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Analysts fear CIA underestimated North Korean threat

AP , WASHINGTON

Some American intelligence analysts are becoming increasingly concerned that North Korea may have three, four or even six nuclear weapons instead of the one or two the CIA now estimates.

Every new weapon would enhance North Korea's nuclear capability and give the country significantly more authority at the negotiating table, experts say.

One or two nuclear weapons would be considered last-resort devices, because once used they could no longer deter a US nuclear response. But a half-dozen would give North Korea the ability to strike and then be ready to strike again.

In addition, if North Korea had weapons to spare, its leaders might be more willing to part with one, either in a test or by selling it. The leaders also could more easily afford to put one weapon on display at a missile launch site for US spy satellites to see -- to up the ante in negotiations.

"We're trying to nail that down," Senator Evan Bayh, said of analytical efforts to study North Korea's weapons program.

"The consequences of them having more nuclear warheads is significant, in terms of them conducting a test, or possibly trafficking in nuclear materials," said Bayh, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Among the issues being debated by American intelligence analysts is whether the North Koreans have refined their nuclear weapons designs so they are able to use less plutonium to make a working weapon.

Some analysts presume the North Koreans have made steady advances in their weapons' designs, and thus are able to use their existing stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium more efficiently, according to several US government officials. They all discussed intelligence information on the condition of anonymity.

However, the CIA, as an agency, has not reached that conclusion. It is sticking with its unclassified estimate of one or two weapons, the officials said. Other US estimates put the number at three or four; still others are floating five or six weapons as a possibility.

Taiwan to integrate with Pacific nations

MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL: The first annual meeting of the Democratic Pacific Assembly in Taipei aims to address issues like democratic development and human security

By Lin Chieh-yu

STAFF REPORTER

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday vowed that Taiwan will devote itself to integrate with all democratic nations in the Asia-Pacific region in order to establish a "Democratic Pacific Union" to ensure regional security as well as to democratize non-democratic countries.

"I sincerely pledge to all partners on the democratic Pacific rim that Taiwan will carry out its duty to the international community by performing in a most positive way," Chen said in a speech at the opening ceremony of the annual meeting of the Democratic Pacific Assembly (DPA).

The assembly, being held in Taipei from yesterday until tomorrow, is to form an alliance to unite Pacific-rim democratic countries. More than 100 delegates from 24 countries, including one head of state, four vice presidents and a Nobel laureate, were invited to discuss the issue.

Chen stressed that Taiwan, which occupies a strategic position in the western Pacific, should serve in a more constructive role to shoulder the responsibilities of promoting regional peace, security, progress and prosperity.

"If we analogize the whole pan Pacific community as a `ship,' then Taiwan is like the `anchor' of this ship stabilizing navigation," Chen said.

"And Taiwan will connect to all democratic nations in the region on the basis of ocean culture to jointly construct a cooperative mechanism and dialogue platform for enhancing communication to create a new civilization in the 21st century," he said.

"Taiwan's miracles have not only brought its people democracy and prosperity, but have also made an enormous contribution to the international community," Lu said.

"If Taiwan had not been here to resist Chinese communism for the past 50 years, Asia might have fallen completely under communist rule. And because 14 neighbors of the US in the Caribbean and Central America have chosen to be Taiwan's allies and reject the communist Chinese regime, the world superpower -- the US -- has been saved from trouble at home.

"It was not just the US that came to Taiwan's defense, but Taiwan was also helping defend the free world," she said.

Former US congressman Benjamin Gilman, who serves as the assembly's co-chairman with Lu, encouraged all democratic nations in the Asia-Pacific region to move China toward liberalization and the rule of law.

"China is an autocratic country, everyone knows the facts," Gilman said during his speech.

"However, Taiwan must completely understand its real situation, which is totally different than those of Japan and Korea," Gilman said.

He also suggested that due to a lack of a joint strategy and communicating mechanism, the whole Asia-Pacific region should use the assembly to found a great alliance on the basis of mutually beneficial cooperation.

The three-day assembly is scheduled to discuss four main themes: Democratic development, ocean development, human security and economic development.

Unless timely action is taken, the world will experience a "silicon crisis" in the next few years, creating chaos in international weapons technology and imbalances in global high-tech industries.

At a semiconductor industry seminar last Monday, US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Technology Security Policy and Counterproliferation Lisa Bronson said the US does not want semiconductor technology to flow from Taiwan to China, because of Beijing's military ambitions. She said the US and Taiwan should cooperate to guarantee that they maintain a national-defense advantage. She stressed the importance of controlling semiconductor technology exports to China and said that to safeguard national security and economic interests, US and Taiwanese semiconductor industries must maintain their lead over their rivals in China.

Because some chips can be put to military use, the US is worried that China has improved its semiconductor research and development abilities, thereby improving its military capabilities. The US uses export restrictions to minimize the impact of technological transfers on its national security. Taiwan should cooperate closely with Japan, the US, South Korea and the EU in taking concerted action to similarly restrict exports.

The transfer of Taiwan's semiconductor technology has also impacted the nation's industrial landscape. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp chairman Morris Chang has pointed out that the industry's focus is shifting towards China.

Given the rapid expansion of China's semiconductor industry, the global semiconductor industry may experience excess supply in 2005, which could trigger a collapse in prices and a recession. The industry goes through a recession almost every five years. This relatively short cycle is a result of continuing growth in the industry, which has moved its base from the US to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and now to China.

Chinese manufacturers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp are making large-scale investments to expand their foundries. They are rivals that Taiwanese companies and venture capitalists created by introducing technology and money to China. Without such input China's semiconductor industry would still be in its infancy.

Under intense pressure from the industry, the government last year announced that Taiwanese businesses would be allowed to invest in 8-inch wafer manufacturing in China. The production value of Taiwan's semiconductor industry was estimated at NT$714.4 billion in 2000, accounting for 7.39 percent of GDP that year. The production value of Taiwan's chip manufacturing today accounts for 76.8 percent of world production and is the country's most internationally competitive strategic industry. Why should we be willing to finance China's expansion over our own market share?

Investment in China's semiconductor industry not only boosts China's economy, it helps the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) advance as well, which endangers Taiwan's security. The government should bring a halt to its policy of allowing Taiwanese to set up 8-inch fabs in China. Taiwan's high-tech firms should be barred from moving design centers or design information to China. We don't want to see a global "silicon crisis" -- or a high-tech PLA.

`In order to make a clean break with the past, a new national name must be chosen to allow the Taiwanese people to take their rightful place in the world.'

On Sept. 6, up to 150,000 people marched on the Presidential Office in Taipei to press for a change in the country's official name to "Taiwan" and to enter the UN under that name, rather than the "Republic of China."

Former president Lee Tung-hui said that the Republic of China (ROC) has no territory -- because most of its area was taken over by the Chinese communists in 1949. Not surprisingly, the huge turnout for the march has illustrated the fissures within Taiwan over the question of unification and of whether changing the name of the country would be too much of a change in the status quo for a population famously more concerned with economics than politics.

Most observers watching recent events unfold are under the mistaken notion that the drive to change the nation's moniker represents the following:

Two, the ROC equals Taiwan. The act to change the name from ROC to Taiwan means that Taiwan is the descendant of the ROC directly and legitimately.

After being under the control of the Qing dynasty for 212 years, Taiwan was ceded to Japan in the 1895 Treaty of Shiminoseki. Tai-wan remained a Japanese colony for the next 50 years, until Tokyo surrendered to allied forces in 1945. At the same time, the victory of the Chinese communists over the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) drove Chang Kai-shek, his forces and his supporters to flee to Taiwan. Chiang's exiled government remained internationally recognized until the mid-1970s, when the UN admitted and recognized Beijing's government as the sole and legitimate government of China.

People in Taiwan (including Aborigines) originally accepted the KMT government. But the KMT's oppression and exploitation of the Taiwanese population greatly exceeded the suffering inflicted by the Japanese. This resulted in a resistance movement that culminated in the creation and eventual rise to power of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), finally giving the people of Taiwan a say in the status of their own country.

Since the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan's people have been caught in the middle of this duel between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT, and it is high time that the people of Taiwan seize their own destiny and cut all ties to this archaic KMT-CCP standoff.

Taiwan needs an internationally recognizable, legal name. As Lee indicated in his speech, Tai-wan has used 20 or so names at various events and in international organizations.

The global community needs to be made aware of the complete context of Taiwan's situation and realize that this is not a domestic problem within China.

The issue that Beijing repeatedly categorizes as one of its domestic issues is its relationship with the exiled KMT government -- an entity that no longer rules Taiwan or any other land mass.

To better illustrate the above statement, let's compare the exiled government of the ROC to the exiled government of Tibet. The Tibetan administration wants a "high degree of autonomy." It has three basic elements to run the exile government: territory, people and the government.

First, the exile government of Tibet largely corresponds to the geological plateau of Tibet, which consists of 2.5 million square kilometers. The exiled ROC government, for a long time, staked its claim over the immense territory over China and regarded Taiwan as a temporary home.

In 1991, the KMT dropped its claim to China, but still preaches about unifying with China under the framework of democracy. The KMT has also tried to show Taiwanese people that it is taking their interests into serious consideration. This implies that the KMT's strategy is to win voters' hearts, but die-hard unificationists now accuse it of cutting itself from the motherland and lowering itself to be the leader of this nation.

Second, the people in Tibet are Tibetan, and never considered themselves to be, and indeed are racially distinct from, the Chinese. The exiled ROC government consists essentially of members of the KMT who fled with the government in 1947. They consider themselves Chinese who live on an island called "Taiwan."

Third, the exiled government of Tibet was headquartered in Lhasa. It consisted of a head of state, a Cabinet, a national assembly and an elaborate bureaucracy to administer the vast territory of Tibet. The exiled KMT government once ruled the people of Taiwan under similar bureaucratic systems. But after the KMT lost the presidential election in 2000, its de jure governance of Taiwan came to an end.

In sum, this exiled ROC government bears little comparison to the exiled government of Tibet. And the current status of the ROC remains merely a title.

What is ironic is that the international community actually understands the idea of an "exiled ROC government" more clearly than the Taiwanese themselves. If you ask any Taiwanese on the street whether the ROC is an exiled government or not, eight out of 10 are not willing to give you an answer right away.

But the confusion of the Taiwanese about their national identity is a very interesting and observable phenomenon. This is because they have been shunned from speaking about reality for a long time under the authoritarian KMT regime, and still cannot see reality because they are confused with all these different pursuits from various interests groups in Taiwan.

What could make the situation worse? Most of the international agreements that have emerged relating to Taiwan since the end of the Chinese Civil War are relics of a bygone era, including the three communiques between the US and China and the Taiwan Relations Act. It's time that all of us, Chinese, Taiwanese and all other people concerned with the issue, move on and stop trying to settle a dispute between the KMT and CCP and deal with the facts on the ground.

What if the KMT wins the election next year? The people of Taiwan need to end the fruitless obsession with the rivalry between nationalists and communists. In order to make a clean break with the past, a new national name must be chosen to allow the Taiwanese people to take their rightful place in the world.

Whatever party rules the nation in the future, it should recognize Taiwan as a nation and run it as a nation. If the KMT is unable to leave behind its tussle with the communists, the people of Taiwan would be wise to reject them.