Yu, experts express distrust for China

 

`ONE COUNTRY' MYTH: A Mainland Affairs Council poll showed that 0.9 percent of Taiwanese surveyed favored immediate reunification with their cross-strait neighbor

 

AFP , TAIPEI

 

"Taiwan's people have not harbored any wishful thinking about Beijing's `one country, two systems.'"－Huang Hsiao-hsiang, political science professor

 

A push for controversial anti-subversion legislation in Hong Kong has deepened distrust of the "one country, two systems" idea in the Cabinet and among a select number of college professors.

 

In the terms of the formula, Beijing promised Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy for 50 years. But critics fear that China could use anti-subversion legislation such as the one being considered in Hong Kong to suppress certain freedoms, prevent protests against the government and stifle reporting of official abuses.

 

Hong Kong's government on Monday delayed passage of its bill after about 500,000 protesters took to the streets on July 1 in protest, but it has to eventually pass an anti-subversion law in terms of its post-handover Constitution, the Basic Law.

 

The matter has become an example for Taiwan of the perils of the "one country, two systems" policy, and has reinforced opinion that it is not a feasible option for the nation, politicians and analysts said.

 

"This [the Hong Kong example] indicates that the `one country, two systems' adopted by China is totally unfeasible," Yu said.

 

"This also proves the disillusion of the Hong Kong people about the system," Yu said.

 

"Attempts to pass the anti-subversion law in Hong Kong has posed a striking contrast to Taiwan's progressive efforts protecting freedom and democracy and moves pushing for referendum legislation," he said.

"The event could be a living example that Taiwan people may use against Beijing's offer," said Huang Hsiao-hsiang, professor of political science at Fu Hsing Kang College.

 

"Taiwan's people have not harbored any wishful thinking about Beijing's `one country, two systems' as a `Taiwan consciousness' and the perception of democracy prevailed among the public," she said.

 

"Taiwan's people would think why they have to compromise their high-degree of freedom by folding to the arm of China," Huang said.

 

Chang Ling-cheng, political science professor of National Taiwan University, echoed the observation.

 

"Now it would make it more difficult for Beijing to persuade Taiwan people to accept the offer," Chang said.

 

The latest survey on the issue by the Mainland Affairs Council showed 5.7 percent of respondents favored immediate independence, against 0.9 percent favouring immediate unification with China.

 

The great majority of those polled in the May survey favored maintaining the status quo.

 

Tung Chen-yuan, a researcher with National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations, said the passage of the bill could hinder Taiwan's relations with Hong Kong, although he did not see it harming ties between Taipei and Beijing.

 

Once the bill became law, "It could cause some technical problems in Taiwan's exchanges with Hong Kong," Tung said.

 

The analysts also predicted the issue would become a key point in campaigning by the DPP in the run-up to next year's presidential polls.

 

 

CPC plants its poisonous grass

 

Hong Kong is now facing the biggest disaster since Tung Chee-hwa took office. A chief executive who blindly worships the authorities in Beijing and takes his cues from them is now finally in deep trouble after following the orders of the Beijing government and aggressively pushing for the anti-subversion bill mandated by Article 23 of the Basic Law. The Hong Kong government, which was initially scheduled to push the bill through a second reading at the legislature today, all of a sudden saw one of its allies -- the Liberal Party -- turn against it on Sunday evening. Tung immediately lost his control over a majority in the Legislative Council. He had no choice but to delay the legislature's reading for the anti-subversion bill.

 

Bryan Weng, a former professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, pointed out that maintaining China's stability, not Hong Kong's, is the rationale behind the Hong Kong government's neglect of the public's anger and its insistence on passing a law that poses a massive threat to freedom and human rights in Hong Kong. Weng's point should be considered by all Taiwanese. Since the June 4 Tiananmen square massacre of 1989, Hong Kong has become a major sanctuary and stronghold for exiled Chinese democrats. The Hong Kong media have also frequently run reports and commentaries inimical to the Communist Party of China. Such discourse has decreased significantly since Hong Kong's handover to Chinese rule in 1997, but the CPC still doesn't want to ease its grip.

 

Communist cadres, who are used to hearing eulogies from their subordinates and the general public, find such dissent very annoying and naturally want to get rid of it. Looking at the political history of the 20th century, the CPC's first and foremost mission after gaining power has been to annihilate freedom of the press and to seek control over public discourse. The CPC people are also very much into building personality cults that turn the party and its leaders into great benevolent gods, so as to maintain their grip on power by making the public stupid. Therefore, they find any criticism of the CPC's myths or suspicion of its policies extremely infuriating and intolerable.

 

From the viewpoint of Beijing, "political poisonous grass" is growing in Hong Kong under "one country, two systems" and the people of Hong Kong must sacrifice their interests for the sake of the motherland's political interests. Despite Beijing's promise to the British that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years after the handover, the promise has certainly been forgotten under realpolitik considerations.

 

The future political development of Hong Kong under "one country, two systems" is already very clear. A society that has long enjoyed a high degree of freedom will have to toe the line of a society that does not have that kind of freedom. Under the supreme principle of safeguarding CPC rule, the party's will override everything else, including freedom and human rights. Hence the free society will inevitably move toward an authoritarian one.

 

Through its agent, Tung, Beijing has been attempting to fight against democracy. Such attempts have finally triggered public anger which exploded in the form of a 500,000-strong protest. We would like to praise the people of Hong Kong for the brave step they have taken to express their will and safeguard their political interests. They have caused Tung to relent and given Beijing a taste of the power of public opinion. However, the event has also helped Taiwanese people concerned about politics to clearly see exactly what kind of drug is contained inside the "one country, two systems" bottle.

 

 

Where Hong Kong went wrong

 

By Paul Lin

 

Six years after its handover to China, Hong Kong has seen an economic slump and political decline, causing public anger that led to a mass demonstration on July 1, in which between 500,000 and 1 million people participated. Why is the territory's government so at a loss over the economy? Why did it want to pass the Article 23 legislation in such a short period, knowing fully and yet refusing to accept the fact that the public have many objections to it? There is only one answer: Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa's regime is an alien regime. China, not Hong Kong, is its top priority.

 

In 1996, before taking over Hong Kong, China screened some hot candidates for the chief executive's post. Only two were left after the screening.

 

Tung, who was then a member of Hong Kong's Executive Council, was favored by Lu Ping, director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of China's State Council.

 

But Zhou Nan, then director of the Xinhua News Agency's Hong Kong office, favored chief justice Yang Ti-liang.

 

Because former Xinhua chief Xu Jiatun helped Tung rescue his company, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, Tung repaid Xu's kindness by giving his girlfriend a highly paid sinecure in his company, which included housing.

 

In the end, however, former president Jiang Zemin appointed Tung to the job. Why? There were many reasons, but an important one was that Tung was of Zhejiang ancestry and born in Shanghai. Only when he was 10 did he move to Hong Kong. He could be listed as a member of the "Shanghai gang." After finishing high school in Hong Kong, Tung went to college in the UK, and then lived in the US for almost 10 years. He did not return to Hong Kong until 1969. He therefore is not deeply rooted in Hong Kong and does not belong to a local faction. The name of his family business, Orient Overseas (International) Ltd, has an overtone of roving overseas and not viewing Hong Kong as its roots.

 

Yang was also born in Shanghai, but he is Cantonese. Besides, he returned to Hong Kong much earlier. Having served as a judge in Hong Kong over a long period, Yang understands the concept of judicial independence. On top of this, the Chinese leadership has always believed that the Cantonese have a serious problem of "regionalism" and may be difficult to control.

 

When building his leadership team, Tung appointed the Chinese Communist Party's underground members in Hong Kong to important posts. For example, Elsie Leung, who has a leftist background, was appointed to the important position of secretary for justice, so as to protect pro-communist allies. That was why Sally Aw Sian, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairwoman of the Singtao group, was spared punishment in a fraud scandal.

 

In Tung's first term, Leung Chun-ying was appointed convener of the Executive Council. He is still a council member in Tung's second term. Quite a few bad ideas came from him.

 

Chan Kin-ping, the chief executive's assistant, was formerly a Wen Wei Po reporter stationed in Beijing. He graduated from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou. Through him, Beijing can give orders to Tung without leaving a trace.

 

Only two Hong Kong political party heads have been invited to sit on the Executive Council. One of them is Jasper Tsan, chairman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong. After the July 1 demonstration, Tsang publicly stated that those who had participated in the protest had been misled.

 

The identities of underground CCP members have been kept secret, but they were still leaked through different channels. No matter what countenance they take on in Hong Kong, they must work for Beijing.

 

As expected, since taking up the chief executive's job Tung tried to second-guess and take his cues from Beijing's intentions about everything, and for this reason he won Beijing's favor. Regarding Taiwan-Hong Kong relations, for example, Tung appointed Ip Kwok-wah as a special advisor. Ip was also an underground CCP member, but he was relatively open-minded.

 

But Tung created tensions in Hong Kong-Taiwan relations in order to show that he was enthusiastic about the great enterprise of China's unification and hostile to Taiwanese independence. Cheng An-kuo, then Taiwan's representative in Hong Kong, was forced to leave after he came under attack from pro-communist people for his explanation of the "state-to-state" dictum.

 

Cheng's successor, Chang Liang-jen, and Ping Lu, director of the Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center, had to wait for long periods before they could take office.

 

Learning from the CCP's attitude toward dissidents, Tung has refused to deal with or communicate with democrats. This is something extremely rare in Hong Kong's pluralistic society.

 

One of the reasons behind Hong Kong's sluggish economy is the Hong Kong dollar being pegged to the US dollar, which has kept the former's value too high. However, the exchange rate cannot be unpegged or adjusted because of Beijing's fears about Hong Kong's stability and the effect on the Chinese yuan.

 

It is exactly Tung's background and the priority he has given to China's interests that account for the alien characteristic of his regime. The situation is similar to the 228 Incident in Taiwan following the country's "retrocession" to Chinese rule -- the only difference being that Tung dares not resort to oppression for the time being because Hong Kong is an international city that attracts global attention.

 

But given the Article 23 legislation and the recent police threats against residents preparing to further protest the legislation, who can guarantee that a case of bloody suppression like the 228 Incident won't happen in Hong Kong?

 

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in New York.

 

 

Taiwan's future under China

 

By Huang Tien-lin

 

Nobody imagined that more than 400,000 people in Hong Kong would participate in the July 1 demonstration against Article 23 of the Basic Law. With temperatures exceeding 30℃, protesters braved the blazing sun and waved flags as they proceeded from Causeway Bay to Central in a crowd so large that when the leading ranks arrived at their destination, those at the tail had yet to depart. The people of Hong Kong can truly be said to have vented their post-1997 sense of deep disappointment and grievances with "one country, two systems."

 

But having demonstrated, what has changed? There is nothing that China can do now to change Hong Kong's retrocession.

 

Beijing has also answered US and British opposition very clearly, saying that this is China's domestic affair and foreign countries have no right to speak up. Thus the predictable outcome will be a situation exactly like that before the demonstration: Hong Kong's chief executive doesn't dare go against Beijing's wishes.

 

What is still comforting, however, is that Beijing certainly won't try to exact revenge on the demonstrators. Instead, the curtain will be allowed to fall peacefully on this incident and there will be a return to quietude because Beijing wants Hong Kong to serve as a showcase to display "one country, two systems" to Taiwan and bolster the influence of Taiwan's unificationist faction. Thus the people of Hong Kong should take this opportunity to recognize the significance of an independent Taiwan, as it is Taiwan's existence that gives Hong Kong the freedom to hold demonstrations.

 

If people have not become forgetful, they will recall how resplendent the ceremony marking the handover of Hong Kong to China was. Among Hong Kong's pro-China figures, none neglected to say that with the Chinese countryside as its hinterland, Hong Kong's future would be bright. But in the past six years, the territory's real estate prices have fallen by half (because everyone is buying real estate in China), unemployment has risen from 2.2 percent to 8.2 percent in May (because businesses are transferring their manufacturing bases to China to take advantage of China's resources), and the economic growth rate has fallen from 5.1 percent in 1997 to last year's 2.3 percent.

 

The result of strengthening interaction with China has been that the Kowloon-Guangzhou railway runs at capacity every day with passengers going to China empty-handed and returning laden with purchases. Hong Kong's department stores have taken a nose dive. Hong Kong was also the first to bear the brunt of the SARS epidemic. All of this in conjunction with the chill of shrinking political freedoms finally prompted the massive July 1 demonstration. The changes in Hong Kong over the past six years truly make one shed tears.

 

This is the situation in Hong Kong. Now take a look at Taiwan. Taiwan's bold advance westward has already helped China amass more than US$300 billion in foreign currency while sending Taiwan's economy down the path Hong Kong has taken. But most discouragingly, many people in Taiwan still trumpet calls for "direct links to save Taiwan" or say "China is Taiwan's opportunity." Some even advocate "promoting cross-strait exchanges under the premise of one China."

 

If the people of Taiwan keep failing to learn a lesson from Hong Kong's experience, they will eventually invite a real calamity. It will be too late for regrets when Taiwan's sovereignty has already been lost under the rubric of one China. When that time comes, will we follow Hong Kong's example and hold such a massive protest march? The result definitely won't be peaceful because after taking back Taiwan, Beijing will no longer have any need for a showcase requiring it to disguise its authoritarian nature.

 

To further consolidate its governing authority, China will show its hideous face again, as it did in the 228 Incident. With nothing to constrain it, Beijing will act swiftly to sweep up all "unscrupulous dissident reactionaries" and complete the major task of unifying the "great Communist motherland." At that time, there will be no escape for Taiwan's businessmen either. All people, including the people of Hong Kong, will thereafter forever lose their freedom.

 

I beseech the people of Taiwan to take the lesson of Hong Kong to heart.

 

Huang Tien-lin is a national policy adviser to the president.

 

Poll supports session, referendums

 

KEY ISSUES: A recent government survey found widespread backing for the special legislative session as well as referendums on the WHO bid and a new nuclear plant

 

By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER WITH CNA

 

More than half of the people surveyed in a recent opinion poll by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said they approved of the Legislative Yuan holding a special three-day session to review six key economic bills. A majority of respondents also favored holding referendums on major public policies.

 

The telephone survey of 1,084 adults found that 55 percent of respondent approved of the legislature's convening an additional session to review the six bills, while 17 percent said they were against the idea.

 

As for referendums, 55 percent of the respondents said that they approved of empowering the people to decide the fate of public policies via a popular vote, 24 percent said they did not.

 

Regarding the best time to hold a referendum on the fate of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, 21 percent of respondents said that a referendum should be held before the presidential election next March, while 17 percent said should be held after that election, 13 percent said it should coincide with the election and 21 percent said they did not support the idea of a referendum on the issue.

 

As President Chen Shui-bian has pledged to hold a referendum on the nation's bid to join the World Health Organization on or before next March's election, 25 percent of respondents said that it would be better to hold such a vote before the election and 15 percent said after the election would be better. Fourteen percent said they did not approve of a referendum on the issue.

 

As for holding a referendum on downsizing the Legislative Yuan, 26 percent of respondents said the best time for such a vote would be before next March's election, 18 percent after the election and 17 percent said it should coincide with the election. Eight percent did not support the downsizing plan.

 

The commission's survey was conducted between June 30 and July 1.

 

In related news, several mem-bers of the Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan staged a sit-in in front of the Legislative Yuan yesterday to publicize their "Call Taiwan Taiwan" movement and their demand for a nationwide referendum on the official name of the country.

 

The sit-in coincided with the start of the legislature's three-day extraordinary session.

Representatives of the Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan protest in front of the Legislative Yuan yesterday, demanding that lawmakers pass a proposed referendum law as soon as possible and that a referendum be held on changing the name of the country.

 

The referendum bill, along with six economic and finance-related bills, are on the agenda for the special session.

 

The fate of the bill is up in the air after the DPP and opposition parties broke off consultations about the bill on Monday.

 

Wang Hsien-chi, executive director of the alliance, said that since the group began promoting the movement for people to identify with Taiwan more than a year ago, it has won support from over 100 groups around the country.