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CROSS-STRAIT CONFLICT: US Department of State spokesman Richard Boucher said China's military buildup and missile deployment was destabilizing the region
CNA , WASHINGTON

The US considers the Chinese military buildup as destabilizing, according to the spokesman for the US Department of State.

"We do see the military buildup and missile deployment [against Taiwan] as destabilizing," spokesman Richard Boucher said during a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

"We've said that publicly as well, because it's a situation that is of importance to us and concern to us. We want to see peaceful resolution, we don't want to see coercion. And we want to be quite clear on that," Boucher noted.

The Pentagon warned in a report on May 28 that China was developing "credible military options" to prevent Taiwan from achieving independence, including tools to discourage the US from coming to Taiwan's aid in the event of a cross-strait conflict.

Beijing on Tuesday defended its military buildup as essential to "safeguarding national sovereignty" and brushed off the Pentagon report as being hostile and based on a Cold War mentality.

Boucher was asked during the press briefing how he can reconcile the fact that the US and China are enjoying a warmer relationship and better cooperation, like in Iraq, while the US at the same time still publicly treats China as a threat.

"We want to see peaceful resolution, we don't want to see coercion. And we want to be quite clear on that."

Richard Boucher, spokesman for the US Department of State

Boucher answered that he would not speak for the Pentagon report or comment on the Chinese reaction to it, but he did say that "we have had a very consistent policy of cooperating with China wherever we can but also being clear about our differences."

"And when it comes to the Taiwan Straits, I think we have a very consistent policy supporting peaceful resolution. We have opposed the use of force to settle the conflict in the Taiwan Straits, and we view military coercion as counterproductive. So that's been a very steady policy that we've enunciated before," Boucher said.

As to reports that the UK is about to join France and other EU members to lift the EU ban on arms sales to China, Boucher answered that he hasn't heard anything from the British on the issue.

However, Boucher added that "we've been fairly consistent in our talks with European Union members, making clear our view that it's not time to lift the arms embargo on China that they have."

Following the presidential inauguration, I was returning to my hotel room to get out of my rain-soaked clothes.

On the way, I happened to glance toward the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters and it dawned on me that I agreed with the words on the pan-blue banner hanging there: "No truth, no president."

The truth is that in a democracy, presidents are not appointed by a few men meeting behind closed doors, with the public having no choice but to accept pre-arranged decisions; instead, people in democracies choose their leaders in an open, transparent and fair process.

The truth is that those dissatisfied with the election process may resort to the legal system to address their complaints, but they must accept the final judgments made under the rule of law. Those dissatisfied with election results must accept the decision of the people.

KMT Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party Chairman James Soong , you are right: no truth, no president.

China's threats never end
China is once again putting its military might on display in order to threaten Taiwan. Hong Kong media outlets reported Tuesday that China would hold military exercises on Dongshan Island off Fujian Province. According to the reports, the exercises would involve large numbers of personnel, aircraft and submarines.

The purpose of making threats is to frighten one's opponent and in so doing to hijack that opponent's freedom to think and act. As long as no attack actually materializes, the threat of attack always remains. Former president Lee Teng-hui cut to the chase concerning China's antics when he said: "A dog that bites doesn't bark, so if you want a fight, get on with it."

Lee, in his straightforward way, revealed what lies at the heart of China's military threats. China doesn't have to attack; by making occasional threats, it can always frighten some Taiwanese, ensuring that they don't dare contravene China's wishes.

But given the sensitivity and fragility of the international economic environment, China does not really need to invade Taiwan. It can hurt Taiwan more than enough by test-firing the occasional missile and complicating Taiwan's international relations -- for this is sufficient to cause investors to pull out of Taiwan, the stock market to crash, Taiwanese society to be disrupted and people to leave the country.

Since China stopped shelling Kinmen in the 1970s, Chinese threats have caused Taiwan's economic and political reform to make progress very slowly. Only US promises of military assistance have been able to relax the political and economic situation in Taiwan.

But China's threat-making has been constant, though new pretexts are sometimes provided for it. During the Lee era, China threatened Taiwan time and again, calling Lee a traitor and saying that he would be swept into the dustbin of history. Now that President Chen Shui-bian has taken over, China is continuing its threats, saying that Chen is promoting Taiwan's independence, while itself organizing military exercises of various kinds.

We don't know if the Chinese people should be proud or sorry that China, a country claiming to have a glorious 5,000 year-old culture, has become the nightmare of Taiwan, a country sharing its culture.

In short, it is difficult to reason with China's leaders -- so Taiwan must help itself.

Only by improving its military preparedness will Taiwan have any bargaining chips in cross-strait negotiations. Only by tightening military exchanges with the US and Japan and upgrading the nation's military hardware will Taiwan gain an effective deterrent against rash Chinese action.

China's military expenditures have increased over the years while those of Taiwan have gradually declined. To improve that nation's anti-missile equipment and strengthen its naval capability, yesterday the Cabinet finally proposed a NT$610.8 billion (US$17.9 billion) special budget to buy modern weapons from the US. Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai called on all political parties to support the budget plan when legislators review it.

Security across the Taiwan Strait is crucial not only to the development of Taiwan's politics and economy but also to regional peace in Asia. Once disorder occurs in Taiwan, it may damage the political and economic stability of neighboring countries -- such as Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries. In particular, as China's political and economic power increases, its military expansion threatens the military balance in East Asia.

The Chinese military expansion is indeed worrisome. No wonder US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher expressed his concern during a press briefing on Tuesday, saying that the US sees "the [Chinese] military buildup and missile deployments as destabilizing."

TREMBLING HEARTS: The mothers of those killed face house arrest and worse for fighting against the official interpretation of the killing, but they won't be silenced
REUTERS , BEIJING
Fifteen years after troops backed by tanks crushed China's democracy movement centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, some survivors and families of the dead are still seeking redress.

For Ding Zilin , a 67-year-old retired professor, the anniversary of her teenage son's death is another reason to press China's new generation of leaders to reverse the official verdict on the protests and come clean about those who disappeared.

"Today, as we face those names so familiar to us, our hearts continue to tremble and bleed," she wrote on behalf of the Tiananmen Mothers advocacy group in a letter sent to reporters in Beijing. "We should remember that the system we live in is full of barbarism, inhumanity and hypocrisy.

"It remains a system in which freedom and democracy are smothered, in which any sparks of civilization must be extinguished, and in which any who challenge this system must be ruthlessly suppressed," she wrote.

The mothers demanded that China's current leadership, led by President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who are keen to burnish their "men of the people" image, recognize the military suppression as a crime against humanity.

A student at Peking University stops to read ads promoting further educational and career opportunities posted at the school's famous ``triangle square'' yesterday. Fifteen years after the crushing of the Tiananmen democracy movement, students at universities where the protests began are far more concerned about finding jobs than marking an event of which they have little understanding.

"[They need] the kind of courage that can face the crimes of history with true repentance," wrote Ding, who rights groups say is under house arrest to prevent her from meeting journalists or publicly commemorating the June 4 anniversary.

Hu replaced Jiang Zemin as Communist Party chief in November 2002, and as Chinese president last year. Jiang had succeeded Zhao Ziyang, who was sacked as party chief in 1989 for opposing the massacre.

The Tiananmen Mothers recorded the names of 182 people killed during the massacre, including Cheng Renxing , who fell at the base of a flagpole flying the Chinese flag at the center of the square, and Wu Guofeng , who appeared to die from bayonet wounds.

In March, Wen ruled out an appraisal of the 1989 protests, citing the need for unity and stability.

But authorities have changed their description of the protest from a "counter-revolutionary rebellion" to a "political disturbance," ostensibly playing down its significance in the hope that people would forget about it.

Witnesses and rights groups say hundreds, if not thousands, of people died during the crackdown. Some died on the streets giving first aid to the injured. Most victims are unaccounted for because their families fear repercussions if they come forward.

Many were killed at intersections such as the Muxidi Bridge in western Beijing, where ordinary citizens gathered to block tanks from rolling into the city center, they said.

For Bao Tong , Zhao's top aide in 1989 and the most senior official jailed over the protests, the use of force could have been avoided.

"It even should have been possible to seize the opportunity to expand political reform, which aimed at greater democracy," Bao wrote in a commentary, a copy of which was made available to foreign media.

Instead, human rights violations and curbs on press freedom had only worsened, he said.

"The party seems to have put itself back in charge of judging and making arrests in political cases, and in charge of media and publishing, all to support its policy of `stability above all,'" wrote Bao, who has been under tight surveillance since his release from prison in 1996.

Analysts said a reassessment of the protests was next to impossible in the near future because leaders who were either involved in or benefited from the crackdown are still alive.

Journalist Dai Qing , one of China's most celebrated dissident writers and a 1989 protester, says moderate activism is the most effective path to reform.

"Back in those days, Wang Dan would never choose to do small things. But I don't think that just because it's small, it's not worth doing," she said.

People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong now favors the establishment of a parliamentary system, a clear indication that the pan-blues no longer believe that they will be able to attain power under the current presidential system.

Casting aside a presidential system in favor of a parliamentary system is now seen by Soong as an opportunity to gain advantage because he believes that the pan-blue superiority in the legislature will allow him to turn defeat into victory.

Is Soong trying to pull a fast one by favoring a parliamentary system? This is the first question.

Putting aside the interminable debate over which system is superior -- will adopting a parliamentary system in fact give an advantage to the pan-blues? This is the second question.

Media reports have suggested that Soong has realized that in the last three direct presidential elections, which have all been winner-takes-all, candidates have been pushed to rash actions in their desperation to win, a problem exacerbated by the lack of judicial and media impartiality. He has described the phenomenon as "Latin Americanization." To counter this, he believes that the only way to resolve the ethnic question and create a stable and peaceful political environment is to adopt a parliamentary system.

`The 60% of the vote obtained by Soong and KMT Chairman Lien Chan in the 2000 elections is not their property, and their belief that "one plus one is greater than two" is pure myth.'

Is this due to a weak intellect or is it the result of focusing on political maneuvering to the exclusion of any proper analysis of the two systems?

In fact, it seems that Soong's only real consideration is expressed in the idea of winner-takes-all. This is because the winner has not been the pan-blues; it is the pan-greens who have taken it all. As a result, the only option left to Soong is to change the rules of the game.

From this it's obvious that the pan-blues have lost all hope of an election victory, and in future elections, the pan-blues will have less and less support, until eventually they have none at all.

Will the pan-blues have an opportunity to revive their fortunes if a parliamentary system is introduced? Or are they overestimating themselves and underestimating their opponents?

In this year's presidential election, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and PFP believed that by working together they could achieve a "second transfer of power." This turned out to be little more than a pipe dream.

The will of the people is not the property of any one party and cannot be held hostage. The 60 percent of the vote obtained by Soong and KMT Chairman Lien Chan in the 2000 elections is not their property, and their belief that "one plus one is greater than two" is pure myth.

Having said this, even if a parliamentary system is adopted, the pan-blues might not be able to get rid of their opposition status. The point is the will of the people; it has nothing to do with the system.