20050618

A Furious Catch

Angry Taiwanese fishermen dump dead fish onto a Japanese military flag in front of Japan's Interchange Association in Taipei yesterday. They were accusing Japan of encroaching on Taiwan's fishing grounds.

Dalai Lama nixed tour to save talks

By Chiu Yu-Tzu

STAFF REPORTER , IN BERLIN

For the sake of his 6 million fellow Tibetans, spiritual leader Dalai Lama said on Thursday that his plans to visit Taiwan had to be reconsidered to secure negotiations with the Chinese government.

At a crowded Schiller Theater in Berlin, the Dalai Lama presented the Light of Truth award to former Czech president Vaclav Havel, former German minister of economic affairs Otto Graf Lamdsdorff and Irmtraut Waeger, Chairperson of Deutschen Tibethilfe e.V., a German charity giving aid to Tibetans.

The annual award to prominent, long-time supporters of the Tibetan people has been presented since 1995.

During the ceremony, the Dalai Lama stressed that people should help each other to fight for freedom.

"So far, Tibetans have not found the way to freedom. We do appreciate the assistance and support from all over the world," he said.

At a press conference after the ceremony, the Dalai Lama said that his government-in-exile had been negotiating with the Chinese government for three years, but the latest talks last year had made progress.

It was this progress that had resulted in the canceling of plans to visit Taiwan last year.

Not Forgotten

"I'm eager to visit Taiwan. The cancellation did not mean that I've forgotten Taiwan. I have to seriously consider what the real meaning of the Taiwan issue could be while taking the interests of 6 million Tibetans into account," he said.

The Dalai Lama stressed that in his visits to Taiwan in 1997 and 2001, he had been impressed by the development of economic development, freedom and democracy, all of which deserved to be protected.

Taiwan's representative to Germany, Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉), was invited to attend the ceremony.

"Human-rights issues should not be discussed in terms of borders, ethnicity or gender. Taiwanese people have fought for democracy not only for themselves but also for people in the rest of the world," Shieh told the Taipei Times.

At a party prior to the ceremony, Shieh passed on President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) regards to Havel, who visited Taiwan last November. Havel said that he was strongly opposed to China's "Anti-Secession" Law, adopted in March, which authorizes the use of force to block Taiwanese independence.

In 1990, the Dalai Lama was invited to the former Czechoslovakia by Havel.

The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since a failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese government in 1959.

Preservation

At the party, Volker Schloendorff, director of the German film The Tin Drum, told Taiwanese reporters that supporting Tibet was in the interests of cultural preservation.

When asked about Taiwan, Schloendorff said that he had thought about the matter for a long time.

"If Taiwan was attacked, I would petition, definitely," he said.

China won’t purge Asia of US: official

REUTERS, WASHINGTON

China accepts the US military presence in Asia and is not pursuing a new version of the "Monroe Doctrine" that aims to oust the Americans, a top Communist Party opinion leader said on Thursday.

Zheng Bijian, chairman of China Reform Forum, told an audience in Washington that viewing the world's most populous country's emergence as a threat was a "serious strategic misjudgment of China’s direction in the 21st century.”

“I want to stress here that China takes a pragmatic attitude toward the US presence, including the military presence, in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

If China and the US can look at issues from commanding from interference, such as [the idea] Chain is pursuing an Asia edition of the Monroe Doctrine to push out the Americans,” Zheng said.

In 1823, US president James Himalayan Times, quoting Monroe set forth a policy limiting European political influence in North and South America.

Zheng told China experts and reporters at the Brookings Institution that Beijing favored "open multilateraiism" in Asia.

The US maintains important alliances with Japan and South Korea, backed by softie 70,000 troops in those countries.

The Pentagon has raised the alarm over China's military modernization for several years, and the Defense Department is preparing to release its annual assessment of Beijing's military expenditure.

Last year, the US said China expanded its military build up with the aim of winning a possible conflict with Taiwan and exerting power elsewhere.

"We have every reason to deepen our cooperation in the area of strategic security. The key is to have between us a mutual trust at a strategic level," said Zheng, adding that he had also delivered the message to top US diplomats and security officials.

MOFA seeks concensus on fishing talks

ROILING WATERS: The ministry said it's better to seek a resolution with Japan through diplomatic channels, while KMT lawmakers called for a tougher government stance

STAFF WRITER , WITH CNA

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) will hold a coordination meeting on Tuesday to forge a consensus on fishery talks with Japan, due in about two weeks, a ministry spokesman said Friday.

The ministry has invited legislators and representatives of the fishery industry to take part in the meeting, along with officials from the foreign ministry, the Ministry of the Interior, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA), the Council of Agriculture and the National Security Bureau, the spokesman said.

Stressing that it is better to deal with the recent fishery disputes through diplomatic channels, the spokesman said that the government hopes to create a consensus on the issue in preparation for talks with Japan that will be held later this month or early next month.

Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Lai Ching-te said that the party does not favor the idea of sending military ships to escort Taiwanese fishing boats.

Minister of National Defense Lee Jye decided on Thursday to send military ships as escorts next Tuesday for fishing boats that will operate off Suao, Ilan County near the edge of Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone.

Lin said that it is natural for the defense ministry to help the coast guard protect fishermen because the CGA doesn't have enough big ships to patrol the area.

According to Lin, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen ascribed Japan's willingness to come to the bargaining table to recent protests staged by Taiwanese fishermen.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Joanna Lei, Lai Shyh-bao and Tsao Shou-min voiced their support for the government's moves to claim territorial sovereignty over the Diaoyutais, which are claimed by Taiwan, Japan and China.

They suggested that President Chen Shui-bian schedule a national security meeting as soon as possible to ensure Taiwan's fishing, mineral and other development rights in the area are fully protected.

Meanwhile, KMT legislators Shuai Hua-min and Su Chi yesterday criticized the government for taking what they said was too soft an approach regarding the fishing dispute. They said the focus of the government's response was wrong.

Shuai said the basic cause of the fishing dispute was the dispute over sovereignty of the Diaoyutais.

Su Chi called on President Chen to get tougher, and to invoke Article 17 of the Referendum Law to initiate a referendum if he was concerned he didn't have sufficient support.

According to Su, many politicians and parties in the past have said Taiwan should protect its claim over the islands. These, he said, included both President Chen and Premier Frank Hsieh when they were legislators. Former president Lee Teng-hui and the KMT also recognized in the past that the Diaoyutais belong to this country.

Retired Vice-Admiral Lan Ling-yi, former navy deputy chief of staff, recalled that Taiwan came close to taking military action on the issue in 1990 when former Kaohsiung mayor Wu Tun-yi tried to claim the Dioyutais for Taiwan after the Japanese government decided to build a lighthouse there. Wu's ship was rebuffed by the Japanese coast guard.

Chen Chun-kui, wife of Wang Wen-tsung, whose boat drifted into Japanese fishing waters off the Diaoyutais last month, voiced her anger yesterday morning at the government's inability to resolve the situation.

She said she would seek compensation from the government in order to seek justice.

Japan has demanded Wang pay? 1,800 (roughly NT$600) in docking fees for every hour the detained boat spends in port.

Wang's boat left Suao on May 22 and was warned by Japanese coast guard when it strayed into Japanese fishing waters.

After the boat suffered engine failure on May 26 and drifted into Japanese waters again it was detained by the Japanese coast guard and taken into port.

Rice pushing Israel on weapons sales to China

ARMS TRADE: The US secretary of state said that the Israeli contributions to the arming of China were unwelcome because they jeopardized US interests

AFP , WASHINGTON

But on the eve of a Middle East trip, she gave no sign of progress in efforts to rein in Israel's transfer of military equipment and technology to China that prompted the Pentagon to restrict sales to Israel.

"We have had some very difficult discussions with the Israelis about this," Rice said. "And I think they understand now the seriousness of the matter and we'll continue to have those discussions."

She said the goal of the world community was to integrate China as a positive force but "it is also entirely appropriate to be concerned that that happen before there is a major military escalation of China's capability."

"And so Israel has a responsibility to be sensitive to that, particularly given the close defense cooperation between Israel and the United States," Rice said.

Rice reiterated "concerns" over the arms sales to Beijing and said "I would hope that our Israeli friends would understand that the United States, of course, has ... primary responsibility for defending in the Pacific."

She told reporters that the US had been discussing with the Israelis the end-user conditions on the transfer of sensitive technology.

"We have felt that the discussions were not as fruitful as they might have been over the last year or so and that we need to have discussions that are somewhat more transparent, so that's what we're doing now," she said.

But she did not say whether she planned to take up the matter with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other officials while in Jerusalem this weekend.

Some officials and media outlets in Israel were speaking of a crisis in relations with their main international patron. But their disquiet was mixed with calls for the Sharon government to show some independence.

The Pentagon has confirmed imposing some restrictions on arms sales and technology transfers to Israel, but said on Wednesday that they were focused on the Joint Strike Fighter program.

"It's not a uniform freeze but it's a case-by-case basis," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The US' concerns are reported to center on an Israeli deal to upgrade Harpy Killer drones already sold to China.

Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported this week that Washington was demanding that Israel provide details of more than 60 percent of recent security deals with China and its arms-export trade in general.

Winning a battle, losing the war

Yesterday the Supreme Court threw out the opposition's case claiming that the March 20 presidential election last year should be deemed invalid because of manipulation of the election by the Democratic Progressive Party, on the basis of there being no evidence to suggest that such manipulation had taken place.

The verdict itself hardly came as a surprise for anyone who paid attention to the original court case and the pan-blue's almost comical attempt to make a case out of nothing more than Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's feeling that he ought to have won. What might have seemed surprising was that the court case was still rumbling on. After all, given the tensions and excitement of last year compared with the disillusionment and overpowering ennui at the moment, it seems like a different world.

It does not, however, necessarily seem like a better one. Much as people might have worried about the ethnic hostilities whipped up by the pan-blues both in the election and in their attempts to overturn it -- which can be swiftly summarized as Mainlanders refusing to accept their diminished role in Taiwan's power structure -- there seemed at the time a possibility that a Taiwanese nationalism nourished by not only the election campaign but such events as the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally might change the political environment. It finally seemed that Taiwanese could be the masters in their own country.

That was not to be, of course, the failure of the pan-greens to secure control of the legislature was a shock that left the green reeling while the blues shifted the political agenda by the "selling out" visits of their leaders to China.

Seen in this light, yesterday's verdict serves only to remind us how much we have lost. The nation-building project has not only stalled, but seems to have gone into reverse. The government might point out that their opinion polls tell them that is what the pragmatically minded Taiwanese want -- less emphasis on identity issues and more on the economy. But government is not a consumer-service industry: the customer is not always right.

The task of leadership is to educate people into seeing where their interests lie, and to understand that short-term gains might mean long-term sacrifices and vice versa.

Perhaps no amount of explanation can deter businesspeople from running lemming-like toward China, just as no amount of common sense could warn people off the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s. That does not mean that nobody should try.

Perhaps more importantly we should have some inkling of what the government intends to do when the China bubble bursts. Few developing economies have sustained an economic boom for much longer than 30 years without running into serious problems; China's has lasted 28 and counting.

Last year, for all the controversy surrounding the election and the bitterness of the campaign, there was a feeling that Taiwan might actually be "walking with destiny" to use a Churchillian phrase. Now it seems fated to become an economic colony of China, and if the pan-blues have their way a political colony as well -- such is the fate of Special Administrative Regions of the PRC, as we have seen this week.

After Neville Chamberlain came back from Munich, Winston Churchill said that he had claimed to bring back peace with honor, but in the end Britain would have neither. Taiwanese look to China thinking that by some deft compromise of core values they can have wealth, freedom and peace.

Like the British in 1939, by the time they wake up it will be far too late.

Blues hold democracy in contempt

By Mark Kennedy

`The last legislative session will be remembered for what was not passed.'

Like the more advanced liberal democracies of the West, Taiwan's is an adversarial political system, in which the very nature of an opposition party is to oppose the government.

But where Taiwan's system veers away from the liberal democratic traditions of the West is the pan-blue camp's bitter stubbornness in the role of opposition. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the People First Party's (PFP) opposition to bills proposed by President Chen Shui-bian's administration is founded more on a deep-seated contempt and distrust of him and his party, than on rational and well thought-out disagreement with a particular line of policies.

The turf-war like rivalry in the nation's legislature has brought it to a new low. The latest legislative session, which drew to a close on May 31, succeeded in passing an abysmally low number of bills. With just 39 bills made into law, it was the poorest performance ever -- breaking the previous record low of 53.

The opposition, with its numerical majority in the legislature, is to blame for this record. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been in power for more than five years now, and the pan-blue camp has controlled the legislature for the same amount of time. During that time, legislative sessions have brought about the passage of double, and even triple the number of bills passed in the last sitting. In the two sessions in 2003, for example, the turbulent lawmaking body passed 206 bills into law.

Even with the flurry of controversy surrounding last year's presidential election, a similarly combative legislature voted 75 bills into law. Convinced Chen's re-election was illegitimate and unfair, the pan-blue camp refused to review any bills proposed by the Cabinet in the relevant committees, and persisted in stalling them with their majority in the legislature's procedure committee. For a time after March 20 last year, KMT and PFP legislators simply sat on their hands, rejected new legislation and voted down any bill that made it to the legislative floor.

This begs the question: How could a legislature in which the majority of lawmakers are interested only in contesting the presidential election and bringing the government to a standstill be able to pass more bills than the most recent legislative session?

The simple answer is that even though they harbored a bitter hatred for their pan-green rivals, pan-blue camp legislators knew they could not simply write off the two-and-a-half months remaining in that legislative session. There were, after all, important bills to be considered -- and they would have been held responsible if the Political Donations Law, the Special Statute for Increasing Investment in Public Construction, the Financial Restructuring Fund and the Laborers' Pension Law had failed to pass.

Despite the record low number of bills passed, the just-completed legislative session is not without some modest success. Lawmakers were able to temporarily set aside their hatred and pass an amendment to the Law on the National Assembly's Exercise of Power, to the dismay to of at least three DPP lawmakers, who are seeking a constitutional interpretation of the law; a long-anticipated bailout-funds bill that will inject NT$110 billion (US$3.5 billion) into the nation's debt-ridden banking sector; and next year's budget for the government's five-year, NT$500 billion public-construction package.

But the last legislative session will be remembered for what was not passed. Only one of the Cabinet's five priority bills (the National Assembly law) got anywhere. The other four never even made it to a first reading.

On the last day of the session, Premier Frank Hsieh criticized the legislature's unprecedented level of inefficiency and urged lawmakers to hold an extra legislative session sometime next month. He also reminded lawmakers that they were civil servants and had a duty to pass key bills, such as the ratification of Chen's picks for the Control Yuan and the long-stalled US arms procurement bill.

The legislative gridlock can, for the most part, be attributed to the usual blue-green political wrangling and boycotts. But other, more unique factors were also at play. For instance, the KMT caucus halted cross-party negotiations last month to protest the investigation into party Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun's trip to China, while the Taiwan Solidarity Union left the negotiating table after Chen criticized the party's spiritual leader Lee Teng-hui in television interviews.

Much of the business of crafting legislation also fell by the wayside as a result of the many pan-blue "side jobs," as DPP caucus whip Chen Chin-jun put it, during the last session. In addition to KMT Chairman Lien Chan and PFP Chairman James Soong's visits to China last month, the KMT has also been busy campaigning for next month's chairmanship election, in which Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng is running. Still other legislators, from both sides of the political spectrum, have been preoccupied with seeking nominations from their respective parties for the year-end mayoral and county commissioner elections. Such extracurricular activities no doubt draw lawmakers' attention away from what should be the legislature's priorities.

The consequences of the continuing legislative impasse could range from minor to far-reaching. But what is alarming is that the virtual paralysis of the lawmaking body has completely halted the functioning of another branch of the government. The Control Yuan -- the government's watchdog -- has literally sat empty for the last five months because the pan-blue camp has repeatedly rejected the list of nominees, primarily out of a dislike of individual candidates.

The legislature's poor performance will have repercussions for Taiwan's strategic military alliance with the US, and could even compromise the nation's security. Retired US air force lieutenant colonel and defense expert Mark Stokes said in an April interview with the Taipei Times that US policymakers might review the way it deals with Taiwan should the special arms procurement budget fail to pass in the legislature. Stokes acknowledged that there was a "very strong likelihood" that the US government will be less willing to approve future requests from Taiwan for the purchase of major weapons systems.

Stokes said that the pan-blue camp's continued boycott of the arms purchase deal and its unwillingness to compromise on the issue signaled "a negative attitude" among the opposition parties with regard to the defense of Taiwan. "Historians are likely to place at least part of the blame on a KMT leadership that sacrificed long-term interests for short-term political gains," he said.

Stokes was correct in asserting that the pan-blue-camp's stonewalling could have serious consequences for the fate of the nation. At times, its complacence and boycotts border on contempt for the legislative process.

It is unfortunate that one of the provisions the National Assembly ratified last week when it passed the package of constitutional amendments was voting itself out of existence. Legislators could learn from the now-defunct decision-making body. Despite the boycotts and media-conscious antics from members of smaller parties, the assembly accomplished its task efficiently and ahead of schedule. At a time when inefficiency is the norm, it's a pity that Taiwan had to lose its second chamber -- a place where things actually get done.

Mark Kennedy is a freelance writer based in Taipei.

Capitalism is on the rise in China --but not in the CCP

Private entrepreneurs are no longer enemies of the people, but billioniare Yin Mingshan's application to join the Communist Party keeps getting rejected

By Peter Harmsen

AFP , Chongqing, China

The image of tiny bound feet stepping gingerly across rough countryside is etched into the memory of Yin Mingshan, one of China's richest men. The feet, a sign of nobility in old China, belong to his mother, and as the recollections from half a century ago gain shape and color, Yin little by little remembers being a shivering 12-year-old boy thrown into a hostile world.

But the self-professed great talker is at a loss for words when he tries to explain how you can be pushed so far that you are almost happy your father is dead. His wealth was why the family was singled out as class enemies.

Annisul Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association

"If he had still been alive at the time, we would have been in even deeper trouble," Yin said quietly.

Yin survived the first years after being expelled from his old home by selling needles and thread in the marketplace. He couldn't have known it at the time, but the harsh lessons he learnt then were to help him become the main character in one of modern China's most remarkable rags-to-riches stories.

On the annual Forbes list of wealthy Chinese, he is one of 136 yuan billionaires who made fortunes as China embraced capitalism and opened up its vast economic potential. First, however, he had to spend the best years of his life -- the time when others launch careers and start families -- languishing in confinement.

In the mid-1950s Yin was jailed for nine-and-a-half months for being too honest about what he thought of Chine Communist Party (CCP) rule. That was to be the start of a 22-year odyssey through China's labor camp system.

"My biggest lesson from those years was never to lose faith in life, never to lose faith in the future of China," he said.

Yin did not even begin to escape from his position as a persona non grata until after CCP founder Mao Zedong died in 1976, and class background gradually mattered less when picking the winners and losers in society.

His professional career got a late start, but knowing that time was limited may have added intensity to his efforts. He spent the next quarter century in a frantic effort to do as much as possible.

After a stint in publishing, he set up motorbike maker Lifan Group in 1992 with capital of 200,000 yuan (US$24,000) and a staff of just nine. Since then the group has grown beyond anyone's expectations, not least those of skeptical relatives, and today it employs 8,000 people and has annual turnover of 5.9 billion yuan.

Hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asian lives have changed as a result. Everyone from Indonesian police officers to Vietnamese teens ride Lifan motorcycles. Yin's fortunes, too, have been transformed beyond recognition. His worth has risen to 1.1 billion yuan.

One of Yin's most headline-grabbing deals, in 2000, was to buy the local football team and rename it Chongqing Lifan.

"We made motorbikes for eight years, and no one had heard about us. After we bought the football team, everyone knew us immediately," he said.

Several years past normal retirement age in China, he is planning his next venture with the vigor of a newly-hatched business school graduate. The future belongs to the car, he argues, as he prepares to copy the success of Japanese motorbike makers such as Suzuki and Honda, which moved into auto manufacturing.

"Motorbikes can carry two people, cars four. So a motorbike is half a car, and motorbike manufacturers can naturally do well in car production," he said.

Some 600 workers stand ready to build the Lifan 520 sedan at a 900 million yuan facility on the outskirts of Chongqing. They are waiting for approval from authorities wary of giving the go-ahead for anything because of concerns about an overheating economy.

But two decades in labor camps taught Yin to balance patience with quiet optimism.

"Probably in two months or so we'll get the green light. And we'll definitely be up an running by the end of the year."

As he sits, tall and skinny, with horn-rimmed glasses, and rattles off auto-industry statistics, Yin looks like a philosophically inclined professor of, say, economics.

Citing America's founding fathers, expounding complex social science concepts, or humming the theme of Czech composer Antonin Dvorak's symphony From the New World, Yin shows he is steeped in world culture.

He is a living representative of old China's well-educated upper classes, thought by many to have been erased from history after the Communist takeover, but now staging a quiet renaissance and claiming back their rights.

Yin has inherited the didactic inclinations of China's old rulers, a Confucian approach of relying on moral suasion to get people to do the right thing. His hobbies include coining new mottos, which are reproduced on huge posters and pasted around the factory area. "Pure gold fears no fire," is among his favorites.

Yin values the loyalty of his workers, perhaps because he carries with him a dark personal history of betrayal. He knows from bitter experience how politics can smash families.

His elder brother was a hardline party member who fought the Americans in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. When he returned home, he severed all ties with his family, and Yin today only has vague ideas what became of him.

Now the tables have turned. The elder brother lives in obscurity, while Yin prides himself on his growing political clout. He is close to important politicians such as Premier Wen Jiabao, whom he refers to by his given name.

"Sometimes Premier Jiabao contacts me to hear my views on policy issues such as how to cool economic growth," he said. "The leaders want to know what private business thinks."

He has also taken up official titles, and is now the highest-ranking entrepreneur in a sprawling system of consultative assemblies that form part of China's complex political system. But four years after the CCP officially welcomed capitalists among its ranks, he has yet to become a member.

"I've applied, but the Communist Party said, you stay on the outside and work for us there," he said. "That way you can make a bigger difference."

And Yin does want to make a difference. He is keenly aware that industry has not just brought prosperity to millions of Chinese, but caused horrific damage to the country of his childhood.

"Some of the rivers I swam in when I was young are so polluted now that the stink is unbearable," he said. "These are problems brought about by business, and we need to make up for that."

While some of China's new super-rich have been caught up in high-profile corruption scandals, Yin believes its capitalists must give back to society, as part of an unwritten contract they have entered into with the political rulers, he argues.

"When the enterprises are very small, the government gives them tax breaks and preferential loans and so on," he said. "It's because of a traditional Chinese idea of `raising children with an eye to old age.' You raise your kids so they can look after you in dotage, and that's what the government is doing with enterprises too."

Yin seeks to contribute to society by investing not just in locations and industries where he can be sure of fat profit margins, but also where the social impact will be tangible. His company has invested 70 million yuan in poor areas such as Yunnan Province. He may lose money, but he helps keep people out of unemployment and families away from ruin.

"Those of us who have had the privilege of becoming rich first have a responsibility to help those who came after us, so they can also prosper," he said.

"I'm not a Buddhist, but my wife is a very devout believer and has impressed me with the idea that you should delight in helping others," he said.

His wife Chen Qiaofeng, with whom he has two grown-up children, is a member of senior management at Lifan Group.

"I don't drink and I don't smoke, because when I was young I was too poor to buy cigarettes and boots," he said.

Known by his staff to frequently eat lunch with them in the company cafeteria, Yin is worried about a wave of conspicuous consumption launched by the very rich in China.

"On the one hand, allowing them to spend lavishly may help boost consumption, but on the other hand it also means wasting resources, and China's resources are indeed scarce," he said.

"You drive a car. 160 or 180 horse powers is enough to get moving. What do you need 600 horse powers for? That's a waste. It's just for show," Yin said.

For someone who has had his freedom restricted for decades by the CCP, his attitude towards it is surprisingly forgiving.

"We need the Communist Party. Otherwise, there would be chaos in a country with 1.3 billion people. Many Chinese have no education. No one would respect the red lights at intersections," he said.

At the start of China's reform period, the CCP admitted its mistakes and then decided to move on. Yin applauds that.

"I've never complained about what happened to me. I think that belongs to the past. Let's concentrate on the future," he said.

He recalls how, while in a labor camp in the late 1960s, he wrote a propaganda poster containing the sentence "In the whole world, is there a person who does not support Chairman Mao?"

"People went crazy over the question mark. They thought I was expressing doubts about Mao. I was criticized for more than a year over this," he said.

"By comparison, China today is just so much more democratic and freer than before," he said.

It's been a mind numbing 10 hour shift stitching designer lingerie she will never wear, but Sri Lankan seamstress Pushpa Gamage counts herself lucky－she still has a job.

After leaving her rural Bangladesh village a year ago to work in a Dhaka garment factory, the 18-year-old is back home, a victim of global trade rules that have left her nation's textiles sector at the mercy of cutthroat competition from China.

Across Bangladesh, hundreds of small factories have closed or slashed jobs following the January expiry of worldwide export quotas allowed under the Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA), which had regulated the global clothing trade.

Under the MFA, major markets lit iI1v I 1S and Europe guaranteed importss of textiles and garments from poor countries such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka under a quota system.

Now these small, developing nations have to fend for themselves in a market increasingly dominated by China, which is leading the charge to cheaper clothing.

While it costs around US$1.84 to make a short sleeved men's shirt in Sri Lanka, China can make it for US$1 or less thanks to lower wage costs and bigger output capacity.

Bangladesh had total export earnings of US$7.6 billion in the fiscal year to June last year. Garments alone accounted for US$5.69 billion, or 75 percent, government officials in Dhaka said. Most of the nearly 2 million workers in the garment sector are rural women trying to escape abject poverty.

Sri Lanka earned US$2.8 billion from textile and apparel exports last yeas, nearly 50 percent of its total export revenue.

One Chinese industry official has forecast the Asian giant's textile and clothing exports would rise 15 percent this year to US$120 billion 43 times those of Sri Lanka.

"I was ready to do anything to earn my family... two square meals a day," said Shafia, who had left school in the village of Shingrapur, 160km east of Dhaka, hoping to be able to support her parents and brother.

Her father, Dudu Miah, hoped she would become a graduate and find a respectable job.

"But poverty pushed her to seek low paying work at a factory－and that for only a few months," he said.

"My daughter became my lifeline as I have no work, no land and no house of my own to live in," he said.

Bangladeshi garment workers earn from as little as 1,200 taka (US$20) a month,, according to a factory manager in Dhaka. A skilled worker can earn four times that a good wage for rural dwellers in a country where the average monthly wage of a farm laborer is 3,000 taka.

Industry leaders say hundreds of Bangladesh's garment factories out of a total of around 4,000 have closed or laid off workers since the MFA quotas expired.

"We don't have an exact figure, but I guess 200,000 jobs are at stake," said Annisul Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

"Most of the small factories were not fully prepared to face [the post-MFA era],” he said.

Factory owners said Bangladesh's textile exports fell by more than a third in the last few months, especially to Europe, which buys 70 percent of Bangladeshi products. But the IMF has said exports to the US, from both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, rose slightly in January-March.

Bangladesh has made some moves to equip its textile industry but has been unable to cope with fierce competition, traders said, noting simpler import and export processing, shorter shipment times, the removal of 15 percent value-added tax and lower port charges and fees on ready-made garments.

"Still, we cannot keep pace China, which emerged as a gaint competitor in the global textile business after the quotas were knocked off," Annisul said.

Sri Lanka's textiles industry had full order books when the MFA , expired, but sales are slowing.

"There was a slowdown in exports towards end March and it looks like our volumes will be lower in April," said Ashroff Omar, chairman of the Joint Apparel Association Forum and chief executive of Brandix Lanka, the country's No. 2 garment exporter.

Industry experts predict around 50 smaller manufacturers, who employ on average between 200 and 3,000 workers, will be out of business by the end of next year. Factory bosses are pooling resources in an often desperate bid to survive.

"I had a few sleepless nights…We thought my boss would go bankrupt after the quotas expired,” said 24-year old Gamage, tidying around her pedal-powered sewing machine at a factory in Dehiwala, on the outskirts of Colombo, that employs 1,000 workers.

“Months has passed and I’m still working at the same place,” she smiled. “The bosses have told us the company is expanding and our jobs are secure. I can only hope that is the case.”

Young women like Gamage work seven days a week sewing, folding and packing pants and skirts－the backbone of Sri Lanka’s 350,000-strong garment sector workforce. They earn on average 5,000 rupees(US$50) a month, with breakfast and lunch thrown in.

Gamage's boss, MA Naoshaadh, is betting that teaming up with another of Sri Lanka's more than 600 small and mid sized garment firms is the best way to survive.

"For the next two years you won't find anyone expanding by investing. They will expand by merging," said Naoshaadh, whose family-owned Paradigm Clothing Pvt makes lingerie and summer-wear for Marks and Spencer Group and Limited Brands’s Victoria’s Secret.

“No bank is willing to finance ay expansion plans now,” said Naoshaadh, who teamed up with Winterquilts to increase output capacity and squeeze costs.

He hopes the merger will pull in higher volume orders, trimming the US$1.40 cost of making a blouse by US$0.10 to US$0.20.

Under pressure from the EU China has agreed to limit export growth of 10 categories of textiles through 2007, but it remains a major competitive threat. Social and rights groups fear that desperate, jobless women and girls may turn to prostitution and the drugs trade as the once vibrant textiles sector shrinks.

“Out of a job means a social problem,” said Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, president of the Bangladesh Economic Association.

For Shafia, the power of market deregulation has cost her job. Gamage can merely hope her boss’ merger strategy works.