Climate change is a top-of-the-agenda issue at the G8 meeting. The US, the world's biggest polluter, is the only one of the eight countries at the summit not to have signed the Kyoto treaty to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

Despite speculation in the British media, US officials said on Tuesday that Bush had not softened his stance on Kyoto ahead of the meeting of G8 leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the US.

But in words viewed by other countries as conciliatory, Bush said: "Listen, I recognize the surface of the Earth is warmer, and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem."

Bush also said that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen raised concerns about the US detention camp in Cuba.

"The prisoners are well-treated in Guantanamo. There's total transparency. The International Red Cross can inspect anytime, any day," Bush said.

"These people are being treated humanely. There are very few prison systems around the world that have seen such scrutiny as this one," he said.

The Guantanamo camp, where some detainees have been held for three years without being charged, is a sore point in US-European relations. Even the Danish government, a staunch US ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, has called on the US to try the Guantanamo prisoners or release them.

Crackdown on cross-strait crime

Cross-strait crime has been increasingly worrisome as cross-strait ties have been getting closer in recent years. Three Chinese illegal migrants suspected in the murder of a taxi driver engaging in a gunbattle with police a few days ago in Taichung County was the most recent case. The police are still investigating whether the three Chinese might be professional killers hired by a local crime ring.

Some may still remember the shocking murdering of former Taoyuan County Commissioner Liu Pang-yu in 1996 -- and several other people in his house. The case has never been solved but the police are convinced that the killer(s) might be Chinese gangster(s) recruited by a local individual or group.

According to one TV reporter covering the crime beat, Chinese gangsters have the reputation of being inexpensive and cold-blooded, and so are favored by local crime rings when muscle is called for. They have reportedly even been classified into three categories -- according to their training -- which then determines their price.

The most professional and expensive killers, according to the TV reporter, are those who once served in the People Liberation Army's special units. The second tier are those who used to serve as police. The third tier are the generalists who lack special training.

Hong Kong, as usual, can serve as an example for Taiwan in this regard. People in the territory have been using the term "ta chuan tzai" to describe those Chinese gang members who come from poor and remote areas. They are said to be so poor and desperate that they fear nothing and no one and are ready to do anything for money. These gangsters have even become a stock character for the Hong Kong movie industry.

Most of the Chinese gangsters who have committed crimes in this country sneaked in illegally, usually via fishing boats, and left after completing their missions. Since they don't go through any immigration formalities, the police have no means of tracing them. This more or less encourages local gangs to hire them for high-risk endeavors. However, police say some have come under the cover of tourism or visiting relatives to look for crime opportunities.

Since cross-strait smuggling is rampant, Chinese gangsters also view Taiwan as a land of opportunity for petty crime. But cross-strait crime is not a unilateral problem for Taiwan. Organized crime committed by Taiwanese rings in China is increasing.

In addition, many high-profile Taiwanese gang leaders and fugitives are hiding in China. In order to stay safe in China, some gang leaders, such as Chang An-le, nicknamed the White Wolf, have shown support for the "one China" principle and spoken out against Taiwan independence.

A joint effort at cross-strait crime prevention is urgently needed. Hong Kong has established a joint anti-crime mechanism with China. Taiwan's cooperation with China in fighting crime rests on cross-strait understandings and agreements. But Beijing cut such dialogue in 1995, to protest then president Lee Teng-hui's visit to the US.

It was childish and irresponsible to cut off cross-strait discussion on creating a crime-prevention network for political reasons. It is also short-sighted of Beijing to protect Taiwanese criminals just because they are willing to support unification. A soaring crime rate is already a major domestic problem for the Chinese authorities. But they also must face up to their international responsibilities and show a willingness to help crackdown on cross-strait crime.

Russia's fate is tied to China

By Mike Pazaratz

I found Chang Hsi-mo's article ("China must collapse for Russia to stay united," May 28, page 8) to be very interesting. I am a Canadian university student who is very interested in global politics, especially those of Russia and developments in China. I have been to both of these countries. I am also a strong pro-Taiwan independence supporter.

I do agree that the fate of Russia is tied to China. As China grows stronger, and the energy and resource problems it has already started to experience grow more numerous and more severe, it will inevitably look north into Russia and east into former Soviet Central Asia for land, resources and political influence.

As long as it is dependent upon Russia for energy and raw material and is surrounded on two sides by potentially hostile states, China can never be a superpower. It will seek to set up a buffer zone as the Soviets (and to some extent the Americans) did in the Cold War. And it will seek to acquire a reliable source of raw materials.

This will obviously bring it into conflict with Russia, either directly or in the former Soviet regions, and the relative strengths of both of the states will determine the outcome of such a conflict. I believe that it is not just a Chinese collapse that would strengthen Russia, but a strong China may threaten it in the long run.

However, though a dramatic political shift must take place to "save" Russia, China is not the only country from which such a shift could occur, as Chang advocated in the article. Europe was divided between the superpowers after World War II for half a century and is now striving to find itself politically. It is still unclear what form the EU, the world's largest economy, will take on the world stage. Or even what form the EU itself will take on the map and where its boundaries will be drawn.

But one thing that is clear is that whatever its choice, it will dramatically change the world situation and the situation inside Russia.

Russia's admittance into the EU (or whatever organization it evolves into) is inevitable, as ultimately they need each other.

Europe needs the raw materials and the energy, while Russia is inevitably on a "march to the West" and will not have arrived until it is readmitted into the Europe it left in 1917. When this occurs, Russia will be seen completely differently by former Soviet states and by Asia, as they will realize that Russia is their ticket to the West, to prosperity and freedom, to the "American lifestyle" which they all are desperate for.

Evidence of this includes the three recent "orange, velvet and rose" revolutions in which new regimes swept to power for the simple reason that they were "pro-Western" in a very abstract sense. Even though none of the voters knew exactly what they stood for, they supported them because they seemed to be more Western-oriented than what the people had before.

The West won the Cold War. If Russia joins the EU, and therefore the West, it will reverse the disintegration trend and nations such as Kazakhstan will be begging to join the federation -- and regions such as Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, Sakha, Tuva, Karelia and Kalmykija would abandon all thoughts of leaving it.

For the most part I agree with Chang's arguments, and I commend him, for few writers are bold enough to say that the fate of one great nation is dependent on the collapse of another.

Mike Pazaratz

Canada

Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese

By Chen Ching-chih

Taiwan does belong to Taiwanese in spite of China's repeated claim. One of the most frequently heard Chinese arguments is that "Taiwan has belonged to China since antiquity." Such and such a territory has always belonged to China is probably the most commonly used rationale for the Chinese territorial claim. The Chinese are plainly deceiving themselves whenever they make such a ridiculous claim.

A decade ago, a retired colleague of mine served as a visiting professor at a university in Manchuria. The American professor and his wife enjoyed entertaining his graduate students at their apartment. One night, the professor led a discussion centering on Manchurian history and culture. One of the students asserted that "The northeast has belonged to China since ancient times," and his collegues enthusiastically supported the argument.

Having strived to teach his Chinese students how to think rather than what to think, the professor, who was also well read in Chinese history, asked them to explain why Manchuria lies outside of the famed Great Wall that was constructed and reconstructed since the third century to defend China from the nomadic "barbarians." All the Chinese at the party were speechless.

Chinese education and propaganda authorities have drilled standard answers to important historical and cultural issues into the minds and hearts of the Chinese to such an extent that the Chinese have come to accept them without question.

In addition to Manchuria, the Chinese of course have also claimed that Tibet, Eastern Turkistan (Xinjiang) and Mongolia as well as Taiwan have always belonged to China. The fact is, however, that none of them belonged to China prior to 1644, when the Ming dynasty came to an end. It was the Manchu army that conquered Ming China after breaking through the Great Wall. It then used military means to incorporate surrounding territories, including Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet, over the following decades. As a result of the Manchu-led expansion, the island of Taiwan was also bought within the fold of the new empire in 1683.

Partly due to challenges coming from the expanding West, the Manchu Qing empire, not unlike the Ottoman empire, began to disintegrate from the middle of the 19th century, and ultimately broke up in the early 20th century. Defeated militarily, the empire lost Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1842, Outer Manchuria north of the Amur River to Czarist Russia in 1858-1860, and Taiwan to Imperial Japan in 1895.

Ultimately when the Qing Dynasty fell in 1912, the bulk of what was left of the Manchu empire became a republic, while both Outer Mongolia and Tibet declared independence. With the protection of the Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia has remained independent. Unfortunately, deprived of British support and patronage after the British withdrawal from the Indian subcontinent when India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, Tibet was annexed militarily in the 1950s by the People's Republic of China (PRC), which was established in 1949.

In the case of Taiwan, it is crystal clear that it has not belonged to China since ancient times. China was not even the first country to have political control over part, if not the entirety of the island. The Dutch established the first government over the western portion of Taiwan in 1624. In 1662, however, the Dutch were expelled from Taiwan by the military force of pirate-general Cheng Chen-kung, better known to the Westerners as Koxinga, who established a kingdom in Taiwan.

Cheng's naval activities against the southeast coast of the newly established Qing empire in China contributed to his ultimate destruction in 1683. To prevent Taiwan from ever becoming an anti-Manchu base again, the Manchu court decided to bring Taiwan under its control. For the next two centuries, Manchu rule over Taiwan was rather loose and ineffective one. Even so, the Qing Dynasty had to cede the island to Japan as a result of suffering a humiliating military defeat in the hands of a modernized Japan in 1895.

While Japan possessed Taiwan, Mao Zedong made known to the international community through journalist Edgar Snow, who published his book Red Star over China in 1937 after having interviewed Mao and other Chinese Communist leaders, that Taiwan, like Korea, should eventually become independent of Japanese colonial rule.

Other Chinese leaders such as Tai Chi-tao of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had expressed the same view earlier. Clearly, the Chinese were too preoccupied with their country's own problems, particularly Japan's territorial ambitions and expansion in China, to do more than just express their wish to see the eventual break-up of Japan's colonial empire.

When the end of the Japanese empire did come, it was chiefly due to the military might of the US. Japan renounced her sovereignty over Taiwan as well as other overseas territories after its defeat in the summer of 1945. The renouncement of sovereignty over Taiwan was legally reaffirmed in the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty that Japan signed with the US and 34 other countries.

Without specifying a recipient country, the treaty can only be -- and must be -- interpreted as leaving sovereignty over Taiwan to the people of Taiwan.

Repeatedly claiming, particularly since the 1970s, that there is only one China and that Taiwan is its inalienable "sacred territory," the PRC government, with its rising economic, political as well as military power, has been able to compel an increasing number of countries to acknowledge, if not accept, its claim.

To demonstrate its determination to annex Taiwan, the National People's Congress even unanimously passed on March 14 the "Anti-secession" Law authorizing the use of "non-peaceful means" to annex Taiwan if it should strive to become fully independent. The fact is that Taiwan has been fully independent of the PRC since 1949.

Regarding China's so-called "sacred territory," one should take note of the fact that the Chinese have recently accepted Russian sovereignty over what most Chinese had for long dreamed of recovering -- its hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of "sacred territory" stolen by Czarist Russia in the mid-19th century as a result of the treaties of Aigun (1858) and Peking (1860).

Clearly capable of being pragmatic and flexible when confronting a more powerful neighbor, the PRC has finally come to settle its territorial disputes by peaceful means with Russia. It is time that China also work to settle peacefully its disputes with Taiwan, rather than repeatedly threatening to use force.

China's belligerency toward Taiwan threatens peace and stability in East Asia and has consequently compelled Japan to join with the US in insisting a peaceful settlement of disputes across the Taiwan Strait.

It will be to the benefit of China as well as to other countries when Beijing respects human rights, well-established international practices and the wish of the freedom-loving Taiwanese to be masters of their own destiny. When peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is assured, the Chinese government can then devote its full efforts to China's continuing economic development and to the care of its people's well-being.

Chen Ching-chih is professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a researcher with the Los Angeles-based Institute for Taiwanese Studies.