Japan takes a step in right way on Dec 18,2004

Editorial: Japan takes a step in right direction

We are delighted to hear that Japan has announced that it will give former president Lee Teng-hui  a visa for his visit to Japan on Dec. 27. We applaud Japan's humanitarian considerations in putting aside objections from China to deal with a personal visit in a normal way.

Since the end of World War II, Japan has had its self assurance compromised, and because of this has not been a normal country. In that time it has given China huge amounts of economic aid. But China continues to use the crimes committed by the Japanese in the 1930s and 1940s to hijack Japan's compassion during crucial moments as a means of obtaining political advantage.

We sympathize with the hardships suffered by the Chinese people before and during World War II. And we have also taken note of Japan's introspection about its militaristic ideology over the last half century and the effort it has put into smoothing over the historical differences that it has with its Asian neighbors. But why has Taiwan been the only country omitted from these efforts?

In 1895, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki , forcing Taiwan to endure 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. But history is not black and white. The Japanese established the foundations of the rule of law in Taiwan and presided over the introduction of modern education, paving the way for Taiwan's modernization. At the same time of course, Taiwanese were denigrated as "slaves of the Qing dynasty" and treated as second-class citizens. The memory of how the Japanese trampled on Taiwan during their occupation is still fresh in the collective memory of Taiwanese, and so Japan's toadying attitude toward China since World War II has greatly hurt their feelings.

We are not trying to claim any historic debt from Japan. We simply want Japan to take seriously the existence of Taiwan.

We are delighted to see that Japan is becoming a normal country and that it is moving toward establishing a normal relationship with Taiwan, rather than simply giving in to all of China's demands. As China is becoming a stronger military power and is beginning to threaten the balance of power in Asia, we call on Japan to assume the responsibility of a major regional power and help maintain security.

Since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office, his actions have shown the world Japan's efforts to free itself from China's manipulation. This includes Japan's unprecedented support for Taiwan's membership in the World Health Organization and its willingness to grant a visa to Lee.

Taiwan has long been a major source of tourists to Japan and most Taiwanese have travelled there. When hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese visit Japan every year, why should Lee be prevented from doing so? To deny him entry would clearly be a case of discrimination and a violation of human rights. Lee's visit makes one think back to the visit by Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara in October to help promote tourism to Taiwan.

US defense analyst says arms deal is all wrong

BAD CHOICE: Retired admiral Michael McDevitt said that purchasing eight diesel submarines was a mistake and speculated that the Pentagon would actually be relieved if the subs were scotched
By Charles Snyder STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Taiwan would be wrong to devote the money the Chen Shui-bian government wants to spend on US diesel-powered subma-rines, but should devote its re-sources to such things as hardening potential targets of missile attacks and retaining air superiority in the Taiwan Strait, a leading US military analyst with close connections to the US defense establishment says.

The analyst, retired rear admiral Michael McDevitt, made his comments at a Washington seminar on Thursday discussing Taiwan's situation in the wake of the legislative elections.

He also warned Taipei against declaring independence, saying such a move could involve the US in the long-term defense of Taiwan against retribution from China.

McDevitt spoke disparagingly about the plan to spend more than US$12 billion on eight diesel submarines, noting that "Taiwan is talking about investing 66 percent of its special [defense] budget on eight submarines that won't even show up for another decade."

He also criticized the subs that Taiwan is considering buying from Washington as incapable of meeting the purpose Taiwan wants them to perform.

"I'll bet you, given the fact that it has caused so much problem for the Department of Defense, if Taiwan was tomorrow to walk into the Department of Defense and say, `We've decided to withdraw our request for submarines,' you would hear quiet applause all over the Department of Defense ... They'd breath a sigh of relief: `Thank God, that would solve our problem.'"

Michael McDevitt, retired US admiral

"These subs have a search rate that is so slow, they will cover such a small body of water, that that's the wrong way to look for the other guy's submarines," he told a seminar hosted by the George Washington University's Center for Strate-gic and International Relations.

He also said that the Pentagon would be happy if Taiwan reneged on the submarine purchase. That would run counter to a strenuous and prolonged effort by the Pentagon to force Taiwan to buy the subs, which would likely be built by US defense contractors.

"I'll bet you," McDevitt said, "given the fact that it has caused so much problem for the [US] Department of Defense, if Taiwan was tomorrow to walk into the Department of Defense and say, `We've decided to withdraw our request for submarines,' you would hear quiet applause all over the Department of Defense.

"They'd breath a sigh of relief: `Thank God, that would solve our problem.' That's my speculation," McDevitt said.

Noting that Chen has maintained that Taiwan would declare independence if it were attacked by China, McDevitt cautioned that maintaining independence would be harder than declaring it.

"All efforts by Taipei has been focused on how to become independent, but none of it is focused on how to sustain independence," he said.

If Taiwan declared indepen-dence, "you would have a situation in which the United States would either have to sign up with a security arrangement that protects that independent Taiwan essentially in perpetuity, or you would have to get Beijing to agree to it."

"More thought," he cautioned, "has to be placed on how do you sustain independence once you've declared it," he said.

On other Taiwanese defense areas, McDevitt said Taipei's main strategy should be maintaining air superiority against China in the Taiwan Strait.

He said that Taiwan should also boost defenses against a Chinese missile attack by hardening potential targets against such strikes: "Pouring concrete," as he put it.

"Remember, a ballistic missile is a relatively small warhead. So unless it lands in the middle of the room, the blast damage is not going to be really great. So, hardening does really make a difference," he said.

McDevitt advised Taiwan's government against relying on any aggressive strikes against China as a deterrent strategy.

"It's a terrible strategic choice and its going to waste a lot of money," he said.

"If you argue that lobbing a few missiles into downtown Shanghai is going to deter Beijing, think about it for a minute," he said.

China realizes that any attack on Taiwan will cost it dearly in-ternationally, he said. So an attack on Shanghai, for instance, is not going to make a difference.

Chinese law `endangers status quo'

STAFF WRITER , WITH AGENCIES
If China insists on enacting a "national unification law," it will jeopardize the Taiwanese people's goodwill and Asian regional peace and stability, Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday.

Wu was responding to reports in China's state media that Beijing will introduce legislation against secession, a move analysts have said is aimed at mandating eventual "reunification" with Taiwan.

The draft law will be submitted during a session of China's parliament scheduled for Dec. 25 to Dec. 29, the Xinhua news agency said.

According to information obtained by the council, Chinese President Hu Jintao will probably announce the legislation during his visit to Macau, Wu said.

Hu is scheduled to arrive in Macau tomorrow.

"[The proposed bill] shows China's intention to unilaterally set up a law as a legal base for a future invasion of Taiwan and unilateral change of the cross-strait status quo," Wu said.

Wu urged Beijing to think twice before passing the law and not to underestimate the Taiwanese people's determination to resist China's military threats.

If China insists on the bill, this would alienate Taiwan, "seriously jeopardizing the goodwill of the Taiwanese people, and is likely to become the biggest threat to regional peace and stability in Asia," he said.

ASEAN and China sign 'dirty' FTA

By Honigmann Hong

ASEAN, fond of holding grand meetings and declaring "new action programs," on Dec. 2 signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with China, a move that has grabbed the world's attention. The agreement won't take force until 2010. But since it involves a realignment in the region's integration, it has caused a domino effect, with Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and even India moving faster to sign similar agreements with ASEAN. It can also be predicted that the US will reconsider its trade diplomacy in East Asia.

It seems the evolving situation might give Taiwan and the US another shared interest -- or rather, a shared worry over whether they will be marginalized by the economic integration process in Asia.

Politely speaking, the FTA between ASEAN and China is a matter of putting the cart before the horse. It completely violates the normal procedure whereby the agreement would first be negotiated and signed and only then take effect and be implemented.

In November 2002, the two sides first signed a preparatory Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation expressing their willingness to set up an FTA, implementing measures while negotiations were still ongoing.

The first set of measures including agricultural, fishery and livestock (and some industrial products), and a unilateral reduction of customs duties by China on imports from ASEAN nations was implemented in January this year and is generally referred to as the "Early Harvest Program." In other words, since both sides are members of the WTO, China can clearly be suspected of trying to make an early start before the official implementation of the FTA.

China can of course defend itself by saying that it is a generalized system of preferences which was promoted by the UN a long time ago: unilateral benefits on certain specified products offered by developed countries to still developing countries.

The problem is that China, whose full market status is not yet universally recognized, and whose national income per capita is lower than that of ASEAN countries, should not be the one to dispense such benefits, regardless of whether we look at the issue from the perspective of law or logic.

Further, following the gradual expansion of the scope of the FTA negotiations, from last year's agricultural, fishery and livestock issues to the present manufacturing industry (completed only recently) and next year's service industry and investment issues, the number of countries and industries affected also increases steadily. Maybe someone will report or complain about China's "beneficial actions" to Geneva.

Next, judging from the two parties' geographic size and and the number of countries involved, and the fact that such a complex FTA could be completed in less than two years clearly shows that there has been some shady dealings going on. Mainly, almost all "sensitive products" have been excluded during the negotiation process, allowing each country to rely on high customs duties to protect special products decided by each country itself. This means that the FTA does not apply to these products.

For example, total imports of the items on the list put together by Indonesia make up 15 percent of its total imports, while Malaysia's car industry and Thailand's petrochemical industry have been the main obstacles to trade liberalization within ASEAN.

Academically, this kind of agreement, which emphasizes exchange of short term interests instead of truly attempting to implement free trade, is nothing but a "dirty FTA." It is of relative little use either to participating countries or excluded ones.

Furthermore, this agreement lacks an effective conflict resolution mechanism. This makes it difficult to supervise the future implementation of the agreement.

It seems that ASEAN's original wish to use an "extension strategy" consisting of the use of external forces to promote internal trade reform remains unchanged. This is nothing more than a reflection of that old joke deriding FTAs: An FTA is like paradise: everyone says it's good but everyone wants to go there at some later time.

Even if there are, in practice, limited economic benefits to the China-ASEAN FTA, there will nevertheless be considerable geopolitical implications. Of these, many eyes will be on which nations come to be incorporated in the future, whether or not the grouping of "ASEAN plus one," including China, will be extended to "ASEAN plus three," including China, Japan and Korea, or whether it will indeed come to incorporate Australia and New Zealand, as China has suggested, to become a mammoth "East Asian Free Trade Area."

This particular trend is likely to be limited somewhat by the economic structure and political leadership of East Asian countries. East Asian products as a whole still rely heavily on the US and Europe for their markets, and the US still plays a major role in regional security in East Asia.

Despite the fact that the US's economic influence is gradually waning in this region (just as China's is increasing), it nevertheless maintains a unique position here, and is sufficient to act as a restraining force for the spread of regionalism in Asia. The nature of the strategic response and measures the US will adopt to "check" the ever-increasing Asian regionalism will be a crucial factor.

In Taiwan's case, aside from keeping a very close eye on regional developments in Asia, it should also abandon any overly optimistic thinking. China is already the world's third largest trading nation, and there can be no doubt that it will become the largest trading partner with countries such as Japan, South Korea, the various nations that make up ASEAN, and even Australia and New Zealand.

Given that any East Asian economic organization has to include China, if Taiwan wants to be a part of this, harmony across the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance. And before all of this actually happens, Taiwan would be best advised to use the threat of being marginalized to make this crisis an opportunity for internal reform.

What Taiwan needs is a slight advantage won in increments, and not to gamble for all or nothing.

Honigmann Hong is an associate research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research.

Protect Taiwan's freedoms

Despite the shortcomings of the democratic system -- it can be inefficient, it gives rise to irrational partisanship and is at times driven by imprudent public opinion -- it is the political ideal most forward-thinking countries and people aspire to.

There is something morally appealing about the proposition that people should have the final say with regard to how they are to be governed. The purpose of government is to serve the people because it derives its power from the people. Democracy is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill put it, the worst system of government, except for all the others.

In Taiwan, both the pan-green and pan-blue camps at least pay lip service to democracy. But I find it incredibly ironic how the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) could, within a democratic system, run campaigns on the very platform to abrogate democracy. Once you eliminate all the euphemisms, Taiwan is politically polarized between those who oppose unification with China (the pan-greens) and those who favor unification with China (the pan-blues).

But China is not a democratic nation, so integration with China as a single political entity would be tantamount to the elimination of democracy in Taiwan. Some argue, of course, that Taiwan would still be democratic for 50 years under a "one state, two systems" solution.

But under such a system, the Taiwanese people would still inevitably be forced to give up much of their sovereignty and democratic progress. Even a cursory look at the events in Hong Kong since 1997 reveal that unification with China under a two-systems solution would, at best, endow Taiwan with a pseudo-democracy.

This, of course, doesn't even begin to address what the ultimate result of any type of unification with China would entail. Is the pan-blue camp really saying that democracy is good, but we only want it for 50 years? Or are they saying we deserve a democracy but our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren do not?

There are some who quixotically believe that China is changing, and that it will become a democracy in the span of 50 years. This is incredibly wishful thinking. Change in China is inevitable but progress toward greater freedom is not. Many Taiwanese businessmen who have businesses in China believe the evolving Chinese economy is almost completely capitalist. That may be true, but real freedom means more than economic freedom.

I believe we must recognize the ironies reflected in the platforms of the KMT and PFP. We must face China with strength, courage and wisdom rather than weakness, panic and self-defeating campaigns.

I am inspired by the actions of the British during World War II when, while facing incredible evil and incredible odds, they stood up for freedom on their small island against the dictatorship of Hitler, who was then victorious over almost all of continental Europe.

They courageously defeated the German air force, which dashed the Nazi army's hopes of crossing the English Channel. In doing so, they were able to protect their freedoms and ideals. We should do the same.

Chris Chen