KMT cheating the people: DPP

CONSTITUTION: The pan-green camp says the KMT promised to push for reforms in the run-up to the last legislative elections, only to back away from its pledge

By Lin Chieh-yu

STAFF REPORTER

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday, Constitution Day, to realize its promise of assisting with constitutional reform.

"We hope the KMT will clearly tell the public again whether it still stands by its promise to the DPP to achieve three major constitutional reforms," said DPP legislative caucus leader Chen Chi-mai.

Those goals, Chen said, include reducing by half the number of seats in the legislature, giving people the right of initiative to amend the Constitution, and inserting an article on assets stolen by political parties into the Constitution.

"We remember that KMT caucus leader Lee Chia-chin once represented his party to sign a proposal to add an assets article into the Constitution. We want to ask Lee, do you now regret this?" Chen said.

"The KMT originally said the initiative article was the people's basic right and this mechanism should be written into the Referendum Law," Chen said. "However, it revoked the article of initiative from its referendum bill, which demonstrated that the party is continually cheating the people of Taiwan," he said.

According to the newly passed Referendum Law, only the Legislative Yuan can propose a constitutional amendment.

Chen said the DPP wished to hammer out the entire legislative procedure for constitutional amendments on legislative reform before the end of this session, but added the KMT reversed its stance on the issue and now blocks any move by the DPP at the Legislative Yuan.

DPP Legislator Lai Ching-te said the four major political parties had pledged to support downsizing the Legislative Yuan, but only the green camp has kept the promise.

Lai said the four major parties signed on during the 2001 legislative election to support the reforms, which included reducing the number of legislative seats and replacing the multi-member district, one-vote electoral system with a single-member district, two-vote system.

"The KMT even signed on to support investigating all political parties' assets and to insert an article into the Constitution stating that parties cannot own companies," Lai said. "It is obvious that the KMT has retreated from its position."

ROC exists only in the imagination

By Yen Chueh-an

Lately, stupid comments have been filling the air.

The economy, the Legislative Yuan and the president have all become real issues invisible to stupid people. But all observations miss out on something, so I will not dare say that I understand the real issues, but I do feel that the Republic of China (ROC) is an important source of these issues.

From an historical point of view, the ROC has, objectively speaking, ceased to exist, though it continues to exist in the imaginations of certain people.

The idea that both China and Taiwan are part of the same country, and the idea of national "splittism," have marked Taiwan and the Taiwanese people with the stamp "Chinese property." Okay, let's assume that this is correct. What conclusion does that lead to?

Based on the commonly accepted premise that Taiwan will not be able to defend itself from China without the US' help, the ROC only exists because China tolerates it.

More correctly, the existence of the ROC is in fact an exceptional situation approved by the sovereign Chinese people. From this perspective, the ROC Constitution is in fact a piece of special legislation under China's constitution, and the ROC's territory a special capitalist region tolerated and accepted by China.

This is why "one country, two systems" has been in existence for a long time. If the history of the ROC's staunchest supporter, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), can be retraced all the way back to the Society for Regenerating China, it is in fact a political group that has been rebelling and that has been rebelled against for a long time.

After much effort, it finally launched a successful rebellion against the Qing dynasty, but its leaders traded off the presidency and then retreated to the south to set up a rebel group. The presidency was given to the warlord Yuan Shih-kai, who helped the KMT's uprising against the Qing dynasty. The KMT retreated to southern China and started a rebellion against Yuan when he made himself emperor.

The KMT established a constitutional government after a great deal of effort, only to see a communist rebellion launched against it immediately, forcing it to suppress the rebellion. Once the KMT lost momentum, the ROC Constitution only held force in Taiwan, a place occupied by what China saw as a rebel group. The ROC Constitution became like an old religious symbol to be stored in a cellar and not used anymore.

Did this political power truly want to implement constitutional government? When was this Constitution the basic law of a nation? Where is that nation?

When the New Party gave up its longstanding opposition to nuclear power and supported the continued construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in the name of the constitution, the high priests of the ROC were happy enough to leave nuclear waste here while they ran off to the other side of the Taiwan Strait to live a life of splendor.

The KMT proposed that the president, according to the Constitution, should call on the majority party to create a Cabinet, forgetting that the majority party could simply topple the Cabinet. It was difficult to understand why the KMT, being the majority party, couldn't simply engineer a no-confidence vote and bring down the DPP Cabinet.

When the legislative speaker said he didn't rule out the option of future Taiwanese independence, but neglected to propose any constitutional process for its realization, we all were alerted to the possibility that the empty ROC Constitution was not meant to serve the expansion of a nationalist Chinese sacred motherland, but rather to serve a liberal democratic republic in its efforts to transform and educate the vulgar people of Taiwan.

Since all stupid people have problems, the clever ones should work together to draft a new constitution. A constitution without a nation and a nation without a constitution: such a situation is but a soap opera in which lovers keep missing out on each other, and that should be quickly ended. Otherwise, we will all forget that there are other issues, such as the domestic violence problem.

Yen Chueh-an is a law professor at National Taiwan University.

Australian missile research raising ire

ASIAN ARMS RACE: More notice has gone to Japan's purchase of a US system, but Australia's participation in US missile research gives pause to Asian neighbors

THE GUARDIAN , LONDON

Just before Japan announced its decision to buy an unproven US missile shield to defend itself against any future North Korean attack, the Australian government chose a much cheaper option.

It announced its decision to seek a research role in the multi-layered systems being developed by the US' Missile Defense Agency.

Although overshadowed by the later Japanese commitment to spend tens of billions of dollars to acquire a missile defense capability as soon as 2007, the Australian move adds to regional concerns that the program may spur a dangerous Asian arms race.

The Indonesian government said Australia's decision could destabilize the region and spark a regional contest to acquire increasingly sophisticated offensive and defensive systems.

"Australia should deal with its neighbors and not try to isolate itself from the region," the Indonesian foreign affairs spokesman, Marty Natelgawa, told Australian reporters.

"Our view has always been that research into such a system opens the potential for a new arms race. It could be potentially destabilizing," he said.

"As far as Indonesia is concerned, destabilization is not something that's inevitable, but from where we stand at the moment we see these things offering more uncertainties or complications than solutions."

The Chinese embassy in Canberra refused to comment on the Australian support for the missile defense system.

Its silence was a clear diplomatic signal of its displeasure and put the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, on the defensive.

"The arms race argument is absurd," Downer said. "While China has never supported our position they increasingly understand that it isn't directed either at them, or the China-Taiwan issue.

"Australia is not being a US lackey as some of our critics claim. Our concern is the possibility of long range missiles being fired at Australia.

"We have to have some capacity to defend ourselves."

However, the analytical briefings being given in Canberra include some additional elements.

A comparison is being drawn between the economic stresses that US president Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program put on an already failing Soviet economy in its final years and the impact the "little" or baby Star Wars technology of the missile defense program might impose on the cash-starved regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.

Even though the Star Wars missile defense umbrella for the US was later declared a technological impossibility it is often argued to have been the most lethal mind game ever waged by one superpower against another.

The US ambassador in Australia, Thomas Schieffer, keeps comparing the two programs in his public comments.

"Star Wars was a strategic system designed to deter great powers like Russia and China. This system is directed only at rogue states.

"We hope that China and Russia will participate. We do not think it is a threat," he said.

Whether designed to bring down the North Korean economy, or any missiles it might fire at Japanese, the missile defense program seems likely to get conditional support from Mark Latham, the new leader of the Australian Labor Party.

In the few weeks that he has been opposition leader, Latham has put Labor into serious contention to beat the current conservative coalition government of Prime Minister John Howard in the general election, which must be held sometime next year.

While Latham has refused to give immediate endorsement to an Australian role in the US program pending future discussions, party sources say he favours participation because it would give the country a seat at the table when crucial decisions were being made.

Apart from that, Latham has pledged to maintain defense ties with the US despite calling US President George W Bush "the most dangerous US president in history."

Canberra defense analyst Geoffrey Barker said the missile defense system was technically speculative and strategically momentous.

"It is especially likely to have repercussions in our region, where China, our most important emerging trading partner, is deeply skeptical.

"It overturns three decades of thinking on nuclear containment based on the deterrent of mutually assured destruction and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. It also promises to be prohibitively costly, with a down payment of $50 billion over the next five years, though Australia's contribution will be small."

And the doubts keep mounting up, like the costs. In September the US General Accounting Office noted that only two of ten technologies vital to the success of the missile shield are proven.

The American Physical Society, representing eminent physicists and engineers linked to the defense establishment, had declared that a crucial part of the missile shield -- stopping a missile during the rocket boost phase -- might never work.

However, defense sources in Canberra say the initial system looks promising, being based on Aegis class destroyers firing SM-3 interceptor rockets toward rising hostile missiles, and ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles mopping up those that made it closer to their targets.

Unfortunately, promising doesn't mean foolproof or terrorist-proof.

None of the analysts briefing the Australian media could explain how the missile defense system would stop the personal delivery of a nuclear or biological weapon via a briefcase.

Sources believe rogue official back in Taiwan

By Brian Hsu

STAFF REPORTER

"Pan is being held somewhere by the NSB so they can gain an understanding of the motives behind his return. He might be released in a few days."－An anonymous defense source

Former National Security Bureau (NSB) official Pan Hsi-hsien, who violated regulations to travel to and work in China three years ago shortly after retirement, may have returned to the country on Monday, sources said yesterday.

Pan, who retired on June 1, 2000, as personnel department chief of the NSB, had been in China for the past three years.

Pan flew to China three days after retirement, making front-page news. He was the first senior NSB official to violate regulations to travel to China after retirement.

According to regulations, Pan was not allowed to travel to or stay in China within three years of retirement because he had handled sensitive materials while working for the government.

A defense source said Pan likely returned to the country on Monday but that he has yet find out why he chose to return at this moment.

It was also not known whether Pan had returned by airplane or by other means such as by fishing boat.

"Pan is being held somewhere by the NSB so they can gain an understanding of the motives behind his return. He might be released in a few days," the source said.

The NSB, however, denied that Pan has already returned to the country, saying he should still be in China.

Independent Legislator Peter Lin, a former member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was skeptical of the NSB's statements.

"I have strong reasons to suspect that Pan has come back. But the NSB keeps telling me nonsense," Lin said.

"As I first called them for a confirmation of rumors about Pan's return, I was told that they were holding a meeting to find out whether Pan had indeed returned," he said.

"They are treating me like a child. Would I be so stupid to believe that they could determine a person's whereabouts through a meeting? I have written an official letter to the NSB asking for an explanation of the matter," he said.

Lin, who has a doctorate in medical science from Johns Hopkins University in the US, said he suspected the NSB was trying to cover for Pan, who should otherwise be condemned for his decision to go to China three years ago.

"Pan came back apparently for the purpose of money," he said. According to new rules, Pan can collect a retirement pension if he comes back before Jan. 1. Under the old rules, Pan's family could collect the pension on his behalf.

On assets, KMT must get serious

By Michael Hsiao

`I thought that the KMT would be more active in dealing with its assets in a new political environment. Especially back then, the party was emphasizing reform.'

In international political circles, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has long been known by its nickname -- "KMT Inc." This is because KMT Inc is a party that possesses not only political power but also great wealth, making it no different from a monopoly.

More than 10 ten years ago, the Taipei Society published a document that outlined property owned by the KMT. This made quite a stir. It allowed the public to have a glimpse at the businesses owned by KMT Inc and made the issue of party assets, which had long been taboo, a public political issue. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) also played a major role in disclosing the secret political and economic operations of the KMT over the past half century.

Now it has been three years since the two parties switched their roles as ruling and opposition parties. The KMT still does not seem to be determined to thoroughly examine the legitimacy of its assets. The party is still reluctant to redeem itself by returning its stolen assets. That is why the DPP is using the issue to attack the KMT as the presidential election draws near.

Before the presidential election in 2000, then KMT presidential candidate Lien Chan proposed putting KMT assets in a trust, a policy welcomed by the public, though the public doubted the party's commitment. Then KMT chairman Lee Teng-hui even formed a task force to transfer the party assets into a trust fund.

As representatives of the public, attorney Henry Rai and I were invited to participate in the task force as consultants and supervisors. As I recall, two meetings were held before the election.

Rai and I insisted that, first, the task force make a real effort to succeed in its work, instead of just feigning an effort; otherwise, it would lose the public's trust.

Second, the reason that the KMT's assets were to be put into a trust was not mismanagement or business losses. Rather, it was that impropriety might have been involved in the acquisition of the property.

Third, making public a list of the party's assets was not enough. The processes by which the assets had been acquired had to be made clear as well. The party first needed to judge on its own whether these assets were legally acquired, and then let the public make up its mind. All of these steps had to be taken right away.

At that time, though the media covered the task force widely, the DPP thought of it as nothing more than a campaign trick to make Lien look good. However, because Rai and I did not want the task force to be used as a campaign tool, we had agreed to be consultants.

We believed that the KMT's assets had to be exposed in order to provide justice to society and the country. Since that was what the KMT said it wanted to do, we welcomed the effort.

Frankly speaking, the task force did not do much before the election.

It only listed real estate assets under the KMT's name. It mentioned nothing about its more disputed assets. Rai and I insisted in task force meetings that the KMT must deal with these assets quickly.

But my impression at the time was that there was no time for any concrete measures to deal with party assets before the election. It was thus up to the people to decide whether the KMT and Lien had the credibility and determination to take any meaningful steps.

Lien lost the election and the KMT lost the political power it had enjoyed over the past 50 years.

I thought that the KMT would be more active in dealing with its assets in a new political environment. Especially back then, the party was emphasizing reform. Solving the problem of party assets seemed to be essential to the reforms. Therefore I was hopeful.

After the election, the KMT requested that Rai and I continue to serve as consultants on the task force.

At the first meeting after the election, the documents that KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng provided dealt with real estate and evidence of legal registration.

Rai and I encouraged the KMT to make these lists public. At the same time, we reminded the party that legal registration was not equal to legal acquisition. If the KMT was determined to reform itself after its election defeat, it had to make known the facts surrounding the acquisition of its assets, so as to reconstruct the party's image.

That first meeting after the election was the last meeting that I attended.

I do not know whether the party has made any progress over the past three years. Neither do I know if the KMT and Lien have changed their minds about how to deal with the issue of party assets.

However, to judge from the KMT's remarks the other day saying the DPP should not use the issue to attack the KMT before the presidential election, and should not force the party to return seven movie theaters and make public a list of party assets, I believe that the KMT has wasted three years, during which it could have reformed itself by taking the initiative in solving the problem. But instead it has chosen to blame the DPP for destroying its image.

Now, looking back on my experience of four years ago in dealing with KMT assets, I feel a bit disappointed.

Michael Hsiao is executive director of the Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies at Academia Sinica.