Chen Shui-bian's peace plan on Nov 12, 2004

US praises Chen Shui-bian's peace plan

By Charles Snyder
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
The US heaped praised on President Chen Shui-bian's latest cross-strait peace proposal, saying it "lays the foundation" for progress toward the resumption of a China-Taiwan dialogue and the reduction of tension between the two sides.

The US Department of State, responding Wednesday to Chen's statement he made at the conclusion of a national security meeting, described Chen's peace initiative as "positive and constructive."

The department also reiterated Washington's commitment to the so-called "Six Assurances," which former president Ronald Reagan formulated in response to the August 1982 "Third Communique" between Washington and Beijing, in which Reagan pledged the US would reduce arms sales to Taiwan.

The department's response came amid some concerns in Washington that the Bush administration was rethinking the Six Assurances with an eye on weakening the US commitment to them, as part of the price for enhanced cooperation with China on a number of international issues, including Iraq and the war on terror.

"There is no change in US policy."

Richard Boucher, US Department of State spokesman

"There is no change in US policy, including regarding the six assurances," the State Department said in a formal answer to a question raised during department spokesman Richard Boucher's daily press briefing.

The Six Assurances are that the US will not: set a date for termination of arms sales to Taiwan; alter the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act; consult with China in advance before making decisions about US arms sales to Taiwan; mediate between Taiwan and China; alter its position about the sovereignty of Taiwan, which was that the question was one to be decided peacefully by the Chinese themselves, or pressure Taiwan to enter into negotiations with China; or formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan.

Regarding Chen's idea of setting up a buffer zone in the Taiwan Strait and re-engaging in dialogue on the basis of the 1992 Hong Kong formula, the State Department had this to say:

"We welcome the positive and constructive points in Chen Shui-bian's speech. We believe it lays the foundation for progress and offers some creative ideas for reducing tensions and resuming the cross-strait dialogue. We wish both sides take this opportunity to engage in dialogue in order to resolve their differences peacefully."

Overall, the department said that Washington's policy toward Taiwan "remains the same."

Chen's statement, and the US response, comes on the heels of two reported telephone conversations between President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao in the week since Bush won re-election to a second presidential term last Tuesday.

It also comes as Bush and Hu are preparing to hold their first face-to-face meeting since the US election, when the two attend the meeting of the APEC forum in Santiago, Chile later this month.

Taiwan was a major topic of conversation during the post-election phone conversations, both the White House and official Chinese mouthpieces have said.

Beijing has also indicated that Taiwan will be a key topic during the Chile APEC summit.

China's media has expressed confidence that Bush will take an even closer stance toward China during his second term than he did over the past year, when he courted China's aid in the war on terror, advancing dialogue with North Korea and in the US-led war in Iraq.

History of China part of Taiwan's history too

By Lee Ching-hsiung

Why are national history and geography tested in the National Civil Service Examination?

The standard answer is that civil servants carry out public policy and serve the nation's citizens, and an understanding of national history and geography is therefore necessary to foster loyalty toward the nation.

If this nation included the Chinese mainland, then wouldn't testing Chinese history and geography foster loyalty toward the People's Republic of China (PRC) in our civil servants?

Some say that if the controversial parts of the history and geography exam were eliminated, maybe these loyalty concerns could also be eliminated. Doing this clearly turns the issue into an ideological issue. While we were hoping that ideology could be avoided, we instead fell into an ideological trap.

History should be true to historical fact, and geography to the current situation. Mongolia is now independent -- a major incident in Chinese history, and also a geographical change to its national territory.

The question of whether Mongolian independence should be included in the exam has been a matter long deliberated upon.

Excluding Mongolian independence from the exam because it is a sensitive and complex issue that leads to too much conflict would be nothing but a head-in-the-sand approach, and a matter of anti-intellectual education.

Just like Mongolia, the PRC was also founded as a state, abandoning the imperial calendar and adopting the Christian calendar to symbolically leave feudal thinking and dynastic changes behind, establishing diplomatic relations with the US, going from opposition to cooperation.

The PRC joined the UN and became a permanent member of the Security Council, launched satellites, joined the nuclear arms club and washed away colonial humiliation with the return of Hong Kong and Macau.

The map of China's territory was redrawn, reducing the number of provinces from 35 to 29, the capital was moved to Peiping which had its name changed to Beijing, a big dam was built on the Yangtze River and an unprecedented 4 million people were relocated.

Major railways were built from Jiangsu Province in the east via Lanzhou and the Gobi Desert to Urumqi in Xinjiang Province in the west, and from Xining in Qinghai Province in the north over the Qinghai-Tibet plateau 4,000m above sea-level directly to Lhasa in Tibet in the south, and Peiping, Kulun and Tihua disappeared from the map, replaced by Beijing, Ulan Bator and Urumqi.

This is both a historic and a current geographic fact.

The question of what to and what not to include in the exams has become a dilemma that remains unresolved.

Examination Yuan member Lin Yu-ti has all along said that anything including Taiwan's history and geography should fall within the scope of the exam.

The relationship between Taiwan and China goes back more than 400 years, through the PRC, the Republic of China, and the Qing and Ming dynasties. We speak the same language and we are of the same race, and China's politics, culture and religion have all had a massive influence on Taiwan.

This makes it an important part of Taiwanese history and it thus of course falls within the scope of the exam. It has nothing to do with desinicization.

All of us who are born, grow up, grow old and die here should have a deep understanding of Taiwan's rich history and geography.

MAC head sees `mood shift' in China

CONSULTATION: Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu said Beijing's positive response to Lunar New Year chartered flights could pave the way for friendlier exchanges
By Joy Su  STAFF REPORTER 

China's response to calls for talks about cross-strait charter flights for the Lunar New Year could point toward a "mood shift," the nation's top cross-strait policymaking body said yesterday.

"If the Lunar New Year charter flights work out, they could pave the way for a conciliatory environment on other policies," Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu said.

Wu held a media conference yesterday to discuss the content of President Chen Shui-bian's speech at a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday, in which Chen proposed using "Taiwan-Hong Kong commercial air route negotiations" as a model to "immediately start consultation."

China's Taiwan Affairs Office had expressed a willingness to adopt the model during a press briefing on Oct 27.

Wu cited three points that he said indicated a possible "mood shift" in China, presumably for the better: the repatriation of illegal immigrants, the extradition of fugitives and recent remarks welcoming Taiwanese businesspeople in China.

Beijing had previously given the cold shoulder to Taiwanese businesspeople who aligned themselves with the pan-green camp.

"The [Lunar] New Year charter flights are a good indication. It will allow us to see how they respond to this after [Chen's] National Day speech," Wu said.

He said the main components of the "Hong Kong model" demand that political differences and preconditions be set aside.

"The government has actual control of the negotiation, even though they can be flexible, and several organizations facilitate the negotiations," he said.

"Since the president already mentioned that we're going to use the `Hong Kong model' as the basis for the negotiation for the Lunar New Year charter flights and the cargo charter flights, then that's what we will try to pursue," Wu said.

When China's Taiwan Affairs Office first gave the green light to the Hong Kong model last month, the MAC responded by saying that it would not rule out any possibility, as long as the Beijing government authorized delegates to negotiate the matter.

Wu yesterday reiterated Chen's call for talks to be resumed within the next two years.

"What this means is that if we miss these two years, there will be the 17th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, our [next] presidential election, constitutional revision ? the situation will be unpredictable," he said, adding that the next two years would offer a stable period to "work something out."

Wu also identified several new elements introduced in Chen's address to the National Security Council.

In addition to the proposal of using the "Hong Kong model" and starting consultations immediately, Wu said that Chen had elaborated on the details of a code of conduct for cross-strait relations, as well as his intention to invite members of the pan-blue camp to participate in the establishment of a committee for cross-strait peace and development.

Chen had said on Wednesday that the code of conduct, which was first introduced in his National Day speech, should include the establishment of military buffer zones, areas military aircraft and ships can only enter with prior notification and as a matter of absolute necessity.

Editorial: Nation's youth need the whole story

The Ministry of Education's plan to revise high school history textbooks is a pragmatic and long overdue move. While no historical account can be free of some level of subjective interpretation, there is also no denying that the version of so-called "history" that has been taught in Taiwan's textbooks for decades is so notorious for its deviation from a common-sense view of the world that it cannot be explained by subjectivity alone. Therefore, opponents who oppose the ministry's plan are simply exposing their own ideologically-driven narrow-mindedness.

A long-standing problem with Taiwan's textbooks is their departure from the truth. Examples include portraying Chiang Kai-shek as a type of saint when he is generally perceived as an authoritarian dictator and warlord by world historians, and the inclusion of Mongolia as part of the Republic of China's (ROC) territory when the rest of the world has long recognized it as an independent country. Countless other examples exist that highlight the severity of the problem.

Even more troublesome is that the history of Taiwan is typically addressed by a few short paragraphs in these textbooks, while almost all of so-called "national history" is dedicated to chapters of Chinese history. These range from childhood stories about people such as Chiang and Sun Yat-sen that are no more real than fairy tales, to the magnificence of the Great Wall. Leaving aside whether there is any point at all in being familiar with some of these events -- whether as national history or as foreign or Chinese history -- such textbooks clearly do not help people identify with the land and society in which they live.

According to the ministry's plan, two separate volumes of high school textbooks will be dedicated to the histories of Taiwan and China. As for the history of the Republic of China, it will be cut into two parts, with its early years covered by the volume on Chinese history and the later years covered in the volume of Taiwan's history. This of course makes sense, because when the Qing Dynasty was overturned and the Republic of China founded in China, Taiwan was under Japanese colonial rule. The ROC government did not exercise effective rule over Taiwan until after World War II.

The ministry will also include for the first time in these textbooks the debates over Taiwan's status. In the past, the country's textbooks have cited the Cairo Declaration of 1943 -- which is merely a press communique without any legal force -- as the legal basis for the claim that Taiwan's sovereignty was handed over to the ROC government. At the same time, the textbooks completely and deliberately ignore the existence of the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 and the Sino-Japan Peace Treaty, which shows the contrary. Leaving aside the issue of which view is correct, at the very least, shouldn't the existence of these treaties and the relevant debates be addressed in the textbooks?

After all, the biggest issue that continues to rip apart Taiwan's society is the nation's sovereignty. That's not even to mention the impact this issue has on cross-strait relations -- which poses a real danger to the continuation of Taiwan's way of life -- as well as the country's national identity. Shouldn't our youngsters at least have the benefit of knowing the entire story?

Making the WHO more effective

By Cho Hui-wan

Following the outbreaks of mad cow disease and SARS, the World Health Organization (WHO) is revising its regulations to eliminate weaknesses identified in its global outbreak alert and response network. But the WHO is overlooking a big gap in the world's collective effort to counter infectious diseases -- the exclusion of Taiwan from the system. While there is an urgent need to improve technical procedures, it is even more important not to leave out the 2.7 million international passengers who travel in and out of Taiwan every year.

The International Health Regulations (IHR) currently being reviewed are a code of practices and procedures for preventing the cross-border spread of infectious diseases. Since the adoption of the current code in 1969, the return of old epidemics such as cholera and the emergence of new infections such as the Ebola virus have shown a clear need for revision. But only after the outbreaks of mad cow disease and SARS did WHO decide to establish a working group to overhaul the regulations.

Member states will endorse a final draft at the Intergovernmental Working Group meeting, currently convening in Geneva, for presentation to the World Health Assembly early next year.

The proposed revision broadens the scope of reporting from cholera, plague and yellow fever to the outbreaks of existing, new and re-emerging diseases, including emergencies associated with food safety and animal diseases. Most importantly, the revised IHR strengthens procedures for rapidly gathering information, for determining when a disease constitutes an international threat and for mobilizing international assistance.

New notification procedures and the designation of national contact units known as "IHR Focal Points" are aimed at expediting the flow of timely and accurate information to and from the WHO about international health emergencies.

Amid these efforts to strengthen the global network against infectious deceases, Taiwan continues to be ignored. Although 225,000 international flights carry 2.7 million passengers in and out of Taiwan every year, it will have neither IHR Focal Points nor any direct contact with WHO at all.

Due to political pressures and its peculiar status in international law, Taiwan is prevented from joining any intergovernmental organizations based on statehood. Admission to the WTO in 2002 was made possible because the WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), defined eligibility in terms of function. GATT characterized its contracting parties as "governments" instead of "states," stipulating that "a government acting on behalf of a separate customs territory possessing full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations" may also accede to GATT.

Similarly, the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean created a mechanism for participation by "fishing entities" in 2000, enabling Taiwan to take part as such an entity.

Long before such practices were adopted by intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) began recasting their rules to make membership based on functionality rather than sovereignty. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1979 revised the definition of "country" to mean "any country, state, territory, or part of a territory" which the IOC deems as "constituting the area of jurisdiction of a recognized National Olympic Committee." Since that amendment, both China's "Chinese Olympic Committee" and Taiwan's "Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee" have been sending athletes to compete in the games. Other international sports federations soon followed the Olympic formula.

Similar flexibility was created by NGOs in the field of science. The International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), an umbrella NGO encompassing more than 20 international organizations, recommended that all scientific unions adhere to the principle of the universality of science -- extending membership to any community of scientists that effectively represents the scientific activity in a definite territory.

When the Chinese Biochemical Society requested in 1979 that it replace Taiwan in the International Union of Biochemistry (IUB), the IUB realized that political circumstances were threatening to interfere with scientific inquiry and communication. The ensuing discussions within IUB led to agreement on a "one-country, two-adhering-bodies" formula. Very soon, this formula was adopted by the ICSC and followed by all other scientific unions.

By creating a "functional standing clause" to accommodate membership by both China and Taiwan, all these groups succeeded in ensuring universality of participation and maintaining their organizational effectiveness.

Article 1 of the WHO Constitution commits the organization to attaining the highest possible level of health for "all peoples." The preamble describes the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as one of the "fundamental rights of every human being" without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social conditions.

The 23 million residents of Taiwan have been deprived of such fundamental rights since 1972. Taiwan's health officials and experts have been prevented from attending WHO conferences, obtaining information and advice from WHO, or participating in the global outbreak alert and response network.

As a specialized agency of the UN, WHO has long followed the UN political decision that there is only one China and that the People's Republic of China's (PRC) representatives are the sole legal representatives of China. Yet WHO is a functional organization, and its aim of enhancing worldwide health is apolitical. For that reason the US Senate and House of Representatives and the European Parliament have all passed resolutions supporting Taiwan's WHO participation.

China claims that its health administration is attending to the health concerns of Taiwan residents. But the world and WHO are fully aware that the PRC has never exercised jurisdiction over the Taiwan area. To accept the Chinese claim is to engage in self-deception.

Some argue that Taiwan is doing fine without WHO assistance. According to that logic, all health-advanced states might as well withdraw from the WHO.

The current consideration of a new IHR is the time for WHO and its members to close the gap in the system that omits Taiwan. If WHO can be as creative as other organizations in basing eligibility on functionality, such as broadening qualification definition or creating a side track, the beneficiary will be not just the people of Taiwan but the entire world health system.

Lien educated in vain

By Charles Hong

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan was well educated in Taiwan and the US. However, he does not behave or talk like a well-educated person. It's hard to believe that Lien would say something like "I will appeal again to invalidate the presidential election," "President Chen Shui-bian is nothing" and "Everyone can kill President Chen."

Lien graduated from National Taiwan University, the school that has the motto "Improve your character, study with diligence, love your country, and love the people." Lien has failed in three out of the four items in this motto.

His protests for the past seven months degrade his character and do not care about the people in Taiwan. If the president is nothing, why is Lien so eager to become one? Lien should love, not kill, the president elected by the people. Lien apparently does not love Taiwan either, because he is strongly against the purchase of new weapons to protect the country.

Although Lien holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Chicago, he needs to take a refresher course in Democracy 101. As a matter of personal courtesy and national unity, Lien should have conceded his loss and congratulated Chen for his success in getting re-elected. Two bullets cannot decide the outcome of a presidential election; only voters can. It is a bad example for Lien to keep on fighting after being defeated.

Lien should be aware of the fact that the US presidential election is generally accompanied by federal, state and local issues for voters to decide. Why was Lien opposed to the two referendum issues in the last presidential election? These two issues were defeated anyway. If they were passed, they would be good for the security of Taiwan.

It is perfectly acceptable to activate the national security mechanism when both the president and the vice-president are in danger of being assassinated. I think this mechanism should have been activated again when Lien, as a chairman of a major opposition party, encouraged everyone to "kill President Chen."

Japanese tail mysterious sub for second full day

UNWANTED GUEST: Officials reportedly think the sub is from China but Beijing says it knows nothing about it
AP AND AFP , TOKYO AND BEIJING
 

Japan's military yesterday shadowed an unidentified submarine that entered its territorial waters the day before, but officials said they had not yet figured out what country the intruder was from.

Tokyo put its navy on alert on Wednesday after spotting the submarine off Okinawa, and sent a reconnaissance plane and destroyer to follow its movements.

The sub, which spent two hours in Japanese waters before leaving, was heading north yesterday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference.

He refused to confirm media reports that defense officials believe the vessel is from China, saying: ``We don't have enough conclusive evidence to make a determination.''

He said it would take some time to identify the submarine because it hasn't surfaced and didn't appear to be heading toward a specific country. Hosoda said Tokyo hasn't confronted any countries about the incident.

Judging from its cruising sound, however, the Defense Agency believed the vessel to be a Chinese navy Han-type nuclear submarine, Japan's mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun and Jiji Press news agency said.

The Japanese navy has been trailing the submarine with two destroyers and a surveillance airplane, a defense agency spokesman said.

Officials have refused to confirm media reports that Tokyo was investigating a possible link between the sub sighting and China's recent exploration of natural gas fields in Japan's southern waters.

Yomiuri said defense officials suspect Beijing may have sent the vessel to head off criticism from Tokyo about China's recent surveys for gas fields near Okinawa.

Territorial disputes have occasionally flared up between Japan, China and South Korea, including one that has deepened in recent months with Beijing over natural gas deposits in the East China Sea.

Tokyo has accused China of conducting surveys for gas fields near Okinawa that extend into Japanese territorial waters. China says its activities are close to its coast and don't concern Japan and has rejected offering more details.

Meanwhile, China yesterday said it knew nothing about a submarine that entered Japanese waters near a disputed gas field and sparked a high seas chase.

"We don't know. We are not aware of this situation," the foreign ministry said in China's first response to the incident.

National identity growing

SURVEY: About 49 percent of Hoklos and 45 percent of Hakkas identify themselves as Taiwanese; 43.8 percent of both groups say they are Taiwanese and Chinese
By Caroline Hong
STAFF REPORTER  

Taiwanese villagers are developing a greater sense of national identity, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by the Council for Hakka Affairs.

The council said about 49 percent of people of Hoklo descent and 45 percent Hakka descent identify themselves as purely Taiwanese. It said 43.8 percent of those of Hoklo ethnicity consider themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese, while 43.8 percent of Hakka do.

The survey, conducted between mid-April and mid-June, found most ethnic groups were evenly split on the issue of national identity.

The survey found that 45.4 percent of Aboriginals identify themselves as Taiwanese, while 42.5 percent identified themselves as both Chinese and Taiwanese. Twenty-one percent of Mainlanders were found to identify themselves as purely Taiwanese, and 59.4 percent as both.

Of the 30.7 percent of respondents who identified themselves as purely Chinese, 3.9 percent were Hoklo, 5.1 percent were Hakka, 6.9 percent were Aboriginals and 14.8 percent were Mainlanders.

The fact that the majority of people consider themselves either Taiwanese or both Taiwanese and Chinese indicates that Taiwanese people are developing a greater sense of national identity. But many people also still remember their Chinese roots, said council Chairman Luo Wen-jia.

"From the results, you can see that only a minority is actively against a `Taiwan' nation. However, even though most people are not against the formation of a Taiwan-ese national identity, you can also see that people would not support moves alienating them from Chi-nese culture," Luo said.

He said the survey results could prove a lesson to both the ruling and opposition parties in their appeals on national identity.

The survey, which was conducted by the TrendGo Survey and Research Company on behalf of the council, based its results on 37,693 telephone surveys from 368 villages nationwide.

While the survey examined racial and national identification among all of the nation's ac-knowledged ethnic groups, a focus of the poll was acknowledgement among those with Hakka ancestry.

While more than 26.9 percent of respondents said that they had Hakka ancestry, only 12.6 percent identified themselves as Hakka when asked to choose one ethnic identity. When told that they could choose multiple ethnic identities, that percentage increased by 6.9 points. However, 7.4 percent of those with Hakka ancestry did not consider themselves Hakka at all.

"In this survey, we can see that the number of people identifying as Hakka has increased over time with the increasing pride people are feeling in being Hakka," said Chang Wei-an, dean of National Central University's College of Hakka Studies yesterday.

When combined with additional survey findings about the public's criteria for ethnic identification, experts said, the results indicate that there is still room for Hakka ethnic recognition to grow.

According to the survey, 42.5 percent of respondents consider Hakka-language speaking ability the best indicator of Hakka ethnic status, whereas only 40.4 percent consider Hakka ancestry the top indicator, Chang said.