Value Ishihara's friendship ON Oct 29, 2004

Value Ishihara's friendship

In China there is an old saying that goes "old friends will visit in a storm," meaning that a friend will always be there in times of need. How apt this is for describing the recent visit to Taiwan by Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara. Unfortunately, due to some people's idea of hospitality, his well-intentioned visit turned sour. We owe Ishihara not only our gratitude, but an apology as well.

Ishihara is the governor of a major international city, and one would imagine that he has a very busy schedule. Regardless, he was able to find the time to visit Taiwan, and promote our tourist industry without asking for anything in return. This is something to be grateful for, especially when he fulfilled his promise to visit Taiwan despite the fact that his own country was in the midst of coping with the aftermath of typhoons and earthquakes. His decision not to change his itinerary shows how valuable his friendship is to Taiwan.

Many countries are forced to get celebrities to promote their tourist industries. Ishihara is helping Taiwan for free, and Taiwan could not purchase the services of such an influential spokesperson with any amount of money. Ishihara enjoys a high profile in Japan, and his promotion of the Taiwan Railway Administration's (TRA) new Star of Formosa is sure to bring in large numbers of Japanese tourists.

On Oct. 26, Ishihara, together with a large entourage of Japanese media, was invited by the TRA to join the Star of Formosa on her maiden journey to Ilan, Hualien and Taitung. However, because of Typhoon Nock-Ten, services were suspended between Taipei and Ilan, and the TRA worked through the night to get them up and running again, the general public had to wait until the evening before they could make their journey. There were immediate cries of "special privilege" by certain politicians and members of the public, spoiling what was to be a positive event for relations between Taiwan and Japan.

In fact, the Star of Formosa train that was used on Oct. 26 is a special train used for filming promotional materials. Running this train is quite different from running trains with regular passengers and has nothing to do with "special privilege." The safety considerations of such a train and regular trains are different. In fact, that afternoon, one northern rail line had to be closed again soon after opening, following rushed repairs, because of a derailment. The fact that Ishihara was willing to take a journey in the Star of Formosa in conditions that were far from ideal is something for which we should be grateful. This is hardly a special privilege!

Many politicians are already putting on a show in the runup to the year-end legislative elections. The result in this case is to censure and slander Ishihara, who is a friend of Taiwan and who is helping to promote tourism in this country. The fact that dysfunction within Taiwanese society has caused such offense is a matter for regret.

In a political establishment that largely fears China, Ishihara is one of the few politicians in Japan who has maintained a determined support for Taiwan and has been willing to say no to China. He not only supports Taiwan's sovereignty, but is also a friend to Taiwan's 23 million inhabitants. We should be proud to have such a friend, and we should cherish such friendship. Instead, pan-blue politicians have brought up the Sino-Japanese war, which is irrelevant to this matter. Taiwan ceased to be a Japanese colony with the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, and now has put aside any enmity with Japan.

It is only China, who was not a signatory to the treaty, that cannot forget the Sino-Japanese war and the fact that sovereignty over Taiwan didn't belong to China at that time. The pan-blue camp's attitude in censuring Ishihara simply goes to show that they have turned their back on benefiting the Taiwanese people, and that they are spiritually one and the same entity as the Beijing authorities.

Taiwan is sovereign, Kim says

DIRECT REACTION: Former South Korean president Kim Young-sam said Taiwan's existence as a sovereign nation with democratically elected leaders cannot be denied

By Melody Chen
STAFF REPORTER  

Taiwan is a sovereign country with national and local leaders directly elected by its people, former South Korean president Kim Young-sam said yesterday.

Accompanied by Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen, Kim held his first press conference since arriving in Taipei on Monday.

"Taiwan has a 23-million strong population. Its people elect the president, legislators and local governors. Taiwan is a sovereign nation," Kim told reporters at the Grand Hotel.

"Under the current circumstances, South Korea must develop its relations with China. However, Taiwan's existence is a fact that cannot be ignored," Kim said.

"Taiwan and South Korea should properly nurture bilateral political and economic ties," he said.

Chinese officials had endeavored to stop Kim from making the eight-day trip to Taiwan. They managed to persuade some of Kim's close friends to ask him not to visit Taipei and dispatched an official to his house to give him "gifts."

Kim, who was in Japan when the Chinese official visited his house, said the official explained Beijing's position on his Taiwan visit to his secretary.

"The official said China would like to invite me for a visit. He said I could meet with anyone I wanted to. Chinese officials approached me through various channels, but I was unmoved," Kim said through an interpreter.

Asked whether he was worried his trip to Taiwan would prompt condemnation from China, Kim said that for the moment he had no need to visit Beijing.

"In the future, if circumstances allow, I will visit China. Just see how things evolve," he said.

President Chen Shui-bian told Kim on Tuesday that Taiwan is an independent, sovereign nation and that it does not belong to China. This followed US State of Secretary Colin Powell's assertion during interviews with CNN and Phoenix TV that the US, China and Taiwan are seeking to bring about China and Taiwan's "peaceful reunification."

Kim, who met with former Chinese president Jiang Zemin many times during his five-year presidency, said he understood from his conversations with Jiang that the Chinese leaders are very concerned abut the Taiwan issue.

Jiang once expressed sympathy concerning the difficulties South Korea faced owing to its unresolved reunification problem with North Korea.

"China has its reunification problem, too," Kim quoted Jiang as saying.

"I don't think President Hu Jintao's Taiwan policy would be much different from Jiang's. I believe countries should keep in contact through dialogues," he said.

"Taiwan plays a significant role in Northeast Asia and the US should guard the safety of Taiwan," Kim said.

Kim, who visited the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters after the press conference, said the Taiwanese people do not need to overreact to Powell's remarks.

"Politicians sometimes made mistakes. This is inevitable. Politics cannot deny the reality. China never ruled over Taiwan. For the moment, China would not invade Taiwan because Taiwan is capable of defending itself," he said.

Kim also said he believed the DPP would perform brilliantly in the coming legislative elections.

Chen apologizes to Tokyo governor

PRIVILEGE: The president rejected and apologized for legislators' criticism of Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara's three-day trip on the scenic train Star of Formosa

By Huang Tai-lin
STAFF REPORTER 

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday offered an apology to Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara for what he felt was an embarrassment of Ishihara during his recent visit to Taiwan.

"On behalf of the government, I would like to express my deepest apology to [Ishihara] for the wrongs and misunderstandings he encountered during the past few days," Chen said while receiving Ishihara at the Presidential Office.

Chen was referring to criticism of Ishihara's three-day trip on the premium-class scenic train Star of Formosa by some media outlets and legislators, who described the trip as an abuse of privilege. The legislators slammed the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) for privileging dignitaries over regular passengers during a temporary shutdown of the railway because of Typhoon Nock-Ten, and asked why Ishihara was allowed to ride on the train while some 20,000 commuters were forced to delay or cancel their trips.

Ishihara was invited on the trip by Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san to help promote local tourism and to attract more Japanese visitors to Taiwan.

"To be a spokesman for Taiwan's tourism is tantamount to shooting an ad that needs special arrangements. Such is a matter of course that is natural and right. How could it be an abuse of privilege?" Chen asked, urging Ishihara not to take the criticisms seriously.

Noting that there are many counties which spend large sums to invite supermodels to be their spokespeople and promote tourism, Chen said Ishihara, who is in Taiwan helping to promote tourism free-of-charge, "is a `supermodel' that would be hard to invite even with a princely sum."

With that said, Chen expressed gratitude to Ishihara for adhering to his original schedule in visiting Taiwan, despite earthquakes and other disasters in Japan and Typhoon Nock-Ten.

Chen also said that "it is part of Taiwan's domestic aberrations that the more a foreign friend supports Taiwan, the more [he or she] will be vilified and treated as a leper by domestic factions."

"It is regrettable that a good friend such as Ishihara, who supports Taiwan's independent sovereignty, as usual is attacked by pro-unification groups here," Chen said.

"The international community is being very unfair, inasmuch as Taiwan enjoys independent sovereignty, yet its 23 million people can not simultaneously enjoy 100 percent of their sovereign rights," Chen said.

He told the governor that the nation was honored and proud to have friends such as Ishihara who support Taiwan.

Ishihara told Chen that he did not mind the incident as he knew it to be "a devilment produced by the media as a means to create a news story."

Officials fail to decide on exams for civil servants

DEADLOCK: At a meeting yesterday, the Examination Yuan could not decide whether to remove history and geography from entry-level civil-service exams

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
 

Amid protests by pro-independence and pro-unification groups, the Examination Yuan yesterday failed to decide whether to remove tests on the nation's history and geography from January's entry-level national civil service examinations.

A resolution was reached, however, during a weekly closed-door Examination Yuan meeting to send the proposal, along with three others, to committees for review, pending final approval at next Thursday's weekly meeting.

The Examination Yuan is required by law to make the decision two months before the examination takes place, or by Nov. 14, if it eventually decides to abolish the test. If it does so, over 40,000 examinees would take only three tests rather than four as part of their exams.

Outside the Examination Yuan, members of the Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan, many with the map of Taiwan painted on their bodies, chanted, "Taiwan, national!" and argued with their pro-unification opponents across the street.

The pro-unificationists meanwhile held memorial wreaths used in Taiwanese funerals to express their "condolences" regarding the newly appointed head of the basic-level civil servant recruitment examination committee and Examination Yuan member Lin Yu-ti, and Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen.

One of the messages attached to the floral arrangements read "in memory of Yao, Lin and other Examination Yuan members."

Lin caused a stir recently after saying he would only allow questions about Taiwan's history and geography to appear in national history and geography exams. Yao endorsed Lin's controversial proposal.

Yesterday's verbal bickering between the two groups then escalated into physical clashes when members of the alliance started to leave the site.

In response, alternative military servicemen were sent to guard the front gate of the Examination Yuan.

The Ministry of Examination has proposed three alternatives to scrapping the history and geography tests. The first is to remove tests on the nation's history and geography, as well as civics education, from national civil service examinations, starting with January's entry-level national examination.

The second proposal is to change the names of the tests to exclude the word "national" and specify the scope and percentage of questions that deal with Taiwan and China. It did not, however, propose specific percentages.

The final proposal is to maintain the names of the tests and specify the scope and percentage of questions. This proposal also does not set out specific percentages.

In addition to the three proposals, Examination Yuan members Chang Cheng-shuh and Chen Mao-hsiung filed a motion during the meeting, proposing to continue the tests but change their name from "national history and geography" to "Taiwan history and geography" to avoid confusion.

Opinions have been polarized regarding whether the history and geography of the Republic of China should cover just Taiwan, or both Taiwan and China.

Minister of Examination Lin Chia-cheng told the Taipei Times that he personally preferred to scrap the tests altogether.

"It doesn't make much sense to test examinees, most of whom are college graduates, with high school history and geography," he said. "Besides, since 2000 many national examinations have stopped testing examinees on history and geography."

PFP sticks to arms boycott

By Debby Wu
STAFF REPORTER 

The People First Party (PFP) caucus yesterday declared that it would not allow the statute governing the arms deal with the US to pass the Procedure Committee next week.

"If the US doesn't recognize the Republic of China (ROC) as a sovereign state, we should not buy the weapons," PFP caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung said.

At Tuesday's Procedure Committee meeting, the PFP, with the support of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), boycotted the statute in response to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement that "Taiwan is not a sovereign state."

The PFP's declaration poses a major threat to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's call to send the statute to committee review before the legislative elections.

If the statute does not pass the Procedure Committee next week, the next opportunity will be on Nov. 9. If the statute is passed on Nov. 9, there would not be enough time for it to get a first reading and be officially delivered to the related committees for review before the current legislative session is suspended on Nov. 10. The statute then will have to wait at least until Dec. 14 to get its first reading.

The KMT caucus yesterday remained ambiguous about whether it would support the PFP again in the committee, although it has sided with the PFP over the past few weeks to block the statute's passage by the committee.

"We haven't decided what to do next week yet," KMT caucus whip Huang Teh-fu said.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus, meanwhile, expressed disappointment with the PFP's attitude and said that the pan-blue hardliners were using Powell's statement as an excuse.

"The pan-blue camp is using Powell's remarks as an excuse to prevent the statute from being passed for review. But this may actually be Wang trying to shift his responsibility," DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yee said.

"Wang originally promised to help deliver the statute for review on time, but now he cannot be certain of that. This should have nothing to do with Powell's remarks. Instead, this is about the pan-blue hardliners rising again," Lee said.

Wang denied Lee's claim.

"It is the Procedure Committee, not me, which is in charge of arranging the bills for readings in the legislative sitting," he said.

Don't read too much into Powell statements

By Liu Kuan-teh 

The statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell that "[Taiwan] does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation," and his call for a peaceful unification between Taiwan and China have stirred up heavy political crossfire in Taipei.

Although Powell later corrected part of his terminology in an interview with CNBC (saying the right term was "peaceful resolution," not "peaceful unification") and the administration of US President George W. Bush clarified that no policy change had been made toward China and Taiwan, the timing and motivation of the initial unusual expression of Washington's stance on the cross-strait situation deserves an in-depth analysis.

First, did Powell's statement indicate changes to the US' long-term "one China" policy or was it simply a personal description of the current cross-strait situation?

The so-called US "one China" policy derives from the 1972 Shanghai communique, in which the US stated that it "acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China."

The US later agreed that the government of the People's Republic of China is the "sole legal government of China."

Under the "one China" policy, the US has never recognized Taiwan or the Republic of China as an independent and sovereign country.

From the perspective of policy implementation, the US has consistently rejected the idea of supporting Taiwan's participation in any international organizations where statehood is required. Even so, the principle is not entirely without exceptions given, for example, Bush's support of Taiwan's recent bid for observer status at the UN-affiliated World Health Assembly.

In this regard, Powell's interpretation should be treated as a continuation of the US' acknowledgement of Taiwan's official status quo. No political implication should be added into such a description.

As Chen pledged on several occasions, Taiwan will not preclude any possibilities for developing a future relationship with China -- as long as the formula is accepted by the people of Taiwan.

What Taiwan insists on is the process used to reach an ultimate resolution. It must go through a democratic procedure and requires a free choice made by Taiwan's 23 million people.

The most likely scenario is that the remarks were Powell's personal elaboration of statements made by Bush on Dec. 9 last year when he met with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. In reaction to Chen's push for a referendum in the highly contested presidential campaign, Bush said he "opposed the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan [that] indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change the status quo."

Sensing a growing consciousness of Taiwanese identity and a tendency toward de jure independence after Chen's re-election, Powell offered "lip service" to the Chinese leaders and hurt the Taiwanese people.

It is true that there have been ups and downs in relations between Washington and Taipei in the past 10 months. As Taiwan's leaders keep emphasizing Taiwan's independent sovereignty, Beijing has doubled its pressure on Washington.

It is natural for the Bush administration to make an extra effort to maintain a friendly atmosphere with its Chinese counterpart before the general election. Nevertheless, appeasing China should not be conducted at the expense of Taipei's pursuit of dialogue and normalization with Beijing.

Perhaps this was an unfortunate break in the momentum to press Beijing to be flexible on the resumption of cross-strait dialogue.

Liu Kuan-teh is a political commentator based in Taipei.

Test China's sincerity through action

By Andy Chang 

Why is it that President Chen Shui-bian's National Day speech has received so much support from the international community but was condemned by China? Is what has been said by China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) and the wave of criticism that followed an indication that the tone for cross-strait relations has been established? How should we interpret China's response and what should our own pragmatic response be?

I believe that in the current situation, in which no trust exists between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, China has no choice but to react with harsh criticism to Chen's speech to destroy the illusion of accord that he has sought to create. After all, Chen said that his speech was a response to the TAO's May 17 statement [including points on a resumption of cross-strait dialogue, realizing direct links to facilitate exchanges in commerce, trade and transportation, and establishing a mechanism of mutual trust in the military field]. He said that China needs to emphasize the intent of that statement and maintain that the two sides are still at odds, since Taiwan refuses to accept the "one China" principle.

Therefore, the TAO's immediate response and the criticism that has been subsequently aired in the People's Daily do not come as a surprise. But as of now, none of Beijing's statements have been issued by anyone higher than vice-ministerial level, so the critical tone cannot be regarded as being unalterable.

China's policy toward Taiwan has always been dictated from the top. But three days after Chen made his speech, no clear policy had emerged from Beijing. If we are still waiting for a response from the senior leadership, then we don't understand Beijing's policy-making mechanism. The TAO's Oct. 13 response and subsequent articles in the People's Daily all reiterate that "easing tensions is a lie, that Taiwan independence is the truth," but have completely ignored Chen's proposal for direct cargo and passenger links across the Strait.

When questioned by the media about direct links after delivering China's response to Chen's speech, TAO spokesperson Zhang Mingqing said it was a "domestic issue," but this is his own interpretation of the current situation and not an official statement approved by the Beijing government.

With Chen promoting Taiwan sovereignty and "one country on either side" [of the Strait], Beijing surely had no choice but to bring out "domestic issues" to protect itself and avoid creating the impression that it was permitting the three links on Taiwan's terms. But is the "domestic affairs" slogan just a defense posture, or is it one of the key points that China wants Taiwan to accept? It will take some time before this becomes apparent.

In fact, to interpret China's policy, both the status of the official making a statement and the question of which media outlets report on it must be taken into account. Unlike Taiwan's chaotic political environment, China's political system has clear delineations of status and form which can be analyzed. In dealing with cross-strait affairs, the highest authority is the Central Leadership Group for Taiwan Affairs. Therefore, Taiwan shouldn't pay too much attention to the statements issued by China unless they are made by national leaders, the Central Leadership Group or the TAO.

Apart from statements by Beijing officials, we should also pay special attention to the level and format of published criticisms of Taiwan. The highest level of published statement is an editorial by the People's Daily and articles by the commentary teams of either the People's Daily or Xinhua News Agency. Below that are articles posted by either the People's Daily or Xinhua under real names or pseudonyms. Media in Hong Kong or small papers in China represent the lowest level.

So how should we develop cross-strait relations? I believe that the government in Taipei should be aware that speeches by Chen alone are not sufficient, and must be accompanied by substantial gestures of goodwill. Words alone will not only not improve matters, but could easily make them worse. If we do not act with both confidence and patience, how can we achieve peace or development?

Beijing should also understand that repeatedly ignoring opportunities for peace by insisting that all issues brought up by Taiwan impinge on "one China" is not to anybody's advantage. Since former president Jiang Zemin's "Eight Represents" statement in 1995, Beijing has stressed that political differences will not interfere with economic cooperation. Beijing should make a list of those "differences" that are not linked to politics and "one China." This way it can discover if Taiwan is sincere or not. After all, the best way of testing the sincerity of others is to actually engage with them.

Andy Chang is a professor in the Graduate Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University.