US' problem with 'one China' policy

By Richard Kagan

Monday, Oct 27, 2003,Page 8

`The claim for `one China' is a recent manifestation of China's nationalism and socialism. Before 1900, there was little mention of `one China.''

Shanghai. 1972. Then US president Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger agree with chairman Mao Zedong and foreign minister Zhou Enlai to recognize that there is one China, and that Taiwan is part of China. This becomes known as the Shanghai Communique. More than a generation later this policy is strongly maintained. And it is today out of date at best, and the potential cause of war at worst.

In terms of international diplo-macy, declarations and communiques are not law. They are statements made by leaders to establish a working policy for international relationships. Although they provide order for a limited period of time, they usually outlive their purpose.

The "one China" policy was declared in China. The people of Taiwan had no say in the matter whatsoever. The policy was created to keep China out of the Vietnam War, to counterbalance the Soviet Union with China and to open markets for America. The Chinese wanted control of Tai-wan because it was seen as an imperialist controlled bridge to Asia. It had been used in the Korean War to provide resources to American troops, and in the Vietnam War to provide human and material assistance to Saigon.

The original purpose of this agreement is no longer valid or relevant. The Vietnam War is over, the Soviet Union has imploded and the US has plenty of trade with China.

However, since 1972, the Bei-jing authorities have created a muscular myth about Taiwan's identity and China's rights to it. Beijing has even retained the right to use force against a Taiwan that would claim independence or that would put off the decision of re-uniting with China too long.

This full-scale propaganda is not unlike the Nazi claim to be an extension of the Holy Roman Empire, or the Islamic fundamentalist claim to reunite the Middle East and Asia. China even displays maps of the period of the Han dynasty which show Taiwan and its major cities across the Taiwan Strait. Would maps of ancient Rome show Little Italy in New York?

Why is "one China" harmful?

First, the policy limits the US' range of options in East Asia. We are blackmailed by our own policy. Any statement that recognizes Taiwan's right to be a mem-ber of international organizations, or to receive international aid (such as from the Red Cross or World Health Organization) is immediately attacked for undermining the "one China" policy.

Second, the claim for "one China" is a recent manifestation of China's nationalism and socialism. Before 1900, there was little mention of "one China." In fact the term "Middle Kingdom" to refer to China was not extensively used until the early 20th century. The term was made current by the imperialists who wanted to call China by a name other than the flowery names or dynastic names that were in vogue.

The policy perpetuates a myth that is used to justify the subjugation and control of an island that has never been under the authority of the Beijing government.

Third, Taiwan is a democratic country of 23 million citizens. President Chen Shui-bian has stirred up the American and Chinese diplomatic community by suggesting that the nation should be called "Taiwan" and not the Republic of China. And that there might be a referendum on independence. Chen argues that "the people of Taiwan firmly believe that there is `one country on each side of the Strait,' one China and one Taiwan."

To allow Beijing's intimidations of Taiwan to hamper an authentic expression of the people's will on the basis of a myth is contrary to all of our principles of democracy and freedom. It is important for the US leadership to show Beijing why an independent Taiwan is healthy for them, and subduing Taiwan is unhealthy.

Taiwan could be an excellent offshore base for independent and unfettered technological and industrialized development. Taiwan as a business development center could accelerate China's economic development. Taiwan's democracy could become a model for China's own political modernization. The sharing of economic, intellectual, cultural and political ideas would be expedited by a free and equal Taiwan.

The undermining of Taiwan's political system, or an outright attack on Taiwan would force China into a post-colonial relationship with the population. This relationship would drain the resources of China, contribute to tremendous ill feeling, and result finally in the hollowing out of Taiwan. Both Taiwan and China would become losers.

Rather than continue with a status quo that is destructive of the morale of the Taiwanese people, and feeds the militancy of China, the US should seek a regional arrangement to protect Taiwan, and to utilize Taiwan's resources for the development of China. New thinking is required to change our policies. Otherwise, we will find ourselves in a dead end that is more costly, and less free for all concerned.

Richard Kagan is professor of East Asian studies at Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Editorial: So long and good riddance

"Of the dead say nothing but good," Plutarch advises. The problem is that in the case of Soong Mayling, also fawningly known as "Madame Chiang Kai-shek," there isn't any good to be said. Many obiturists have remarked that she was the most famous Chinese woman of the 20th century. What hasn't been said is that she was also perhaps the most evil woman to wield any kind of power during that bleak 100 years and that her influence on almost anything she touched was corrupting and malign.

Soong learned to speak like a Western democrat during her years of schooling in the US, but her psychology was utterly feudal. Her hypocrisy and mendacity were astonishing, perhaps best represented by her convincing Henry Luce, the powerful boss of Life and Time magazines, that she and her husband Chiang Kai-shek, himself a protege of Shanghai's Green Gang and earning millions in the opium trade -- for which he used the Opium Suppression Agency's boats -- represented this religious crank's best hope for "bringing the Chinese to Jesus."

Like old-fashioned bandits holding a village for ransom in a martial-arts novel, the Soong-Chiang-Kung clique saw China as nothing more than an area of operation for their depredations. Soong Mayling's brother, T.V. Soong, became the world's richest man while serving as China's finance minister by looting his charge. It is staggering to even imagine the scale on which the clique operated. For example, one enormously lucrative scheme was to force all Chinese to surrender their gold to underwrite a new currency. The gold never, of course, found its way to the Bank of China, but rather into the clique's voluminous pockets.

Soong Mayling was feted in the US during World War II as exemplifying the spirit of Chinese resistance. Actually Luce's power and T.V. Soong's bribery bought Soong Mayling her moment of fame before the US Congress in 1943. What has been portrayed as a triumph for Mayling's charm was in fact a triumph of money politics.

The 1943 speech was to encourage the US to throw more money into the cesspit that was the KMT's anti-Japanese war effort. Most of the materiel that the US supplied was sold by Chiang and his cronies to the very Japanese they were supposed to be fighting. After the war US president Harry Truman calculated that the Chiang clique had filched US$750 million (as a proportion of US GDP this would be US$35 billion today) from the aid that was sent to them as a result of Mayling's efforts. "They're all thieves," he said, "every damn one of them."

Eventually the people of China got sick of the banditry of the Soongs, Kungs and Chiangs, and threw their lot in with the communists to kick the bandits out of China.

To Taiwan's sorrow they fled here, establishing a colonial regime depriving Taiwanese of political power and suppressing dissent with great brutality. They also continued their robberies, albeit slightly more circumspectly.

Soong Mayling's particular money spinner was the military welfare tax, a tariff on imported goods, the proceeds of which went to the Chinese Women's Anti-Aggression League, of which Soong was the only one with the keys to the cashbox. Some eight years ago the Democratic Progressive Party's Chang Chun-hsiung tried to find out what happened to the NT$100 billion siphoned off, with little success. But the "information" from Soong Mayling's family that she only left US$120,000 in her will is the best joke heard in Taipei for a long time.

Soong valued only money and power, tried to secure Taiwan as a fiefdom for her awful family and left in a huff when she failed. The only good thing she ever did for Taiwan was to leave it. Now this evil and corrupt woman is where she belongs -- in Hell. The world is a cleaner, better place for that.

Poll reveals fear of immigrants from China

DUBIOUS LOYALTY: Most Taiwanese want to limit the right of Chinese immigrants to vote and run for office, a survey by the Taiwan Advocates think tank showed

By Chang Yun-Ping

STAFF REPORTER

Monday, Oct 27, 2003,Page 3

Nearly half of Taiwanese believe there are too many Chinese immigrants in the country and fear these new arrivals will steal their jobs, according to a poll released yesterday.

The think tank Taiwan Advocates released a survey yesterday indicating that 46.9 percent of the public deemed the 3,600 Chinese brides the government currently allows to come to Taiwan per year as too many, and 52.2 percent of respondents thought increasing the number of Chinese immigrants would affect employment opportunities here.

The poll, conducted last Tuesday and Wednesday, interviewed a total of 1,062 respondents aged over 20, with a margin of error of 3 percent.

According to the government's statistics, there are approximately 260,000 PRC citizens living in Taiwan.

Based on 3,600 Chinese brides coming to the country each year, the Mainland Affairs Council estimates that Taiwan will see about 1.5 million Chinese immigrants residing in Taiwan 10 years from now.

The poll also revealed that 65.8 percent of those interviewed agreed the government should limit Chinese immigrants' political participation, including the right to vote, and 73.3 percent said immigrants from China should not be allowed to run for public office in Taiwan.

While the government is seeking to open the direct air transportation across the Taiwan Strait, the poll found that about half the public thought the government should place national security concerns over economic development.

Meanwhile, about 65.5 percent felt that China is hostile toward Taiwan and some 49 percent worried that visits to China by Taiwan's politicians would undermine their loyalty.

According to a cross-analysis of the poll, though people living in the greater Taipei area placed more importance on economic development, northerners showed higher alertness to the political participation of Chinese immigrants than those living in central and southern Taiwan.