Take away China's Trojan horse

By Li Thian-hok

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 8

On Nov. 12, after a 12-month investigation, Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Chen Shu-chung, 55, a Military Intelligence Bureau official, and Tseng Chao-wen, 58, a former bureau worker. The pair allegedly stole classified information about Taiwanese intelligence agents working in China. This affair is but one in a long series of cases in which military officers and intelligence agents were recruited by Chinese intelligence authorities to subvert the government.

In February 2000, Director of the Investigation Bureau Wang Kuang-yu disclosed that a total of 376 Chinese intelligence agents were expelled over a three-year period. According to statistics released more recently by the same agency, more than 3,000 Chinese spies are currently estimated to be hidden in Taiwan. Chinese infiltration of Taiwan has apparently intensified.

According to the government's statistics, there are some 260,000 Chinese citizens residing in Taiwan. Approximately a quarter of this total represents legal entrants who are businessmen, researchers and academics, and their relatives. About 190,000 are women married to Taiwanese. Another 6,117 are Chinese spouses of Taiwanese women. Each Chinese bride is allowed to bring parents aged 70 and over and children under age 12.

Based on 3,600 Chinese brides who are allowed to emigrate each year, the Mainland Affairs Council estimates that 1.5 million Chinese immigrants will be living in Taiwan 10 years from now.

While the bulk of such Chinese immigrants may be legal entrants, the influx of such a large numbers of Chinese citizens will inevitably alter the political balance between those who prefer to unify with the PRC and those who wish to preserve Taiwan's freedom.

Taiwan's open-door policy has also been abused. Many Chinese enter Taiwan through bogus marriages. In one case, a Taiwanese woman married a different Chinese every year and the Chinese husband disappeared after arrival in Taiwan. Some 15 percent of Chinese brides also disappear.

Then there is illegal smuggling of people, narcotics and weapons into Taiwan. National Security Council Secretary-General Kang Ning-hsiang pointed out in the Legislative Yuan recently that the biggest potential crisis in national security lies in the gaps in border security. The Coast Guard Administration as now structured is simply not equipped to stop the smugglers coming ashore. Morale in the administration is low. Over 200 personnel who serve with the administration have requested to return to the military. Smuggling not only allows Chinese operatives and special forces personnel to infiltrate Taiwan, but it also exposes Taiwanese to infectious diseases such as AIDS and SARS.

A few years ago, a US sinologist estimated that China has deployed 6,000 special forces troopers inside Taiwan. It would be prudent for the Taipei government to assume this estimate may be understated in view of what the active opening of Taiwan has wrought in the last three years. The presence of a large number of People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops poses a serious threat to Taiwan's survival as a sovereign state, especially in the event of military conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

In July the US Department of Defense submitted its annual report to congress on China's military power. Section V of the report is an assessment of the security situation in the Strait. The report describes a Beijing doctrine of total warfare against Taiwan, integrating military, political, economic and psychological coercion strategies.

The PLA military strategy is to launch a multipronged blitzkrieg including information warfare, a naval blockade, an air and missile campaign, and a rapid attack with airborne and amphibious forces and special operations troops. The objective is to coerce Taipei into submission and present Washington with a fait accompli in a matter of days.

Whether this strategy of "rapid war, rapid resolution" can succeed depends on how vulnerable Taiwan's centers of gravity are to China's assault.

Mark Stokes, the Pentagon's chief of the Taiwan desk, has defined centers of gravity as critical nodes or points of failure which could paralyze the entire system. An attack on a critical node will impair all other critical nodes and compound destruction of morale, undermining Taiwan's national will to fight and pressuring the political leadership (the primary center of gravity) to capitulate. Once the leadership calculates that further resistance will not alter the outcome, but merely increase the people's suffering, it may surrender Taiwan's sovereignty on Beijing's terms.

According to Stokes' analysis, there are four secondary critical nodes: the defense and security apparatus, the economy, political opposition and international support. It may be instructive to examine how each critical node may be targeted.

The PLA missiles and bombers might focus initially on the country's command and control centers, communications and early warning facilities, as well as its air bases and air defense sites. Other targets may include missile sites, transportation nodes, electrical power grids, logistics centers, oil reserves and water reservoirs. But there are passive measures that Taiwan can adopt to lessen the damage from PLA assaults.

Beyond that, Taipei must deal with the potential problem of morale among military officers and men who were either born in China or born to Chinese parents. Some may be confused about "who and what they are fighting for." It will also be prudent to anticipate that some elements of the military could try to sabotage Taiwan's war effort, and to develop countermeasures to cope with such a contingency.

The attack on infrastructure mentioned above could make life intolerable for the civilian population and increase pressure on the political leadership to give up the struggle. This was an important factor in Serbia's capitulation in the Kosovo air campaign. The increasingly close economic relations between China and Taiwan also gives the former additional leverage to pressure the latter by, for example, freezing the assets of Taiwanese businesses that operate in China.

The political opposition includes the KMT and PFP, businessmen with investments in China and most of the electronic and print media, which favor unification with China. Beijing will manipulate these elements to force Taiwan's political leadership to submit to Beijing's demands. The Patriots Society and similar pan-blue extremists may resort to violence to undermine the government's ability to wage war.

Many current and former US officials and academics believe that the US cannot prevent the rise of China as a great power; that as China reforms its economy, political liberalization will inevitably follow and that an increasingly democratic China will not threaten the US' security interests. Taiwan is a barrier to the development of long-term peaceful US-China relations.

Multinational corporations with heavy investment in China also tend to parrot Beijing's propaganda and support China's expansionist ambitions. Beijing will mobilize such friends in the US and Japan to discourage third-party intervention as soon as it launches a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.

It is plausible that under simultaneous onslaughts on all four critical nodes, Taiwan's political leadership could lose heart and give up the struggle to defend the nation's hard-won freedom.

If the leadership refuses to yield, the PLA also has the option of paralyzing the key leaders through precision air strikes and ground assaults by its special operations forces.

The above scenario should make clear why the open-door policy is suicidal. Taiwan has too many enemy agents and troops already embedded deep inside its critical nodes.

And yet both the Mainland Affairs Council and the opposition parties favor further opening of the nation's gates through rapid implementation of direct flights between China and Taiwan, despite the misgivings of the Ministry of National Defense.

Beyond the enemies within, Taiwan's Trojan horse is made even more menacing on account of a nearly irrational complacency about the prospects of a PLA attack; a seeming lack of appreciation for the economic miracle and transformation of a one-party dictatorship into a democracy where the Taiwanese can live in freedom; and hence a feckless attitude toward the country's national defense.

Ultimately, the internal division and lack of a firm national will to defend freedom could doom the country's future.

It is high time the people of Taiwan take a close look at the gigantic Trojan horse inside the nation's gates and take steps to demolish it.

The presidential election next March is a good place to start.

Li Thian-hok is a freelance commentator in Pennsylvania.

Australia joins missile defense program

REUTERS , CANBERRA

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 1

Australia said yesterday it would join a controversial US-led program designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, strengthening its military ties with a key ally despite a likely backlash in Asia.

Announcing the decision, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the system would deter rogue states from acquiring missile technology but he gave no details of possible costs or how Australia would participate.

"This is a strategic decision to put in place a long-term measure to counter potential threats to Australia's security and its interests from ballistic missile proliferation," Downer told parliament, adding Britain and Japan supported the program.

While he did not mention North Korea by name, the country has a nuclear weapons program and has ballistic missiles capable of hitting US ally Japan. North Korea is also a major exporter of missile parts and technology.

Critics have said the technology is unproven and expensive and could trigger a regional arms race.

A Japanese newspaper said yesterday Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi intended to introduce a missile defense system to protect Japan from the threat posed by North Korea's ballistic missiles. Koizumi denied any decision had been made but said the issue must be tackled soon.

The Bush administration has earmarked US$50 billion over the next five years to build a missile defense with an initial, rudimentary capability to shoot down incoming warheads.

The multilayered system is still under development and could include interceptor rockets to smash into a missile soon after takeoff, high-powered lasers and ship-based antimissile rockets.

Some fear the program could spark a new arms race but some defense experts view Australia as an essential component because of a US monitoring station at Pine Gap in the central Australian desert.

Canberra's move to join the program -- as well as the US Joint Strike Fighter project to build an advanced fighter-bomber -- could irk Asian neighbors who already accuse Canberra of playing "deputy sheriff" for Washington in the region.

Downer said it would strengthen the military ties with the US that his conservative government has bolstered since coming to power in 1996.

Analysts said that joining the program added "another layer of intimacy" to the US-Australian relationship that would not go down well in the region.

"It is dangerous inasmuch as it seems that when the United States acts, Australia follows by reflex," said foreign policy expert Michael McKinley from the Australian National University.

"It creates a sense that Australia is only reluctantly a part of the region in social and economic terms," he said.

Downer, aware of regional sensitivities, said the government had already briefed some Asian nations of its involvement and would keep its regional partners informed of its participation.

Defense Minister Robert Hill said that under the program, Australia could include expanded cooperation to detect missiles at launch, acquiring ship or ground-based sensors, and research, but ruled out a ground-based missile defense system.

He made no mention of possible contracts for local firms.

Defense expert Aldo Borgu from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank said it remained to be seen if the so-called "Son of Star Wars" technology would actually be able to stop missiles in flight.

Taiwan doctors make genetics breakthrough

By Joy Su

STAFF REPORTER

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 2

"In the future, a patient could be given cold medication depending on the patient's gene constitution. This is just the start of a study of the association between genetic make-up and immune responses."

－Chen Pei-che, NTU hospital doctor and research team member

Genetic constitution can be used to determine blood-disease patients' reaction to stem-cell transplants, according to the latest research by a team of doctors from the National Taiwan University Hospital and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

"While stem-cell transplants are often the only treatment available to patients with blood disorders such as leukemia, aplastic anemia, Thalassemia and lymphocytic leukemia, adverse immune reactions often lead to fatal complications for many transplant recipients," said Tseng Li-hui, a research team member at the NTU hospital medical genetics department.

Tseng explained that even with a perfect human lymphocyte antigen (HLA) match, which is commonly used to determine transplant compatibility, there is still a 20 percent chance of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), during which the donated bone marrow reacts against the donor's own tissue.

However, doctors yesterday put forth that new findings indicated that the interleukin-10 genotype was intimately linked to the regulation of immune responses. Tseng explained that the medical breakthrough would allow doctors to identify patients who are at high risk of contracting GVHD with a simple genetic test.

The research confirmed that those with the A/A interleukin-10 genotype produce a greater amount of interleukin-10, which protects against GVHD and helps to ensure long-term transplant survival. At the same time, the C/C interleukin-10 genotype indicates a higher risk of GVHD after the transplant.

"Patients with the C/C interleukin-10 genotype are 2.6 times more likely to get GHVD than patients with the A/A genotype," Tseng said.

Chen Pei-jer, a NTU hospital doctor and research team member, explained the implications of the findings.

"In the future, a patient could be given cold medication depending on the patient's gene constitution. This is just the start of a study of the association between genetic make-up and immune responses," Chen said.

"Right now, the interleukin-10 genotype is just used to determine the risk of GVHD in transplant patients, but it may soon be possible to develop interleukin-10 injections that would help high risk patients," Chen said.

He said that the association between interleukin-10 and immune reactions would be useful for patients considering stem cell transplantation. It would furthermore aid in deciding on an appropriate immunosuppressive drug regimen for each patient.

In addition, the study found that the A/A interleukin-10 genotype was found in 67 percent of Japanese patients and 70 percent of Taiwanese patients, which is substantially higher than the 23 percent found in Caucasian patients. In the past, the lower incidence of GVHD in Japanese patients had been attributed to a lack of HLA diversity. However, the large proportion of Japanese patients with the A/A genotype offers a new explanation for the phenomenon.

The research findings were yesterday published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

In another article yesterday, experts from the University of Michigan Medical School said that, given the increased tolerance brought about by interleukin-10, future studies should look into the effect of increased interleukin-10 production on the eradication of residual cancer in patients after transplants.

Mongolian minister to negotiate labor initiative in Taipei

CNA , TAIPEI

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 4

Mongolian Minister for Social Welfare and Labor Shi Batbayar will visit Taiwan next week to attend a conference and discuss a plan allowing Mongolian workers into the country, an official said yesterday.

Victor Tseng, director general of the foreign ministry's West Asian Affairs Department, said Batbayar will arrive in Taipei on Monday to attend the 30th Asia-Pacific regional conference of the International Council of Social Welfare.

Batbayar will deliver a speech on Mongolia's social welfare and youth programs, Tseng said.

During his stay, Batbayar will also meet Council of Labor Affairs Chairwoman Chen Chu to discuss the plan granting work visas to Mongolians. The government has decided to open its labor market to Mongolian nationals soon.

Officials from the Department of Health recently inspected Mongolian hospitals designated for testing the health of workers bound for Taiwan.

Batbayar will also visit the Eden Social Welfare Foundation, which will donate seven notebook computers to Batbayar's ministry as a contribution to his government's program upgrading computer infrastructure, Tseng said.

The ministry has also invited four Mongolian politicians -- Mongolian Democratic Party Chairman M. Enkhsaikhan, former finance minister P. Tsagaan, Legislator J. Narantsatsralt and T. Sukhbaatar, director of the Democratic Party's international affairs department -- to visit Taiwan as part of its effort to boost relations between the countries.

Despite an absence of formal diplomatic ties, Tseng said, exchanges and cooperation have grown steadily in recent years.

On Wednesday, the government donated 7,000 tonnes of rice to poor families in Mongolia. The rice was donated by the Council of Agriculture, while World Vision Taiwan handled the task of delivering the food, Tseng said.

The delivery of rice is an expensive task since it must first be shipped from Taipei to Hong Kong to Tianjin, and then to Ulaanbaatar by rail.

Vote to push for status quo, Chen says

`FIVE NOES': The president said the sovereignty referendum won't be about sovereignty but will be aimed at letting China know how Taiwanese feel

By Lin Chieh-yu

STAFF REPORTER

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 1

The purpose of the "defensive referendum" is to maintain the status quo on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and has nothing to do with independence, President Chen Shui-bian said yesterday.

Opposition parties have accused Chen of provoking China following his campaign promise last Saturday to hold a "defensive referendum" on the day of the presidential election. The international community has also speculated about whether Chen's "defensive referendum" is a concrete action toward Taiwanese independence.

peacemaking

Chen told foreign guests at a reception at the Presidential Office yesterday that the referendum is not meant to provoke, but is rather a way to make peace.

"I have to reaffirm that I will firmly maintain my `five noes' policy, which was revealed on May 20, 2000," Chen said.

"Like I have asserted many times before, any movement to deepen Taiwan's democracy, including the people's basic right to have a referendum and hastening the process to write a new constitution, will honor the five-noes promise. It would have no bearing on the independence-versus-reunification debate."

Chen said article 17 of the new Referendum Law, which refers to a "defensive referendum," can be used to strengthen a united country and would be highly effective in bringing foreign dangers to the public's attention.

psychological defense

"The lack of awareness about possible crises and enemy threats is one of the major problems in Taiwan. We must promote the concept of national defense as well as individuals' psychological defenses," Chen said.

He said that China still refused to denounce military action against Taiwan while it is continuing to buy more arms and increasing military expenditure, including the deployment of 496 ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwan.

"Every citizen of Taiwan should fully understand this serious case, and I must also appeal to all the countries in the Asia-Pacific region to squarely face China's threat, which poses a danger not only to Taiwan, but also to regional peace and stability," Chen said.

He said that the defensive referendum would be an effective means of letting China know what Taiwan's 23 million people are really thinking. According to Chen, most Taiwanese want peace.

status quo

"It is extremely important that Beijing should listen to Taiwan's mainstream public opinion. Therefore the goal of the defensive referendum is to protect the status quo in Taiwan," he said.

Chen made the remarks during a meeting with US Senator Jeff Bingman, who arrived in Taipei on Wednesday on a fact-finding mission concerning Taiwan's high-tech development and the nation's supply of and demand for energy.

During yesterday's meeting, Chen made a point of standing next to Douglas Paal, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, to allow the media to take pictures of them. Some Chinese-language media reported that Paal had been summoned back to Washington for a briefing on Taiwan's referendum controversy. According to these reports, this was a sign that the US is upset with Chen.

US ready to press Chen to maintain stability

By Charles Snyder

STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON

Friday, Dec 05, 2003,Page 1

After a wrenching debate on its cross-strait policy over recent weeks, the George W. Bush administration has decided to retain its existing policy, while leaning hard on President Chen Shui-bian to avoid any actions that would destabilize the situation in the Taiwan Strait, government and private sources tell the Taipei Times.

Bush is expected to reiterate exiting American policy when he holds intense discussions with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at the White House next Tuesday, the sources say.

This will be in the face of what observers say will be a strong effort by Wen to get Washington to definitively oppose Taiwan's independence and make other changes in US-Taiwan policy favorable to Beijing.

The main concern of the Bush administration, sources say, is to prevent any instability in the Strait while Bush is preoccupied with such issues as North Korea, Iraq and terrorism, at a time when US forces are stretched thin by Iraq, and when Bush faces what could be a tough re-election campaign next year, where any foreign policy complication could hurt him politically.

Bush wants Chen "lashed down pretty tight," said one source.

Meanwhile, there was no firm confirmation in Washington of reports that the top National Security Council China aide, James Moriarty, on Monday delivered a personal letter from Bush to Chen that expressed Washington's strong dissatisfaction with Chen's recent statements, culminating with his plans to hold a "defensive referendum" in connection with the March 20 presidential election.

Many observers fear such a referendum could deal with issues related to independence, which could spark a major crisis with Beijing and cause severe discomfort in Washington at a time when Bush is totally consumed with the Korea-Iraq-terrorism triumvirate plus pre-election domestic issues.

While saying he could not speak for the president, a White House spokesman said that "the policy is unchanged," and that Bush will tell Wen that when they meet.

The US leader will also tell Wen that Washington also opposes any Chinese use of force in the Strait or any other similar action that could destabilize the region, the spokesman said.

The spokesman would neither confirm nor deny that Moriarty delivered the reported letter.

In recent weeks, during their advanced planning for Wen's visit, White House, State Department, Pentagon and other officials laid out a series of "options" to current policy, sources say.

These included, significantly, a public pronouncement that Washington "opposes" Taiwan's independence, and a return to the Clinton-era "three noes" policy. That policy would say "no" to Taiwan's independence, a "two China or one-China-one-Taiwan" policy, or Taiwan's membership in international organizations which require statehood.

US

The administrations' current policy is that it "does not support" independence and sticks to a "one-China" policy. The Bush administration has also supported Taiwan's participation in such global organizations as the World Health Organization.

As the debate over policy was raging, the State Department apparently got the White House to agree to retain the current policy, fearing that any restating of policy would open up a can of worms that would give the administration another foreign policy crisis.

With the White House acceptance of the State Department's position, a series of high-level meetings scheduled for this week to review the options were cancelled. They were postponed until after the Wen visit, apparently to give the administration the time for a more relaxed consideration of Taiwan-China-US relations.

The newly-reaffirmed US policy toward Taiwan, has one nuanced difference from before. Washington now proclaims that while it does not support independence, it also does not want Taiwan to take "moves toward" independence.

This phraseology was adopted in October in the wake of the Bush meeting with President Hu Juntao on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Bangkok, when Hu said that Bush had said he "opposed" independence.

Denying that, an unnamed US official told reporters at the time that Bush had said he doesn't support moves toward independence.

That was a time when Chen was beginning his campaign to hold one or more referendums next year and write a new constitution by 2006, which would become effective in 2008.

The US obsession with tranquility in the Strait was underscored in an interview last week by a "senior White House official," believed to be Moriarty, with the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, which is aimed at the Chinese and China-based foreigner elite.

The officials stressed repeatedly the non-support for "any unilateral moves by people from either side of the Strait to change the status quo," and repeatedly warned Taiwan not to take "steps moving toward independence."

While asserting that the US would "have to help" if China used force, the official played down the "semantic" distinction between "do not support" and "oppose," stressing that the main objective is peace and stability in the Strait.

The official made it clear that Washington would not support a change in Taiwan's name, flag or concept of sovereignty.

"That's where we get into areas that discomfort the US administration," he said.

Editorial: Witch hunt on secret media funding

On Thursday, another battle broke out between the pan-green and pan-blue camps over the involvement of political parties and the government in financing TV programs, especially the now enormously popular political commentary talk shows and call-in shows.

The fight started when Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lo Wen-chia accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of forking out NT$18 million to finance a political commentary talk show, The Hope of Taiwanese Hearts.

KMT spokesman Alex Tsai conceded that the KMT had helped fund the show, but he got back at Lo by saying that the DPP government financed certain TV programs through the selective placement of government advertisements during these shows. KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu joined the chorus by voicing suspicions that several other commentary programs might be financed by the DPP, judging by what she referred to as these shows' "questionable" political content.

Sadly, as the two sides went back and forth, what is supposed to be the central issue to the entire controversy -- the question of transparency and political accountability -- was entirely missed.

First, it is not always illegal for political parties to finance TV shows. It is just that under the current law -- including the Broadcasting and Television Law, the Satellite Broadcasting Law and the Cable Television Law -- such a show must be classified as an advertisement. The reason is quite obvious -- to mandate transparency in funding by political parties for such purposes and to make them politically accountable for the views they present through such programs.

If a political party is funding a TV program, it is assumed that the party is trying to communicate its views by means of the program's content. Under the circumstances, viewers have every right to know what is going on, so that they can formulate their own opinion about what they are watching while taking into account from which perspective the show presents its views. Political parties should not be allowed to hide behind TV programs anonymously while these programs present a false impression of neutrality and impartiality.

As for the government's placement of advertisements, there is no question of selective allocation. First and foremost, all government budgets for these purposes are transparent and open to public scrutiny. Moreover, such advertisements are almost uniformly placed through one single agent -- the Government Information Office -- following a set procedure, which further enhances transparency. Viewers can also tell from the advertisements being run that the programs are being partly financed through government advertising.

Hung's accusations about programs with questionable content is even more ridiculous. It is like the Salem witch hunt, accusing political parties or the government of illegally financing certain programs based merely on the views presented in these shows, without a shred of evidence. This is not to mention suppression of free speech. According to Hung's twisted line of logic, most political commentary shows and call-in shows must be illegally financed by the pan-blue camp, since their views tend to be highly partial and prejudiced in the blue camp's favor.

It was also interesting to observe the egregious double standards on the part of the pan-blue camp in this whole incident. Not long ago, members of this camp were loudly condemning the producer of the now infamous Special Report VCDs for supposedly hiding in the dark instead of stepping up to shoulder responsibility. Yet it sees nothing wrong in its own decision to secretly fund The Hope of Taiwanese Hearts talk show.