We don't follow the music from Mr. Jiang and then dance with Beijing --- would every country listen to Beijing's wants and preach? Chinese President Jiang Zemin yesterday laid down two conditions which must be satisfied if a visit to Taiwan by its senior cross-strait envoy Wang Daohan to be realized. Jiang's statements met with a mixed response from Taiwan government officials. Jiang told reporters in Canberra yesterday that, for Wang's proposed visit to go ahead, Taiwan must retract its "special state-to-state" theory on cross-strait ties. "This is something that the 1.2 billion Chinese people cannot accept," Jiang said. President Lee Teng-hui said on July 9 that Taiwan would like its dealings with China to be on a "special state-to-state' basis, a statement which infuriated China. China has threatened to cancel Wang's visit if Taiwan does not back down from the position. Wang, who is the chairman of the Association for Relations Across
the Taiwan Strait, a semi-official organization which handles contacts
with Taiwan, was scheduled to visit Taiwan next month to reciprocate
Strait Exchange Foundation Chairman Koo Chen-fu's visit to China
last October. James F. Tzeng, chief secretary of the KMT's Department of Mainland Affairs, said the first condition was out of question for the moment while the second can be considered. In recent months the KMT has mulled several options on matters such as the venue for the meeting and what capacity Lee should assume when meeting Wang, according to Tzeng. "But certainly, this option (of Lee as KMT Chairman) will gain more weight since Jiang has made it so clear and this request is not unacceptable," he said. As for the first precondition, Tzeng said it is not possible for the time being. "President Lee's theory is an assertion of reality. Plus, the president said last week that the National Reunification Guidelines will continue to govern our mainland policy in the future." "We don't support amendments of the constitution. Nor will we go in for minor changes on the laws which govern cross-strait exchanges. That's our bottom line." Sam Chang, director of the Mainland Affairs Council's Department of Information and Liaison, said the issue of what capacity Lee would assume to meet with Wang should be left for the two semi-official bodies which handle cross-strait contacts. "Any arrangements should be mutually acceptable," he said, while adding that an absence of preset condition is desirable. Meanwhile, government spokesman Chen Chien-jen has denied a local Chinese newspaper report that American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Richard Bush demanded Taiwan retract the two-state theory in exchange for a treaty with China to mutually and permanently exclude the use of force to resolve the Taiwan question. The report quoted unidentified sources close to the premier as saying that the government is studying the proposal. However, Chen dismissed the report, saying it was completely untrue. Betrayal of the East Timorese people, because of the U.N. has no military forces to use. DILI, INDONESIA --- "This takes it to another level of their operation to try and get us out of here," said U.N. spokesman Brian Kelly. Witnesses who ventured into the deserted city streets said Indonesian soldiers were "looting everything in sight," carrying furniture out of abandoned houses and loading it onto trucks. In Dili, looters ransacked stores throughout the provincial capital, much of which has already been gutted by fire. "They are clearing out Dili and destroying it," said a pro-independence activist who reached the U.N. compound yesterday. "They are trying to kill all the educated people so we cannot develop our country," said the man who declined to be identified for fear of retribution. "This is a good-bye operation." Talk needs to be backed up with action, and action needs armed force. The people of East Timor have been betrayed by the U.N. and the international community for the second time in modern history. The first betrayal occurred in 1975 when the U.N. and the international community stood by as Indonesia invaded East Timor immediately after it was vacated by the Portuguese. The U.N.'s only response at the time was to not recognize the annexation. Annexation is a euphemism for invading a neighboring independent country. The U.N.'s failure to recognize the annexation caused the Indonesian government little concern and no practical problems. Indonesia promptly began a reign of terror that has lasted for over 25 years, cost an unknown number of lives and effectively stopped the East Timorese people from obtaining the freedom they so dearly sought. The second betrayal has occurred over the past several weeks. Although the U.N. should be credited with sponsoring the independence referendum in East Timor, its failure to provide a stable situation under which the referendum could take place in constitutes a second betrayal of the East Timorese people. This second betrayal, may in the end, amount to the same results as the first betrayal --- that is, allowing the Indonesian government to reign over East Timor and destroying the hopes of the East Timorese for freedom and independence. Either realistically or not, many oppressed peoples of the world look to the U.N. for justice, for peace, for protection. It is a sad but true fact that these oppressed people's faith in the U.N. is usually misplaced. Their hopes often go unanswered. The U.N. has noble goals, but as the proverb goes, "good intentions are not enough." As a practical matter the U.N. is rarely able to embody its noble goals and high-flown rhetoric in the real world. One only needs to look at recent history to see the truth of this sad fact: the events in Bosnia, Rwanda, and now East Timor. This inability to decisively act, especially with the use if armed force, is inherent in the U.N. structure. People often forget that the U.N. does not have an army. The soldiers in the well-known "blue helmets" are in fact soldiers form member-states' armies. If the member states do not decide to commit their military forces, then the U.N. has no military forces to use. And the unfortunate reality is, with an army, without an armed presence, talk, no matter how noble, how true, or how just, is simply talk. In American slang there is an expression: " If you are going to talk the talk, you have to be able to walk the walk." The meaning is that talk needs to be backed up with action. The problem with the U.N. is that they can "talk the talk" but as a general rule they can't walk the walk," East Timor being an excellent example. It is our sincere hope that in the end the people of East Timor can achieve the peace and freedom they hope for, and that the U.N. learns that noble talk must hand in hand with practical action. Australia should build a powerful force. For the past decade, Australian strategists have referred to the Southeast Asian nations to their north --- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand & Co. --- as Australia's "strategic shield." Today, Australian strategists refer to Southeast Asia as "the arc of instability formerly known as Australia's strategic shield." They have a point. When you look up at Asia from down under, what you see today is a region more explosive than at any time since the Vietnam War. For years it has been widely assumed that all these countries, even China, were in "transition" from underdeveloped to developed, from confrontation to multilateral cooperation and from closed political systems to more open ones. It was going to be the Pacific Century. Big country as communist China, it always do its way to object the peace and freedom issues on practical action in U.N.. It is very dangerous dream that communist China only want to create its superpower military force and weakening U.N. power in urgent need over crisis of our world.
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