Bush snubs democracy in Taiwan

By Vincent Wang

Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003,Page 8

`We in the US teach our children that US foreign policy reflects this country's democratic values. How can we explain our Taiwan policy to them?'

As a naturalized US citizen and a native of Taiwan teaching at a US university, Dec. 9 was a sad day. On the eve of International Human Rights Day, US President George W. Bush, with the visiting Chinese premier at his side, stated, "We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo. And the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo, which we oppose."

I had believed that this country was founded on the principles of liberty, equality and democracy -- values inculcated in every US citizen, born here or naturalized. But Bush's comments made me wonder whether the US' promotion of democracy only applies when it suits US interests.

Since Taiwan's democratization has progressed too fast for the comfort and convenience of the US, it must be reined in. Previously, Bush showed strategic and moral clarity regarding Tai-wan, exemplified by his April 2001 remarks: "We will do whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself," which contributed to the simultaneous improvement of ties with both Beijing and Taipei -- an underappreciated feat that no previous administration had been able to achieve.

Now, the exigencies of the war on terror, the quagmire in Iraq, and the crisis over North Korea appear to have caused Bush to abandon a policy that reflected the US' values.

Many Americans have sympathy for Taiwan as a democratic quasi-ally that has achieved an economic miracle and built a vibrant democracy amid perennial threats and pressure from China, and Bush is known for his empathy with the Taiwanese people. He has also justified his war on terror and his rebuilding Iraq in the name of preserving freedom and spreading democracy.

It is thus puzzling why Bush came down so hard on President Chen Shui-bian, whose sin was to propose a referendum coinciding with next March's presidential election that calls on China to withdraw its missiles aimed at Taiwan and renounce the use of force.

A public rebuke of a democratic ally in an obvious ingratiation of the leader of a regime seeking to absorb one of the US' staunchest friends -- by force, if necessary, without any public reprimand of China's coercive diplomacy -- makes it increasingly clear that Bush now views Taiwan's ballot box as more threatening than China's missiles.

US policymakers often tout how the one-China policy, en-shrined since the Nixon-Kissinger years, has enabled the US to improve its relations with China, whose cooperation on many international issues the US needs, and how it has helped Taiwan prosper economically and democratize politically, albeit under an ambiguous status. The implicit message is that the patron (the US) has been magnanimous, and the client (Taiwan) should be more grateful.

But gratitude should go both ways. During the Cold War, the US used its support of the Republic of China as the legal government of all China as a tool to contain communist China.

With detente, former US president Richard Nixon visited the PRC in 1972 and signed the Shanghai Communique, which paved the way for normalization of relations between the two countries.

But the framework that would be used to govern US policy toward Taiwan for the next three decades -- the diplomatic fiction that the US acknowledges that all Chinese on each side of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China -- not only lacked any input from Taiwanese people, whose fate was affected, but is out of sync with Taiwan's fast-democratizing polity.

Yet Bush has now bluntly told the Taiwanese to continue accepting a formula that serves US convenience and interests but is made without Taiwanese consent. The root problem lies in Beijing's refusal to acknowledge Taiwan as a separate and sovereign country and its insistence that all major powers and international organizations adhere to its one-China worldview.

But the US, with its power and prestige, should be able to set a better example than perpetuating a diplomatic fiction and chastising anybody who points out the obvious.

I recently met my relatives in Shanghai for the first time. It was a warm occasion. They sincerely told me that Taiwan would eventually return to the motherland. I had enough respect for them to tell them that most people in Taiwan do not want to join China -- at least now, when China still has an authoritarian and nationalist government that threatens Taiwan, and that their textbooks had failed them by telling only half-truths.

We in the US teach our children that US foreign policy reflects this country's democratic values. How can we explain our Taiwan policy to them?

Vincent Wang is a political science professor at the University of Richmond and author of numerous articles on Taiwan and China.

China seeks US wiggle room in nuke talks

`WASTING TIME: ' A frustrated Beijing is disappointed that, unlike Pyongyang, the US seems unwilling to be more flexible in six-way discussions, analysts said

REUTERS , BEIJING

Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003,Page 5

China, indicating growing frustration with Washington at the lack of progress in resolving North Korea's nuclear crisis, has urged the US to be more flexible in the next round of talks.

North Korea threatened on Monday to add to its nuclear arsenal if six-nation talks on the crisis were delayed, saying Washington was "wasting time" by rejecting Pyongyang's offer to freeze its nuclear arms program.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing delivered Beijing's message to US Secretary of State Colin Powell from Ethiopia where he is travelling with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, the official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.

"Li briefed Powell on China's stand and expressed hope for the US side to take a more flexible and practical attitude in preparation for the next round of six-party talks," Xinhua said in a report from Addis Ababa.

Analysts said the appeal was a sign of Beijing's frustration over a lack of headway in resolving the crisis after it first hosted three-way talks, then six-way talks in August and is now trying to set up the next round.

China's pressure on Washington came days after getting strong backing from US President George W. Bush on Taiwan.

Bush prompted the latest warning from Pyonyang when he rejected North Korea's demand for energy aid and other items in exchange for a freeze on its suspected nuclear arms programme.

Bush told Wen during the premier's visit to Washington last week that the US goal was not a freeze but a full, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of the program.

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher brushed off suggestions of Chinese pressure, saying Beijing had urged all parties to take a flexible stance and Washington was "willing to work with the Chinese to establish a good basis for talks."

It was not the first time China has criticized the US over North Korea, but analysts said Li's remarks reflected growing frustration with Washington over the crisis, which has festered for more than a year.

"China asked the United States to be more flexible because North Korea has shown flexibility, while the United States has not," said Jin Canrong, who teaches international relations at Renmin University.

Despite a flurry of shuttle diplomacy, expectations that North Korea would join South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China in talks on the nuclear crisis in December have given way to plans to convene the meeting in January.

In Washington, Boucher said the Chinese had concluded it would not be possible to hold a meeting this week and that Washington was now looking at possible talks early next year.

North Korea's ruling party newspaper criticised Washington on Monday for rejecting the North's proposal for a "simultaneous package solution" under which Pyongyang would freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid.

"Its delaying tactics would only result in compelling the DPRK [North Korea] to steadily increase its nuclear deterrent force," the Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a report published by the official KCNA news agency.

Last week, South Korea, the US and Japan conveyed to China their proposed wording for a resolution to end the 14-month-old crisis, under which the two sides would set up a step-by-step process.

Myanmar pledges democracy map

REUTERS , BANGKOK

Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003,Page 5

Military-ruled Myanmar promised on Monday it would embark on its "road map to democracy" by convening a constitutional convention next year, Thailand's Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai said.

All political parties, including democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), would be invited to the convention, Surakiart quoted Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung as telling a 12-nation gathering.

"I was glad to hear Win Aung telling the meeting that the year 2004 will be a very busy year," Surakiart told a news conference after a three-hour meeting. "There will be a national convention to start drafting the constitution."

There was no time frame for how long the process might take and NLD sources in Yangon said the party had not been contacted by the isolated military government on holding a convention.

"The national convention will consist of around 800 people and it is impossible to predict what 800 people will agree and when," Surakiart said.

The military government opened a convention in early 1993 aimed at drawing up a constitution that would enshrine a leading role for the military in politics. Suu Kyi's party walked out of it in 1995. It has not met since 1996.

But Surakiart suggested Myanmar's leadership aimed to finish the constitution and hold a referendum on the draft next year, saying the first three steps of Prime Minister Khin Nyunt's seven-step plan for democracy would happen next year.

A referendum is step three of the "road map to democracy" that Khin Nyunt, who is also chief of military intelligence, outlined soon after taking office in August.

The US reacted skeptically.

"We have seen promises ... from Burmese authorities," US Department of State spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. "What we want to see is the kind of action that would demonstrate that they're really going to allow the political forces in Burma and the ethnic minorities to participate in Burma's future."

Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide general election victory in 1990 but the military, which has ruled the nation formerly known as Burma since 1962, ignored the result.

Thailand, hoping to ease Myanmar's isolation, brought together a dozen countries to hear Win Aung explain the plan and there were few expectations of progress with Suu Kyi still languishing under house arrest. Suu Kyi and scores of her supporters were locked up at the end of May following a bloody attack on her convoy by pro-government youths.

But Australian representative Christine Gallus said there was "a very frank exchange of views," diplomatic jargon for blunt talk, and Win Aung had been pressed to free Suu Kyi.

Surakiart told the news conference Win Aung had said Suu Kyi's life would be "normalized in the near future."

Thailand, pursuing a policy of "constructive engagement" with a neighbor shunned by much of the Western world, had wanted foreign ministers to attend, but none came.

Most sent junior ministers or senior foreign ministry officials. Only Indonesia, which dispatched influential former foreign minister Ali Alatas, and the UN, which sent special envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismael, sent senior figures.

Other participants included Austria, China, Singapore, Japan, Italy, current chairman of the EU, India, France and Germany.

The US, which imposed more sanctions on Myanmar after Suu Kyi was arrested again in May, was not invited.

Legislature condemns missile threat

THREAT TO PEACE: The competing camps in the legislature passed two resolutions asking Beijing to remove its missiles after being unable to agree on a single version of the draft

By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER

Wednesday, Dec 17, 2003,Page 1

"They're still emotionally attached to China and refuse to cut the umbilical cord to their motherland."

－Sheng Fu-hsiung, a DPP legislator

The legislature yesterday passed two resolutions proposed by the ruling and opposition parties asking China to dismantle missiles aimed at Taiwan.

The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) proposal stated that the Republic of China (ROC) is a sovereign nation and is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China (PRC).

It said China should remove its missiles targeted at Taiwan and respect the nation's sovereignty and Taiwanese people's will to pursue peace and democracy.

The proposition jointly proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) said the ROC is an independent sovereign state and that the status quo should not be altered by any foreign force.

To allay the political and military tension across the Taiwan Strait, China should stop deploying new missiles and gradually dismantle its ballistic missiles aimed at the nation, the pan-blue camp's version said.

Angered by the opposition bloc's refusal to add "the ROC is not subordinate to the People's Republic of China" to the proposed resolution, the DPP caucus held a press conference after failed cross-party negotiations to berate the opposition alliance's pro-unification stance.

"They're still emotionally attached to China and refuse to cut the umbilical cord to their motherland," said DPP Legislator Sheng Fu-hsiung. "The KMT and PFP will never say Taiwan and China are two different countries as their bottom-line is `one China.'"

DPP Legislator Lin Cho-shui said it is amazing that the opposition alliance refuses to recognize the People's Republic of China.

"Their theory is that there's only one country. However, they have remained evasive about the identify of that country -- whether it's the People's Republic of China or Republic of China," he said.

The opposition bloc should shed its antiquated position and realize that there is one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait and that Taiwan is not part of China, Lin said.

"They shouldn't entertain such a quixotic hope of reunifying with China because it's at odds with not only reality but also the will of the Taiwanese people," he said.

Calling the DPP's accusation "unfair," KMT legislative whip Lee Chia-chin said the DPP is a "cult of Taiwan independence fundamentalists."

"Instead of focusing on the true spirit of the resolution, which we share with the DPP, it appeals to trivia on our political stance and the wording of the resolution," Lee said.

Following the passage of the resolution, Lee said he did not see the necessity of mounting a "preventive referendum" on March 20 as pledged by President Chen Shui-bian.

"If he still insists on doing so, I believe the people will question its necessity because the legislature has passed two resolutions asking Beijing to dismantle missiles aimed at us," he said.

DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung, however, said expressing the people's opinion via a popular vote is different than relying on the representative system.

"Although I agree that a `preventive referendum' doesn't have much domestic significance, it sends out our message to the international community and puts pressure on Beijing," he said.