20050621

Hopping mad

Restaurant owners protest yesterday while filing a lawsuit against People First Party member and Taipei City Councilor Mike Wang at the Taipei District Court. The business owners say they have suffered a huge loss of business as a result of widely-aired video footage showing "restaurant staff" buying food from a funeral parlor - footage that was later found to have been staged.

North Korea wants to swap its milliles for US respect

REUTERS, SELUL

“The North Koreans love to make excuses.”

－Condoleezza Rice, US Secretary of State

North Korea will give up its missiles if the US establishes diplomatic ties, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told a South Korean minister last week, an official in the South said yesterday.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young met Kim in Pyong-yang the North Koream capital, last Friday and the communist leader told him the North was ready to end its year-long boycott of talks on its nuclear weapons if the US showed it respect.

Chung briefed the South Korean Cabinet yesterday.

“If North Korea normalizes diplomatic ties with the United States and Washington becomes an ally with Pyongyang, then North Korea would give up all of its missiles,” a senior government official quoted Chung as telling ministers.

The official, who asked not to be identified, told reporters Kim had been referring to long-, medium- and short-range missiles, some of which can reach Japan as well as South Korea.

Washington looks unlikely to respond favorably to Kim’s latest reported remarks. Diplomatic relations with the North would by all but impossible before a nuclear deal and before Washington detected improved human rights in the communist state.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday that North Korea’s earlier statement that it would only return to stalled six-party nuclear talks if shown respect was an excuse to avoid pressure over its atomic program.

“The North Koreans love to make excuses,” Rice told CNN in an interview from Jerusalem.

“The reason they don’t want to come to the six-party talks is they don’t like facing China and Russia and Japan and South Korea and the United States telling them in a concerted fashion that it’s time to get rid of their unclear weapons,” she said.

The six-party talks involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US.

Washington’s pointman for North Korea told Yonhap news agency before he left Seoul yesterday that the key was for Pyong-yang to agree a date for the talks.

“When we begin there negotiations, we will conduct them in an attitude of mutual respect to all the parties and also with the sense of equality that a good negotiation should have,” said Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

Kim said on Friday his reclusive state, which fears Washington plans to invade it and declared in February it possessed nuclear weapons, was willing to “give up everything” if it received security guarantees.

Proliferation experts believe North Korea could have as many as eight nuclear weapons.

It is not clear whether the North has been able to develop a nuclear weapon small enough to fit into a missile warhead. Military experts say the North probably does have chemical and biological warheads as well as conventional ones.

North Korea stunned its neighbors in 1998 by launching a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.

The Taepodong 1 missile is thought to have a range of 2,500km, the experts say.

The North has tested and deployed a shorter-range missile, the Nodong1, and may be working on a longer-range one that could reach the western US, the experts say.

DPP faults Wang for frigate trip

FISHING DISPUTE: The lawmakers said the legislative speaker's participation in the trip was `inappropriate' and that warships should not be used to protect fishermen

By Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTER

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng today is scheduled to board a warship with 15 lawmakers to sail to disputed waters near the Diaoyutais to demonstrate a determination to protect Taiwanese fishermen.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, however, criticized the move as "inappropriate" and "grandstanding."

"Although we recognize Speaker Wang's good intentions, we think it is meaningless and not the right thing to do because he should let the Coast Guard Administration and Ministry of Foreign Affairs take care of the matter. Instead, he is jumping to the frontline and taking the matter into his own hands," DPP caucus whip Lai Ching-te said.

Bigger threat

In addition to expressing apprehension over Wang's planned trip, which he said might cause more trouble, Lai said that the nation's biggest threat comes from China. He called on the public to take China's military buildup seriously.

"With the increase in China's military budget and its successful test-fire of ballistic missiles that have a range of 8,000km, it is very inappropriate for opposition parties to treat our enemy as a friend or our sibling, or even parent," he said.

DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung said that although there was no doubt that a country should protect its fishermen and claim sovereignty over territorial boundaries, it should be the responsibility of the Coast Guard Administration to take care of fishing disputes instead of the defense ministry.

Democratic Progressive Party caucus whip Lai Ching-te yesterday warns the public about China's successful development of long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles with a range of 8,000km. Lai made the comments while criticizing lawmakers for taking a trip on a warship near to waters disputed with Japan, saying that China is the greatest threat to the nation.

"Only under the circumstances that military action is taken or when the coast guard needs backup is the navy obliged to take counteraction, but so far I haven't seen the situation reach such a critical state," Lee said.

People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang's request to the Ministry of National Defense to send a warship to disputed waters, Lee said, was clearly "grandstanding."

Irritated by the DPP's remarks, Wang said that the DPP should take the matter more seriously.

If boarding the warship could be interpreted as "grandstanding," Wang asked what the DPP would call it if Premier Frank Hsieh eventually decided to join the trip.

"It's very inappropriate for the DPP to use populism to deal with such a serious matter," he added.

Wang, however, said that he would welcome Hsieh if he were to go, because it would deliver a strong message, with the heads of the legislative and executive branches jointly declaring sovereignty and expressing their resolve to protect the country's fishermen.

Another DPP legislator, Lin Cho-shui, said that sending warships to protect fishermen would not help resolve the problem.

"Fishing disputes require bilateral negotiations, not military means," he said. "I'd really hate to see tensions with Japan heightened and hope it is the first and also the last time a warship is sent to protect fishermen."

With the nation set to conduct its 15th round of fishing negotiations with the Japanese, Lin yesterday made a five-point request asking the DPP government to put aside the sovereignty issue at the negotiating table.

Lin also called on the government to set a negotiation target of shared resources with Japan within the nation's traditional fishing grounds, in accordance with international maritime conventions and ecological standards.

The government should also adopt a more flexible approach while conducting fishing negotiations with Japan, Lin said.

"China, Japan and Korea have signed bilateral fishing accords with each other, but we are the only country that's left out of the loop," he said.

The crux of the problem lay in the nation's implacable stance as well as the mixing of sovereignty issues with fishing problems, he added.

Later this summer, President Chen Shui-bian will present the country's first-ever National Security Report. This will confirm a trend toward adopting a presidential system. The presidential brief to the whole nation will also help establish a consensus on national-security issues in a nation that remains beleaguered by issues of national identity and the independence-unification divide.

The report will cover the economy, national defense, cross-strait relations, foreign affairs and homeland protection. In making this report, Chen will be speaking directly to the people, rather than following the US example in which the president makes his State of the Union address to both houses of Congress. However, if the president directly reports to his people rather than to the legislature, this could be interpreted as an attempt by the Executive Yuan to sidestep the hazard of accountability to the Legislative Yuan.

Establishing a presidential system of government will be a priority in the second phase of constitutional reform, and in linking his address to national security, Chen is clearly seeking to establish a precedent by exercising power through the National Security Council (NSC). This will also greatly increase the council's political influence.

If we look back over the history of constitutional amendments, it's clear to see that while the original spirit of the Constitution was closer to that of a dual-executive system, the amendments and the actual practice of the government under former president Lee Teng-hui shifted toward that of a presidential system. Since Lee doubled as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and the KMT had a stable majority in the legislature, the operation of the government tended to conform to that of a presidential system.

Following the transition of power in 2000 -- and last year's legislative elections -- the pan-blue camp nonetheless retained its legislative majority. The pan-blue camp could use its majority to hold a vote of no confidence in the government, forcing the president to dissolve the legislature, in order to bring about the implementation of a dual-executive system. However, although the pan-blue camp is doing all it can to obstruct the government, it hasn't got the courage to challenge the political structure.

The report to be given by Chen touches on various areas of the Executive Yuan's responsibility, and will have two significant political effects.

First, the powers of the NSC's secretary-general will be enhanced, creating a "dual executive" with a significant overlap in authority and jurisdiction of the council's secretary-general and the premier. In the unlikely event that these two officials find themselves in disagreement, the president will have to play referee to prevent friction between the council and the Executive Yuan.

Second, although the National Security Report will be delivered to the people, the Additional Articles of the Constitution allow the legislature to demand that the president make a State of the Nation report. It will be necessary to give some consideration to the differences or the consonance of these two reports.

If the legislature calls for a State of the Nation report, the president has to comply. The government should follow the example of the US and combine the National Security Report and the State of the Nation address into a constitutionally mandated address to the legislature. This would serve as a clear demonstration of the nation's highest elected official exercising supervision over its highest elected body.