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Green groups say no to China's panda diplomacy

INHUMANE?: Environmentalists in Taiwan are questioning whether accepting the pandas is really a good idea, as it would result in them having to leave their natural habitat

By Jenny Chou

STAFF REPORTER

As the selection of Taiwan's pandas reaches its final stages in China, humanistic and environmental groups in Taiwan yesterday raised objections about Taiwan's acceptance of the pandas, questioning whether China's gesture is really one of goodwill and whether the pandas will improve ecological understanding in Taiwan.

Speaking of what China's gesture might represent, Chu Tseng-hung, president of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (East), said, "First, it may be a peacemaking gesture. Second, the zoo has emphasized that it is for research, protection and environmental education purposes. But we need to ask: How sincere is it as a symbol of peacemaking, and is it appropriate for research needs of Taiwan's ecologists?"

Shortly after former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, Lien Chan's visit to China at the end of April this year, China offered Taiwan a pair of pandas as a gift, an offer which has raised much controversy.

Executive director of Taiwan's Humanistic Education Foundation, Joanna Feng said, "Some have joked that with the pandas in Taiwan, there may be two less missiles aimed at Taiwan. But in the past, China has referred to Taiwan as being its flesh and blood, but that hasn't stopped them from aiming their missiles at us. So I don't see how two pandas can help."

Feng spoke of the less-than-ideal conditions in which captive pandas in China were kept, saying that China only cared about manufacturing pandas by the dozen, treating them as commodities and using them as strategic devices.

During the cold war, China famously gave pandas as tokens of goodwill, leading to the term "panda diplomacy" being coined. The recipients of such tokens of goodwill included Japan, the US and Britain.

Telling how China suppressed Taiwan during this year's UN non-governmental organizations (NGO) conference, which resulted in Taiwan's representative not being allowed to go to important meetings, executive director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, Chien Hsi-chieh said, "If China really wants to show goodwill toward Taiwan, they should start by allowing NGOs more space to participate internationally."

From an ecological perspective, Chien said that moving the pandas to Taiwan was not the right way forward.

"Protecting them in their natural habitat is the future of ecological conservation," Chien said.

Chien added that moving the pandas to Taiwan would reduce their activity space, from 24,000m2 to only 5500m2, and that the life expectancy of caged pandas was two to three years shorter than of those living in the wild.

Chien said, "The best thing the government can do is leave the pandas in their natural habitat and use the NT$200 million (US$6 million) that was going to be used to build the panda center in Taiwan for their maintenance in China."

Feng said, "It is not just a question of whether Taiwan has the ability to keep pandas, it has also to do with if Taiwan wants to adopt a more progressive and humane attitude, one that places value on life."

The Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association, Taiwan's, Lynn Lin spoke of how, after explaining to students of Longan elementary school that having pandas moved to Taiwan would mean they had to leave their natural habitat, the students' original excitement about having pandas in Taiwan dissipated, and all consequently voted that the bears should stay in China.

"Why are our adults less reasonable than these children? Why does the government insist on sacrificing two lives, in spite of principles which take only five minutes to explain?" Lin said.

Military accused of meddling in elections

ON-BASE CANVASSING?: Sections of the local media have accused the MND of trying to sway voters in the run-up to the local government elections in December

By Rich Chang

STAFF REPORTER

"The MND always stays neutral in politics, however, the more than 290,000 military personnel have the right to vote and choose good candidates."－ Lee Jye, defense minister

The controversy was sparked by the director of the Reserve Command's political warfare department, lieutenant general Chen Kuo-hsiang's remarks on Friday, when he told veterans at a Reserve Command meeting "we should vote for candidates who support the arms bill. We should use our ballots to reject those who are ignoring the country's security."

A Chinese language newspaper said on Saturday that the MND should not get involved in elections and politics.

They also said the military's timing for holding the military shows and food fairs was aimed at promoting the parties and candidates who support the arms bill.

Minister of Defense Lee Jye responded to the controversy yesterday by telling reporters"The MND always stays neutral in politics, however, the more than 290,000 military personnel have the right to vote and choose good candidates."

Lee said opening the bases was to improve the military-public relationship, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with the elections.

The Kinmen Defense Headquarters opened its bases to the public at the weekend. When marine special forces finished an operation, soldiers displayed a big poster reading "please support the arms bill."

An artillery troop in Taichung County also conducted a small-scale live-fire drill for the public on Saturday, and displayed the army's M60A3 and M41D tanks.

MND deputy minister Tsai Ming-hsien visited a couple of military bases on the weekend. He ate snacks with people, had his photo taken with kids and asked the public to support the arms bill.

Lee Jye also attended a food fair on Saturday at the Army Academy in Taoyuan County which was open to the public.

Chen Kuo-hsiang yesterday told reporters his remarks on the arms bill were his own personal opinion, and that they do not represent the ministry's stance. He said, however, that he was very confused as to why legislators who had support from military communities and families opposed the arms bill.

BEHIND THE CURVE: Beijing has been unable to deal with the rise of Taiwanese identity, as well as contradictions in the idea of its peaceful rise

The prospects for reconciliation between China and Taiwan may be fundamentally flawed because of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) inability to come up with a new Taiwan policy to address the contradiction between China's peaceful rise and its desire to maintain a credible threat to Taiwan, a British scholar specializing in China-Taiwan relations said last week.

In a paper presented to the Asia-Pacific Security Forum 2005 last Thursday, Christopher Hughes, senior lecturer in the International Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science, challenged the idea of a possible reconciliation in Sino-Taiwan relations in the years to come -- at least not before 2008, a key year coinciding with Beijing's Olympic Games, the CCP's 17th Party Congress and the presidential elections in Taiwan and the US.

He said domestic factors in China, Taiwan and the US will not be conducive to reconciliation; rather they could be the "quiet before the storm." Hughes said the development of Taiwanese identity is a crucial element in Sino-Taiwan relations that the CCP has been unable to harness since the election of Chen Shui-bian in 2000.

"There is a general awareness and agreement in mainland China that they've lost the game on Taiwanese identity. They've lost the battle for some minds in Taiwan," Hughes said.

The academic said that the failure to tackle the development of a Taiwanese identity could be one reason behind the PRC's tougher line toward Taiwan.

Hughes said this revealed a contradiction in Beijing's desire to present itself as "a peaceful rising power" while at the same time maintaining a credible threat toward Taiwan.

Hughes said that literature by Chinese scholars on the "peaceful rise" reveals this contradiction.

"When they get to the Taiwan issue, it's very difficult for them to reconcile these two things," Hughes said.

However, Hughes added that there were also some Chinese scholars who, recognizing this dilemma, have begun discussions along the lines that if China wants to have a peaceful rise, it has to at least have a new Taiwan policy, such as allowing the possibility for a "two China" formula.

"That's one of the reasons that peaceful rise is not being discussed anymore and now peaceful development has become the new word," Hughes said.

Regarding Taiwan's domestic situation, Hughes said that identity politics had become crucial to the internal dynamics of electoral politics, especially for the DPP.

"Taiwan's 2004 presidential election showed the need for the DPP to make identity politics central to [their] campaign, to shift the middle ground away from economic issues," Hughes said.

Looking at the opposition, Hughes said the new Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) under Ma Ying-jeou has reverted to former president Lee Teng-hui's 1988 strategy of "unification with a democratic mainland."

"It's very interesting to see that Ma Ying-jeou's policy is really a reversion to what Lee Teng-hui established back in 1988, which expounds that unification essentially won't happen unless democratization happens in mainland China, which, you all know, is a long, long time away," he said.

The "one China" policy is a tool that is being used to suppress Taiwan's aspirations for formal sovereignty, as well as its democracy. Unfortunately, the US government has often "assisted" at the most inopportune times.

For instance, late last year, the Taiwanese people were wary enough to install a pro-China pan-blue majority in the Legislative Yuan -- a result for which the US government's untimely anti-sovereignty remarks were at least partially responsible. Now, the US wants these pro-China legislators to let the China-deterring arms procurement bill pass -- an irony only Beijing would appreciate. However, for the US, this might be the first taste of how the "one China" policy can come in conflict with US strategic interests.

To be sure, the arms bill could still be passed eventually, but not on account of US pressure. Rather, it would be the pan-blue camp's utmost desire to regain control of the government so it could compel legislators to try to mollify Taiwanese voters.

As a pre-presidential election strategy, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will try to delude the public into believing that it cares about Taiwan's security. The KMT leadership is fully aware that the process of arms purchase takes years and will be controlled by the government that takes power in 2008.

The procurement plan could then be "revised" and the pan-blue camp's "grand" scheme of disarming Taiwan would proceed unmolested, if the KMT were to regain power. That's why the bill is destined to drag on as close to the presidential election as possible.

The public can expect to be fed a stream of lame excuses by the KMT in the coming months.

It's essential to understand that Taiwan's unilateral disarmament is the pan-blue camp leaders' "oath of loyalty" to join up with Beijing.

Meanwhile, these leaders in concert with Taiwan's pro-China media have been preaching to the people the impossibility of Taiwan's independence. Invariably they use the US' "one China" policy to back up their claims. At the same time, they are relentlessly planting the seeds of inevitability for "unification" instead.

Up until recently, positive factors, such as Taiwanese consciousness and identity, and the desirability of democracy and liberty, have dwarfed all of the negative ones. In fact, opinion polls showing how overwhelmingly the Taiwanese people are against "unification" -- have often been cited as evidence of the impossibility of Taiwan ever succumbing to China.

But, pan-blue camp leaders' incessant exploitation of the US' "one China" policy -- which reached a crescendo when former KMT chairman Lien Chan visited Beijing to form the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) alliance -- seems to be eroding the Taiwanese people's confidence and wearing down their defenses.

In other words, while Taiwan should be on high alert to guard against "unification by stealth," the Taiwanese people might be dangerously close to their most apathetic. Should the collaboration of pan-blue camp leaders with Beijing succeed in bringing about a takeover by stealth of Taiwan by China, the US' "one China" policy would have at least contributed in terms of creating an amicable environment. In light of this, the US government's standard practice of "hands off Taiwan-China discussions, as well as resolution of Taiwan's status as long as no violence is involved" appears to be unrealistic and deserves a thorough review.

Unfortunately, the "one China" policy also tends to discourage the US from educating its own people -- both government officials and the public alike -- ? to the fact that Taiwan is too important to the US to allow it to become part of China.

Therefore, the key to warding off the looming "unification by stealth" calamity -- as well as helping relieve the ongoing difficulties regarding arms purchases -- might be the US' open acknowledgement of Taiwan's long-term, vital strategic value. It would surprise few people if the US government then proceeded to recognize the need for changing or at least tweaking the "one China" policy. This could be done to safeguard against any form of "unification by stealth." Perhaps the US would also commit to formally recognizing the sovereign state of Taiwan in case of a Chinese attack, or in case a "unification" without the consent of the Taiwanese people is deemed unavoidable without this recognition.

It was heartening to hear US President George W. Bush liken Communism to Islamic militants who are trying to enslave nations. ("Islamic militants trying to `enslave' nations: Bush," Oct. 7, page 1.). Yet it is so disheartening to see the US take such an ambiguous stand for so long on the immediate threat Taiwan faces from China.

China does not just threaten to enslave nations. It has already done so -- in Tibet and East Turkestan. It also tried its hand in South Korea, Vietnam, attempting an evil empire stretching from Mongolia to the Taiwan Strait, from North Korea to Hong Kong.

There is no moderate government in the territories China controls. If it controlled another nation such as Taiwan, where would it all end, until someone call its bluff? In the case of the Communist Chinese empire, they try to rally "Chinese nationals" all over the world, while they enslave the so-called "Chinese" Hans, Mongolians, Muslims, and countless ethnic minority groups willing or unwilling to be called "Chinese."

We praise Bush for his clear view as a leader in Iraqi policy. Yet, we must ask: Where is his clear view on communist China? Knowing the similarities between communism and militant Muslims, would it not lend credibility to his conviction on Iraq, if he also held the same conviction about Taiwan? I have always greatly admired Ronald Reagan for his clear views as a leader, in principals, and in the way he achieved them. A man who did not particularly like to be bothered with details, yet he had a keen sense of choosing the right people to take charge.

It was the likes of Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Detente, SALT I, SALT II, that elevated Russia to the status of an "evil empire," threatening a third world war. It was Ronald Reagan's clear sense, calling Russia's bluff, that brought down that empire. It is the ambiguity in the "one China" policy that allows likes of Zhu Chenghu to threaten the use of WMD against the US. Who will be the 21st century's Reagan and call China's bluff?

Taiwan, under the past KMT regime, may be like the Vietnam of old, or the Philippines under Marcos. But Taiwan is an entirely different nation now. Taiwan is the kind of nation that Bush could only wish for in Iraq.

Of course we are still in the Iraq mess right now. Yet in lieu of China's clear threat to Taiwan, it is not too early to think about how to deal with the last evil empire on earth.

Supporting full sovereignty for Taiwan ["US should support full sovereignty for Taiwan," Oct. 8, page 8] would be a small but definite step forward. Not only would it create a clear view of the world he is leading, it would greatly enhance Bush's credibility on Iraq, at least in this small corner of the Taiwanese-American community, and to uphold his conviction on the simple American value of freedom and democracy, and his determination to stand against tyrants.

Steve Wang's letter (Letters) Oct. 10, page 8) contains the statement "Google has correctly listed Taiwan as a province of China because Google is a US corporation and the status of Taiwan to the US is that Taiwan is a part of China, as defined by the Shanghai Communique and the Taiwan Relations Act, the second which was agreed to and signed by the US Congress."

The Taiwan Relations Act contains not a single instance of "Taiwan, Province of China." Additionally, the 1979 Act does not define the status of Taiwan from the US' point of view, nor does it have a statement that "Taiwan is part of China."

In the Shanghai Communique, the US acknowledges the PRC's position that Taiwan is part of China, but it does not necessarily recognize this position. The US further emphasized this when it established diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979. Products made in Taiwan that appear in the US are not labeled "Taiwan, Province of China." At the airport, US Customs and Immigration officials never ask people from Taiwan if they are from "Taiwan, Province of China." The average American Joe or Jane never says "So you're from Taiwan, Province of China, eh?" The American Institute in Taiwan is not called "The American Institute in Taiwan, Province of China."

While the ISO 3166 directory of names of countries and territories has the TW code as Taiwan, Province of China, most major commercial Web sites such as Amazon.com, Nytimes.com, and Barnesandnoble.com took the time to remove the "Province of China" reference in their country and territory address forms, rather than to blindly use the ISO 3166 standard. No doubt these are US-based corporations.

While it is disturbingly true that Swiss residency permits say that people from Taiwan are people from "Chinese Taipei," and while it is absurdly true that airport timetable Web sites such as the OAG airport flightfinder site list Taipei and Kaohsiung as cities of "Chinese Taipei," international news agencies remove "Chinese Taipei" references from press releases of international organizations and simply refer to the ROC as "Taiwan."

Quite frankly, Google has contradicted itself. If one goes to its Taiwan-based Web site www.google.com.tw and click on "Google.com in English," one ends up on the English Google page with a link to "Go to Google Taiwan."

Freud made the comment that a cigar is just a cigar. But certain corporations and entities are willing to coddle this authoritarian government by submitting to its whims.

Perhaps Wang could do a subtle rather than superficial study of history next time.

Over-specialization on export production and overly-high wages are leading to unemployment and less income growth in the country's new 'bazaar' economy

Germany is the world's industrial bazaar. No other country can offer its international clients such a broad variety of industrial products. Germany has 450 hidden world champions for niche products and is home to 15 of the 20 biggest trade fairs in the world. It is also the world's top exporter of merchandise and the second-largest exporter of goods and services.

But Germany is gradually becoming a bazaar economy in a different sense, because nowadays it specializes in packaging and selling its products, while outsourcing an ever-larger share of its high-value-added manufacturing to low-wage countries. In other words, Germany's role in the world economy is shifting from that of a producer to that of a merchant. As a result, its exports contain an ever-increasing share of imported goods and services and the share of domestic value added to its exports per unit of output is rapidly declining.

This does not mean that the German-made share of exports is falling in absolute terms. It only means that the total volume of German exports has been rising faster than the total German value added to those exports.

Is this good or bad? A favorable assessment cannot rest on the fact that the overall German value added in exports has been growing because this is simply an effect of the German specialization in export-related production. When a country specializes in a certain area, capital and labor move into that area at a rate faster than they move into other areas -- indeed, the growth of export-related sectors may come at the cost of a decline in other areas. Simply put, there is such a thing as excessive specialization.

To assess whether excessive specialization has occurred in Germany, we must focus on the labor market, for it is here that the effect of specialization is most visible. Unfortunately, there is no reason to be optimistic. From 1995 to last year, Germany lost a total of 1.09 million full-time equivalent jobs in manufacturing and trade. At the same time, no new jobs were created in the rest of the economy. On the contrary, employment outside manufacturing and trade declined, so that the economy as a whole suffered a net loss of 1.26 million full-time equivalent jobs.

In fact, since the fall of communism, the percentage decline in German industrial employment has been larger than in any other OECD country. In part, this was due to the decline in the former East Germany. But even western Germany holds the second-lowest rank of all developed countries.

The automobile and electrical engineering industries have been at the forefront of the bazaar economy. To remain price competitive, they have had to rely on imported components. The manufacture of electrical products -- such as chips and passive devices -- has quite often been shifted completely to Asia, while even automobiles that are still assembled in Germany rely heavily on components produced in eastern Europe.

At bottom, the coincidence of unemployment and booming exports can be explained by the high and rigid wages from which Germany still suffers. As a consequence of its welfare state and aggressive unions, Germany has had the highest hourly labor costs in the world for most of the last 20 years; only recently has Denmark taken the lead because of a revaluation of the krona. Excessive wages destroy the labor-intensive upstream product stages too fast and also impair other labor-intensive sectors such as textiles, simple services, tourism and construction.

As a result, these labor-intensive sectors must release a lot of labor and capital, which push into the capital-intensive export sectors that are better able to cope with high wages. But, while these sectors therefore grow especially fast, their high capital intensity means that they cannot fully employ the released labor, with the result that some of the unemployed workers have nowhere to turn but the welfare state.

At the same time, since returns to capital are kept low by high wages, very little investment occurs. The excess of savings over investment flows abroad as capital exports. Economic growth and job creation slow, while exports soar.

Astonishingly, many interpret Germany's export boom and current-account surplus, which measures these capital exports, as an indicator of the strength of Germany as an investment location. But, according to the Bundesbank, net investment abroad (including financial investment) has already roughly matched domestic investment in recent years.

As the international division of labor proceeds further, the import content of German products will continue to increase, which means that rising exports will lead to fewer domestic jobs and less income growth. Unless and until German workers accept the need for greater flexibility in the face of global competition, export profits will continue to be invested abroad, reducing overall production costs -- and reinforcing the bazaar economy at home.

Hans-Werner Sinn is Director of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich.