Paal has recently found himself at the center of the storm after the press alleged that he had expressed opposition to the government's plan to conduct referendums.

Paal, in an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) late last month, said he had never said that the US opposes Taiwan's plan to hold referendums.

The so-called "storm of US opposition" to referendums was solely created by the local media, Paal told CNA.

AIT spokesperson Judith Mudd-Krijgelman said late last month that the US would take President Chen Shui-bian on his word that he won't hold a plebiscite on the question of independence or unification.

In his brief remarks at the function, Premier Yu Shyi-kun expressed the nation's appreciation for the US support for Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer, sources said.

The WHA is the top decision making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), a UN specialized agency focusing on global health issues.

Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng  also attended the party, sources said.

Red lines in the sand, in the Strait

By Nat Bellocchi

`Increasingly Beijing, in expanding its efforts to block or downgrade Taiwan's activities in the international arena, is practicing creeping containment.'

One would think that in problems between adversaries, red lines on which strong reaction by the side that draws them are clear and immovable. They are supposed to be a serious, risky warning that certain behavior will generate a strong reaction. In fact, red lines are quite flexible. Sometimes they move. Sometimes they are mirages that simply disappear. But always they are what is perceived to be a credible and very costly risk for those against whom the line is drawn.

It is unquestionably a dangerous game. Any red line of the moment is very difficult to openly challenge, as there is always the possibility that it could trigger a reaction even if the line is unreasonable. Yet it is unlikely that any way can be found to differentiate which red lines are for real and which are not. We have a new Cabinet office in the US -- the Department of Homeland Security -- which uses different colors to signify the degree of danger in a possible threat. It won't work with red lines. (There are some who believe it hasn't worked well with that department's terrorist threats either).

America's perception of China's red lines have not been all that accurate. Some of these red line threats disappeared. As for China, some, like firing missiles into the Taiwan Strait and verbal threats of the dire consequences of voting for the DPP both in the 2000 presidential elections and in the last Legislative Yuan elections, won it just the opposite of what it sought.

When in the early 1990s then-premier Hao Pei-tsun, a conservative mainlander with an impressive military resume, was relieved of his position by the president, many in Washington thought this was crossing a PRC red line. Hau was as anti-communist as one could get, but he saw Taiwan as part of (his own kind of) China, and openly said he would not defend an independent Taiwan. His successor was inevitably a Taiwanese, for the first time placing both the presidency and the premiership in local hands.

Reason enough, it was thought, that a red line would be crossed. Apparently there was no red line, or the leadership in Bei-jing couldn't decide if one had been crossed. In any event, there was a louder reaction from the then more feisty DPP opposition than there was out of Beijing.

When then president Lee Teng-hui first sought a change in the Constitution to allow the direct election of the president, the move was initially blocked by conservatives in his own party. They had cleverly used the lunch hour during the KMT Party Central Committee to monopolize the afternoon's speeches. Lee backed off temporarily, but eventually won the acceptance of the party, and the amendment to the Constitution was passed.

Many in Washington thought then that strengthening the legitimacy of Taiwan's president would not be tolerated by Beijing. There was no reaction then, but by the time of the next challenge, Beijing apparently had had sufficient time to learn that many countries believe the direct election of a president in Taiwan made that president more legitimate than the one in Beijing. That was included peripherally, with Lee's trip to Cornell University, as justification of some sort for lobbing missiles into the Taiwan Strait in 1995 and 1996. If there was a red line involved, the reaction turned out to be counterproductive for China.

The Lee trip to Cornell is a complex tale but in the context of Beijing's red lines, there was a mixed connection. Beijing' s clear objective in 1995 and 1996 was to use military intimidation to influence Taiwan's elections. It little understood and more certainly did not accept the legitimacy of Taiwan's president and therefore did not dwell on it. That it included Lee's visit to the US may have been a more understandable reason for doing so, but the degree it resulted from US actions cannot be ignored.

The US administration, at least the executive branch, very vociferously opposed Lee's visit. Open expressions of the dire reaction this would provoke in Beijing was given extensive media coverage. The strong negative reaction to the executive branch's position, from both the Congress and the media had an equally high profile. This domestic contest thereafter had its influence on US policy toward Taiwan, but it also has to have had influence on how Bei-jing would treat the event.

The way the visit was treated in the US inevitably assured that China would have to display a strong reaction or face having the event seen as unimportant, or a sign of weakness in Beijing. Both would be unacceptable. That it would provoke Beijing to the extent of a missile crisis minus the elections, of course, is not likely to be known.

Another perceived red line was that the abolishment of the Taiwan Provincial Government was a step toward independence and therefore unacceptable to Beijing. There was no reaction from Beijing, however. One reason may have been that it simply made no real difference from China's viewpoint. The debate was about the cost of a redundant provincial government. China would simply continue to view the central government in Taipei as what they see as a provincial government.

Another reason may be pertinent to several perceived red lines that turned out to be duds. It could be a by-product of democracy. The removal of a powerful premier, the amending of the Constitution to allow direct elections, the virtual abolition of the provincial government, were all strongly debated in Taiwan. The result in each case was seen as a domestic matter and was made clear through public debate that the results had no relevance to the issue of Taiwan's political status.

The debate on referendums will doubtless consider all these circumstances, ie, provocation on external matters versus domestic concerns. At this point China seems to have relatively little to say. The view from abroad, however, is seldom seen in its broader context.

If Beijing does see this referendum issue as another effort by Taiwan at creeping independence, they know well of what they speak. Increasingly Beijing, in expanding its efforts to block or downgrade Taiwan's activities in the international arena, is practicing creeping containment.

The broader view, then, is that the two sides of the Strait, with dialogue at a stalemate, are doing the same thing. Should the concerns of provocation not be equally addressed?

Nat Bellocchi is the former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and is now a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.

Flogging a dead horse

On Tuesday, Hong Kong marked the sixth anniversary of its handover to China -- and more than 500,000 people hit the street to protest the expected passage of an anti-subversion law and other grievances. In mere six years, the erstwhile crown jewel of Asia has nose-dived into the despicable state it is in today. Can things get any worse? They sure can. This is only the beginning of the end to human rights in Hong Kong.

The impact of the proposed law will have a severe impact on the daily life of the people in the territory. As now drafted, the law would allow the police to enter private residences at any time to conduct searches, people could be accused of treason for expressing anti-war sentiments or they could be accused of inciting a rebellion by criticizing the government in such a way as to inspire a riot. If a war breaks out between Taiwan and China, any speech made in support of Taipei will be deemed an effort to split the motherland. Many other egregious violations of universally recognized human rights can be openly and blatantly violated under the said law.

No wonder many Western democracies, including the US, the UK and the EU, have expressed grave concerns for this latest development.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao made a three-day visit to the territory earlier this week -- although he skipped town just before the demonstration got underway. He tried to reassure people, saying that the new law would "most certainly not influence all the legally vested rights and freedoms of the people of Hong Kong, including reporters."

But no one is going to buy Wen's words, since six years ago Beijing promised to the people of Hong Kong that their way of life would remain the same for at least 50 years and that in fact their lives would only become better once they were unified with the "motherland." With those flowery words still fresh in the public's mind, just look at what has happened since then.

People in Hong Kong have very little to celebrate. The unemployment rate has gone from a mere 2.8 percent in 1997 to a shocking 8.2 percent. On the other hand, economic growth had declined from 5.2 percent in 1997 to an estimated 1.5 percent for this year. This has much do with the increasing level of economic integration between the territory and the mainland, as well as the deliberate efforts by Beijing to give top priority to the development of Shanghai as its primary business center.

As for Taiwan, the lesson from the plight of Hong Kong invites much thought. It is no secret that Beijing had tried to shape Hong Kong into a "one country, two systems" model in order to lure Taiwan into accepting the same model. In this regard, it has failed miserably. The harsh reality is that despite promises from Beijing, once the handover was complete, there was no longer any room for Hong Kong to bargain or negotiate. The same would happen to Taiwan if its leaders decided to accept Beijing's offer of similar "autonomous" status.

Having experienced the horror of the KMT government's martial law era, the life offered the people of Hong Kong now has no appeal to the people here.