"That way, through government negotiations and expansion of exchanges, mutual trust can be cultivated, as can the conditions for eventual political reconciliation," he said.

But Chen also had harsh words for Beijing, criticizing it for interfering in Hong Kong's affairs.

The president's earlier comments were part of a speech to participants attending the opening ceremony for the Executive Yuan's training program.

While affirming the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration's "willingness" to seek dialogue and rapprochement with China, Chen stressed that "the government will never change its pragmatic and rational policy upholding Taiwan's national sovereignty and insisting on Taiwan's national identity."

Chen said that exchanges over the past 10 years between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait had developed into "extremely close ties which hold great value and significance in the development of bilateral cross-strait relations."

Chen also said that he hoped efforts would be made to resume cross-strait dialogue, "because only through dialogue can both sides shorten the distance between them and lay the foundations for building mutual confidence."

In addition to insisting on cross-strait rapprochement, Chen said his administration would continue to insist on constitutional reform, fairness and justice.

"This is what the people have been expecting, and this will enable our next generation to live in a fair and just Taiwan where social, economic, judicial, gender and international justice will prevail," Chen said.

He added that the government would not neglect the less privileged while generating economic development and international competitiveness.

But at another event later in the day, Chen lashed out at Beijing for encroaching on Hong Kong's autonomy since its return to China.

"Over the past eight years, Hong Kong has been one of the few regions in the world where personal freedom, democracy and law and order have suffered serious setbacks ... All peace and democracy lovers in the world should take careful note of this lesson," Chen said.

This year marks the eighth year of China's rule of the former British territory.

Chen made the comments while meeting a group of Hong Kong-based Taiwan Commerce and Industry Association rep-resentatives at the Presidential Office.

In addition, the president told his visitors that Beijing should put more emphasis on the spirit of "peace and freedom" in its slogan for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Beijing's Olympics organizing committee announced on Sunday that the slogan for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games is "One world, one dream." The slogan was selected to "embody the common aspirations of the 1.3 billion Chinese people in establishing a world of peace and a better future," according to the committee.

"China looks forward to joining the ranks of world powers through hosting the 2008 Olympic Games. However, a big power may not necessarily win respect and acclaim in the international community," Chen said.

"If Beijing changes its slogan to `One peaceful world, one dream of freedom,' then it would receive even more world recognition and esteem," Chen said.

He added that this revision would better embody the meaning and significance of the Olympic Games.

Chinese official blasts Beijing's pollution record

UTTER FAILURE: The pollution crisis in China is so dire that Beijing's No.1 environment official said the challenge was to keep things as bad as they are

AFP , BEIJING

"We will strive to realize the general goal of basically stopping the deterioration of China's environment."

Xie Zhenhua, director of China's State Environmental Protection Agency

China's top environment official has lambasted the nation's failure to enforce environmental laws, saying more enforcement is crucial to stemming worsening pollution.

"Non-enforcement and lax enforcement of laws and administrative inactivity are the main targets we must aim at," Xie Zhenhua, director of the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), was quoted by Xinhua news agency as telling a meeting on Wednesday. "The key problems in environmental law enforcement that the government currently needs to face up to and solve is that some local environment authorities do not exercise their law enforcement duties."

Continued failure to enforce the law would make it difficult to stem expanding environmental degradation that has made China's air, water and soil pollution some of the worst in the world, he said.

Xie made it clear that pollution in China was so bad that it was not a question of cleaning up but of stopping things from getting worse.

"We will strive to realize the general goal of basically stopping the deterioration of China's environment," Xie said.

While reiterating the Communist Party mantra to "rule the country by law," he further lamented the misguided and unregulated practice of maximizing short-term economic profits at the expense of the environment.

National People's Congress Vice Chairman Sheng Huaren admitted that the 1984 Law on Prevention and Control of Water Pollution had utterly failed. This had left 300 million rural residents without access to safe drinking water, including 190 million drinking contaminated water.

"Last year, water from half the tested sections of China's seven major rivers was undrinkable because of pollution," Sheng was quoted as saying by the China Daily in a report on the law's implementation. "The water quality of the country's major rivers has continued to worsen."

Sheng urged the government to set detailed goals to prevent water pollution and to spend more on trying to stop pollution and soil erosion in the upper reaches of major rivers.

In cities, where 42 percent of China's 1.3 billion people live, more than two decades of rapid economic development and fast urbanization have made sewage disposal nearly impossible, he said.

As a result, 90 percent of river sections in urban areas were heavily polluted, as were most urban lakes.

One-third of non-industrial sewage in the cities went untreated on average, while no treatment was carried out at all in 193 of China's 500 biggest cities, the report said.

Two-thirds of Chinese cities lack an adequate water supply, and one in every six suffers severe shortages. This was made worse by the widespread pollution of both surface and underground water.

Sheng said China's sewage-discharge volume had increased year on year, despite the government pouring some 111.5 billion yuan (US$13.5 billion) into sewage treatment since 2001.

Environmental problems go even further. Experts say raging floods and landslides triggered by torrential rain, which have claimed hundreds of lives in recent weeks, are largely a result of "prolonged reckless human activities in the past decades," Xinhua said.

Taiwan not the KMT's personal property

President Chen Shui-bian recently announced that the second round of constitutional amendments will replace the old sovereignty concept based on a "greater China" ideology with a pragmatic approach to the sovereignty issue. This statement, which amounts to a "declaration of independence," has been an effective reply to the "China fever" that has followed the visits to China by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party Chairman James Soong. It also clearly set the goal of the second round of constitutional reform.

After an awareness of sovereignty was established in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, the sovereignty principle became an important way of organizing the relationship between nations, and it is also the most important principle for avoiding foreign interference in local affairs. As a result, countries began to give legal recognition to the international community as a multitude of free and sovereign states.

The establishment of the concept of national status prevented domestic groups from treating the state as private property to be passed on to someone else at will.

While the KMT was in power, the issue of Taiwanese sovereignty was made part of a "greater China" ideology, legitimizing its monopolistic interpretation that Taiwan was its personal property. The imaginary community built on this fantastic ideology meant that the KMT elite constantly kept expanding the state apparatus during the civil war with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

After the retreat to Taiwan, the KMT elite no longer used war, but rather national infrastructure projects such as education, transportation, state-run enterprises and massive industrial development to maintain the basis for its power through direct rule and infiltration. The KMT-controlled state actively interfered with and infiltrated civil society. It tied the daily lives of citizens to the state and used it to gather information about private citizens to maintain its grip on power. The KMT's loss of power in 2000 also meant a transfer of its right to interpret the sovereignty of Taiwan. The KMT worried that Chen would lead Taiwan toward independence, which would have undermined its most praised value -- the "greater China" ideology.

The KMT then adopted a non-cooperation approach toward the Chen government, using the state apparatus as a tool in the inter-party struggle and rendering the Chen government incapable of achieving anything during its first four years in power. After last year's presidential election, the KMT adopted an approach of disobedience extending from the streets into the legislature, creating a difficult political situation and embroiling the blue and green camps in vicious battles.

This year, the idea that struggle against China was hopeless appeared in the KMT, after which a servile approach toward China was adopted -- Lien and Soong decided to take it on themselves to offer sovereignty over Taiwan to the CCP in the hope that joining hands with China would win them back political power and control of Taiwan.

Not only has the KMT -- in the name of the "greater China" ideology -- treated Taiwanese sovereignty as a tool to be handed over to China at will, it has also mixed up its understanding of friend and foe.

The threat to Taiwan's security thus does not only come from China, but more importantly, it comes from that elusive "greater China" ideology which constantly keeps undermining the foundation for solidarity among the people of Taiwan. Unless we rid ourselves of that illusion, Taiwan will never see peace, and "Taiwanese security" will forever remain an empty phrase.

Wang Kun-yi is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University.