Let 'ROC' die with Chiang's cronies on Aug 25, 2004

Let 'ROC' die with Chiang's cronies

By Paul Lin

When it comes to the issue of national identification, unification and independence, proponents in Taiwan differ on the question of whether the nation in question is the "Republic of China" (ROC) or "Taiwan." The issue of national identification affects domestic ethnic unity.

A majority of Taiwanese clearly identify more closely with "Taiwan" than with the "Republic of China," but China's armed threat stops them from freely expressing that opinion. Identification with the ROC has declined, basically as a result of historical factors and the force of habit, followed by the passing of time, pressure from China and international realities. Based on these factors, the pan-green camp is demanding the "rectification" of Taiwan's national title, and in the face of this pressure toward localization, even the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), although "Chinese" is still part of its name, has to chime in and call for localization.

Lately, the KMT has proposed a fundamental discourse regarding the relationship between the "ROC" and "Taiwan" in an attempt to integrate the two. The issue is, however, fraught with problems.

The greatest obstacle is the reactionary forces in the party's Central Standing Committee who will not even accept the slogan "the ROC and Taiwan are the same thing." In the end, KMT Chairman Lien Chan settled the issue with the far-fetched expression "the ROC is the best guarantor for Taiwanese democracy and peace."

More or less at the same time, during his visit to Honduras, Premier Yu Shyi-kun used the name "Taiwan, ROC" several times in another obvious attempt to integrate the two. The reason why he waited until he arrived in Honduras to use this name was probably the fact that pass cards dispatched to the delegation's motorcade during their earlier visit to the Dominican Republic bore the term "China, Taiwan." Not only did that confuse Taiwan with China, it also implied that China is part of Taiwan, which of course is preposterous. Other similar incidents made Yu feel the necessity to clarify the relationship between Taiwan, the ROC and China in a diplomatic context. Then there are, of course, different opinions about how that is best done.

There is no reason to deny that the concepts "Taiwan," "ROC," "People's Republic of China (PRC)" and "China" are easily confused. Among these, "China" has been claimed by the PRC, and that has become accepted by a majority of nations around the world. It would not be an easy task for the ROC to reclaim that name. If ROC territory expanded to the Yellow River, using the name "China" would make sense, but calling Taiwan "China" does not make much sense, both because Taiwan has never represented China, and because its geographical location far removes it from the center of China.

The "one country on each side [of the Taiwan Strait]" approach is abundantly clear about Taiwan, but it is opposed by unification proponents. Yu's statement, or, for that matter, earlier statements by Vice President Annette Lu, are attempts at finding a compromise based on domestic factors. This kind of compromise is, however, being scoffed at by Taiwan's unificationists as "looking for unnecessary trouble," "trying to take advantage" and so on.

Is it really a matter of looking for unnecessary trouble to try to clarify the difference between Taiwan and China? Who are they trying to "take advantage" of? Could it be that admitting that Taiwan is part of China is the clever thing to do? It is exactly this defeatist attitude of the unificationists, delivering Taiwan to China, that is causing more Taiwanese to develop a crisis awareness and become more vociferous in their demands for correcting Taiwan's national title.

But using "Taiwan" and "ROC" together is a matter of expediency. When I was invited to Taiwan to watch the election earlier this year, I sent photos and other information from New York to handle formalities related to the visit, but the recipient never received my letter because the envelope said "Taiwan, ROC." When I sent a second letter by registered mail, the post office clerk eradicated the letters "ROC," saying that it otherwise would go to China, because as long as that "C" was there, it meant "China." At the same time as this second letter arrived, the recipient also received the first letter, re-routed from China. And when I participated in a radio show in New York, using the term "President of the Republic of China," I was told that I could not say "Republic of China." I guess this is what is meant by the US' "one China" policy.

According to that policy, Taiwan has far more international space than the ROC. Since this is the reality, anyone who does not want to deliver Taiwan to the PRC should stop holding on to the name "ROC" because emotions also have to give in to reality. I think that as all the old people who came over to Taiwan together with Chiang Kai-shek pass on, their emotions will die with them and Taiwan's national title will be "rectified" as a matter of course.

Paul Lin is a commentator based in New York.

Government must halt ex-official's `revelations'

By Chin Heng-wei

The former director of the National Security Bureau's special service center, Peng Tzu-wen, has said that he would not "take a bullet for President Chen Shui-bian." This was the first such "confession" from a bureau official. Peng has since been a frequent guest on TV talkshows, showing off his professional knowledge.

All this grandstanding is making Taiwanese nervous, because they are afraid that it might not be just Peng acting as an individual, but that it reflects the collective ideology created by a single-party state. How many people like Peng will emerge in Taiwan? What is even more scary is that, with people like him around, Taiwan has no national security to speak of. We needn't wait for China to "decapitate" Taiwan; people like Peng are sufficient to do that.

Peng's continuous chatter on TV has finally led to accusations that he has leaked military secrets and violated both his oath of service and the official secrets provisions that he signed on retirement. These are criminal offenses, and if they are proven to be true, Peng will go to jail.

If behavior like Peng's is not eradicated, will there still be respect for the government's authority? Without legal restraint, what will prevent similar people from emerging? And then there will be no more need for China to send spies to Taiwan, and no quantity of missile defense systems will be sufficient to protect us.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Chiu Yi-ying and Kao Jyh-peng accused Peng of defying the law in his television appearances. They accused him of leaking national secrets after his televised disclosure of details concerning the deployment of special agents at the president's official residence. Peng even pinpointed the location of a security lookout for the Presidential Office. The damage of these revelations has already been done, but Chiu's and Kao's accusation should be applauded as a means of preventing further damage by Peng.

When Peng discovered that things were going badly for him, he hastily sought help from people such as journalist Huang Kuan-chin to persuade Chiu and Kao to let him off the hook. He said he would stop criticizing the president on TV if they cancelled their press conference, but they refused to yield.

His guilt can be seen from the following: First, if Peng doesn't have a guilty conscience, then why does he want to silence his critics?

Second, he has argued that the information he revealed in his TV talks had already been published in the media. But Huang, during a call-in program, implied that Peng was the person who originally leaked the information.

Third, if we accept the far-fetched proposition that Peng did indeed only discuss information that had already been revealed in the media, this still does not excuse him, for while the media muckrakes as part of the public's right to know, can the same be said of Peng, a member of the National Security Bureau?

Fourth, even if the information had been previously revealed in the media, Peng still violated the code of conduct for a national security officer by commenting publicly on it.

Fifth, media reporting is not proof that something is true. By publicly presenting his interpretation of these reports, Peng was giving them credibility. How can he say that he didn't leak national secrets?

Any one of these points is enough to make Peng a criminal.

The accusation made by Chiu and Kao demands not only a formal response from the National Security Bureau, but also requires the intervention of government prosecutors and the Control Yuan.

Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine. TRANSLATED BY LIN YA-TI

World Medical Association chief meets with Chen

RECOGNITION: Chen told the secretary general of the World Medical Association he hoped the group could help Taiwan gain WHO observer status
By Huang Tai-lin
STAFF REPORTER

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday received a high-ranking official from the World Medical Association (WMA), expressing hope that the WMA leader could help to facilitate Taiwan's membership in the international organization.

"I hope Taiwan's membership name in the World Medical Association could be changed to the Taiwan Medical Association' from [the current] `Chinese Medical Association Taipei," Chen said, while receiving the WMA's general-secretary, Delon Human, in the Presidential Office.

"It is very important and meaningful. I hope the [WMA] general-secretary can help in this regard," Chen added.

Founded in 1947, the WMA is an international organization representing physicians.

The organization says it has approximately 8 million members from more than 80 nations worldwide.

China is also a member of the organization, with its membership name the "Chinese Medical Association."

The president welcome Human despite the heavy rain yesterday brought on by the approaching Typhoon Aere.

Chen commended Human for bringing physicians from the organization here to promote the professional service of medical treatment, medical ethnics, human rights and medical education worldwide.

Human has held the general-secretary post since 1997.

Commenting that Taiwan's exclusion from the World Health Organization (WHO) has become a loophole in global epidemic prevention, Chen said he hoped Human could help the nation to join the WHO within the next two years.

"The government is currently making efforts to push [Taiwan] to become an observer at WHO within the coming two years, but this is not the only goal with respect to the nation's WHO participation," Chen told Human, who hails from South Africa.

"Taiwan ultimately hopes to have an opportunity to make contributions to the health care system in the world community and cooperate with the European Union and advanced Western countries which have encountered problems on issues relating to medical treatment, health care and hygiene," Chen said.

For his part, Human said he had witnessed tragedies when South Africa was under an apartheid system, and therefore could identify with Taiwan's quest for social and international justice.

He also said he sympathized with Taiwan's curious predicament during SARS outbreak last year.

Aside from meeting the president, Human also met with Chen Chien-jen, the Department of Health's director-general.

Noting that the nation should not be excluded from the WHO, Human said he would make efforts to help Taiwan obtain observer status in the world health body.

`Truth committee' statue goes too far, DPP says

FIGHT NOT OVER: The new statue spelling out the guidelines for the March 19 shooting investigation committee infringe on the Constitution, the DPP says

By Chang Yun-ping
STAFF REPORTER

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday condemned the passage of the pan-blue camp's version of a statue to regulate the investigative committee on the March 19 shooting, saying the committee has seriously overridden the judicial power and infringed on the Constitution.

On the final day of the extra legislative sitting yesterday, the legislature passed the pan-blue's proposal for a special investigative committee -- which would use an independent prosecutor system -- to probe the March 19 assassination attempt on President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu. The DPP's proposal to ask the Control Yuan, the government's watchdog agency to direct the committee's operations was snuffed out.

DPP officials said yesterday that the Cabinet will propose renewed discussions in a bid to reverse the legislation. If it can not be vetoed, the DPP legislative caucus will file for a constitutional interpretation of the new law. If either action fails to stop the operations of the committee, the DPP will not rule out the possibility of withdrawing from the investigation panel to oppose the pan-blue camp's committee legislation.

Presidential Office Secretary General Su Tseng-chang said yesterday the pan-blue camp used its legislative majority to force the passage of the bill, which infringed the independence of the judicial power. The statue also has been widely criticized by private judicial-reform groups and academics, especially a clause which states that representation on the committee must reflect the number of legislators each party has in the Legislative Yuan.

"The statue is basically a product of the pan-blues' legislative violence," Su said yesterday in the party headquarters after a closed-door meeting of the Central Executive Committee.

Liang Wen-chieh, deputy director of DPP's Policy Research and Coordinating Committee said the pan-blue camp's statue -- which gives committee members the power to investigate, discern evidence and prosecute without the permission from the judiciary -- is unacceptable.

"It is ridiculous that committee members can use their political judgment to decide who is guilty and then mete out charges against them, totally disregarding the Code of Criminal Procedure. We have seen many prosecutors voice protests on the Web site of the Ministry of Justice," Liang said.

"These prosecutors said they would refuse to cooperate if asked by the committee," he said.

The DPP yesterday also released a public opinion poll regarding the pan-blue's shooting committee. The poll found that 57 percent of the public thought the committee should be free of political interference; 15.1 percent of the interviewees supported the pan-blue's committee legislation; and 27.9 percent had no opinion on the issue.

In other developments, the CEC members also agreed yesterday on a proposal that would require a direct election by all party members in choosing a new party chairman. The proposal is a revision to a 2002 party regulation which requires the president serve concurrently as the party chairman. The revision will be submitted to the party congress for final approval on Sept. 26. The 2002 party regulation which says the party can choose up to three vice chairmen was also canceled as well.