Dear Mr. Tung Chee-hwa,

TAIPEI, Oct. 27 ---
The people of Taiwan seem to be less enthusiastic about a planned visit by mainland China's top negotiator with Taiwan, according to the results of a survey released on Wednesday.

The survey, conducted by National Chung Cheng University and commissioned by the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), shows that 61.6 percent of those surveyed still welcome a delayed visit by Wang Daohan, Chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).

But the figure was down 25.3 percent from a similar survey conducted in August, with some 69 percent of the respondents saying that it is unreasonable for the mainland to set preconditions for the visit.

MAC Vice Chairman Lin Chong-pin said the main reason behind the waning support for Wang's visit is probably linked to Beijing's stalling and setting of preconditions to the visit.

Beijing demands that Taiwan retract President Lee Teng-hui's redefinition of cross-strait ties as "a state-to-state relationship," and that Lee must meet Wang in his capacity as chairman of the ruling Kuomintang and not as president of the country.

The survey also found that 57.2 percent of those polled believe that mainland China's assistance in the wake of the 921 earthquake was politically motivated, and that 54.9 percent said they do not think mainland China's donation of US$100,000 in the wake of the Sept. 21 killer jolt was a goodwill gestures at all.

Up to 85 percent said that it was unreasonable for the mainland to ask foreign countries to seek prior approval from Beijing before sending specialized rescue teams to search for quake survivors.

The survey also found that only 10.1 percent polled consider themselves Chinese, down 3 percent from the August survey. Some 39.7 percent said they consider themselves Taiwanese, and some 45.7 percent said they are both Taiwanese and Chinese.

The university conducted the survey among people over the age of 20 between Oct. 13 and 17, and obtained 1,119 valid replies.

In our view, after 921 earthquake, Taiwan needs more friendship from Beijing.

At least 206 elected representatives are currently facing criminal and administrative charges, according to the latest statistics published by the Judicial Yuan yesterday.

The list includes 15 National Assembly deputies, 35 legislators, 47 township representatives and 109 city or county councilors. The charges they face include robbery, bribery, fraud, forgery, dereliction of duty as well as violations of election and recall codes.

The Judicial Yuan made public the list after three months of surveys. The surveys were conducted after the national conference for judicial reform in July demanded that judicial departments speed up the investigation of cases related to elected representatives.

While most city of county councilors --- 49 out of 109 --- are charged with dereliction of duty, most township representatives face bribery allegations. Bribery cases total 49.

The list is composed only of cases going through the first or the second trial and excludes appeal cases before the Supreme Court.

Some of the cases --- such as that of bribery charges against Legislator Chou Po-lun --- have been pending for more than 10 years.

"We want to restore the public's confidence in the judicial system by inviting the public to join the Judicial Yuan in supervising accused representatives," said Judicial Yuan President Weng Yuen-sheng.

"We also hope that under the pressure of public opinion, representatives facing charges will be more likely to attend their trials if they receive a subpoena despite their right as legislators not to fulfill their legal obligations during the legislative sessions."

But Judicial Yuan Secretary General Lin Juo-hsien said how representatives handle their lawsuits is not within their concerns when asked if it is unfair to co-list representatives who attend trials if summoned with those who fail to do so.

Lin also stressed that all citizens of the Republic of China should be consideredinnocent and equal before the verdict is final.

Though the Judicial Yuan ordered courts of all levels to speed up handling of the cases of all representatives in August, Lin said no cases have been settled so far.

To give the public has a deeper understanding of the judicial process, the judicial Yuang has invited Taipei's township directors to visit courts and local legal service centers. The program will be extended to other parts of the island.

Democratic Taiwan has failed to adequately educate its people on social and cultural issues in the past, and right now, it seems that Taiwan is mainly concerned with teaching its citizens how to do business and giving them technological knowledge. It is still failing on teaching them adequately about politics, society and culture.

I think this has a lot to do with our political environment over the past 40 or 50 years. We need to reeducate the people so that they can better evaluate the quality of news programming.

Say it frankly can avoid Frankenstein's trouble.

Democratic Taiwan has its internal problems, but we can keep supervising on government's responsibility.

As we have known, PRC President Jiang Zemin's comments in an interview with London's The Times where he said that Taiwan and the mainland should be reunified in 50 years.

In our views, that Jiang was actually trying to show good intentions and give Taiwan a bit of breathing space. We worried that if the U.S. and PRC reached a consensus on middle-range agreements, the ROC would have no official means of refusing.

However, what's middle's-range agreements, should do the better work in both Taiwan and mainland over linking to Hong Kong's media.