handover of resistance leader Xanana Gusmao and witness how his troops have allowed rampaging pro-Jakarta militias to turn the territory into a war zone.

Five towns have fallen to the militias, there are roadblocks throughout the territory and Dili itself is in the hands of armed gangs and its skies were dark with smoke from burning houses and there were reports of widespread killing and looting. Thousands of terrified residents are scrambling to get away from violence sparked by the outcome of last week's historic Unite Nations-organized independence referendum.

President B.J. Habibie has promised Indonesia will abide by the poll verdict --- a 78.5-percent majority for separation --- and allow the island to become a free country.

However, East Timor's Independence movement gradually won moral support from the international community, and the movement finally saw an opening after the Suharto regime collapsed last year.

Besieged by problems in both foreign and domestic affairs. B.J. Habibie, the new Indonesian President, agree to allow the referendum in East Timor.

The East Timor referendum inevitably makes one wonder whether Taiwan, an island also facing the issue of independence should hold a referendum as well Taiwan and East Timor undeniably share resemblance.

Taiwan was under Japan's colonial rule for a period shorter than the time East Timor was under Portuguese rule. However, if you consider Taiwan's foreign occupation as beginning from the Dutch and the Spanish occupation before Cheng Cheng-kung's rule over the island during the Ming Dynasty, then Taiwan is no less deserving than Easter Timor of a referendum on independence.

The people of Taiwan consist of the descendants of the Han people from China and Taiwan aborignals. Taiwan's population predominantly consisted of the Han people even before the evacuation of the ROC to Taiwan in 1949.

Therefore, the flight of people to Taiwan in 1949 hardly constituted a deliberated effort to assimilate the people on the island into Han-Chinese culture. After 50 years, Han-Chinese in Taiwan build democratic country, we call "the time of new-Taiwanese."

Doubtless, Taiwan is deprived of necessary resources for defending itself. The political and economic order in the region could be seriously affected. Even the every country who would be best served by helping the island could fell the impact.

If the United States and Japan rule Taiwan out of their political arrangements for the Asia-Pacific region, or if they consider Taiwan a "trouble-maker" and shun Taiwan in such affairs. Taiwan will naturally develop a sense of insecurity. Under these circumstances Taiwan will try to seek a way out. On the other hand, Taiwan can utilize the economic globalization trend to created an inter-dependence with other countries, especially those in the Asia-Pacific region. Taiwan has now been driven into a corner by China, and therefore feels increasing pressure over its survival in the international community, thus, after the statement of "special state-to-state" announcement.

So, Taiwan needs your support.