Pan-blue parties block GIO budget

PAYBACK: The move by legislators to freeze most of the office's funds came after the GIO last week fined a pro-blue television station for being foreign-funded

By Jenny Chou and Ko Shu-ling

STAFF REPORTERS , WITH AGENCIES

The Government Information Office's (GIO) budget was blocked in pan-blue dominated legislative committees yesterday, as the debate surrounding a new media watchdog deepened.

During a review of next year's GIO budget, a major proportion of the office's funds were frozen until the National Communications Committee (NCC) is established. A motion to block funds passed the legislature's Budget and Final Accounts committee and Education and Culture committee, sparking a row between opposition and governing party committee members.

`Irrational'

"The committee has never been so irrational and violent before," said DPP Legislator Wang Shih-hsun, a convenor of the legislature's education and culture committee. "We are sorry to see pan-blue lawmakers take their revenge on the GIO and act as an attacker for a television station."

The pan-blue's move came after the GIO last week fined television station TVBS for being 100 percent foreign-funded -- a move that pan-blue critics said was revenge for the channel's exposure of government corruption.

At the proposal of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) committee member Joanna Lei, a majority of committee members from the KMT and People First Party (PFP) voted that apart from staff and basic maintenance expenses, the GIO budget would be frozen until the NCC was established.

Lei said that out of the GIO's budget of NT$4 billion (US$120 million), only NT$88 million was allocated to the NCC, showing a deliberate effort to obstruct its establishment.

GIO Minister Pasuya Yao, who walked out of the meeting, said that he felt extreme regret at the way the pan-blue committee members bullied their way into getting the measures passed.

Salary targeted

Aside from freezing non-essential parts of the budget, a further NT$288,000 that the pan-blue committee members deemed to be irregularities in Yao's salary and NT$636,000 in "special expenses" were also slashed.

DPP committee member Kuan Pi-ling said that pan-blue members had acted as if they were the "vultures of politics."

Kuan said they "go crazy and collectively attack their prey whenever they hear anything about the GIO."

Kuan added that committee members had been acting rationally when discussing controversial issues, but that attitude went out the window yesterday with the KMT's motion to block the GIO's budget.

DPP Legislator Lan Mei-chin said that Lei's proposal was ridiculous, because it does not make sense for the committee to halt a budget before it is reviewed.

"I'm sorry to see the committee commit such a technical error and become the `assassin' for a television station," she said.

The NCC has been the source of ongoing friction between the pan-blue and pan-green camps. At the end of last month, the organic law of the National Communications Commission (NCC), passed its third and final reading, authorizing the commission's establishment.

The NCC law was promulgated by President Chen Shui-bian on Nov. 9. Under the law, party caucuses should recommend 11 members to make up a NCC review committee, divided according to the percentage of seats each party holds in the legislature.

KMT Central Policy Committee Executive Director Tseng Yung-chuan said onSunday that the KMT and PFP will "work together" in the hope that the NCC can officially start operating by the end of the year.

Dalai Lama: a respected Tibet can stay with China

AFP , WASHINGTON

The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, said on Sunday that the Himalayan kingdom should remain within China for the sake of the territory's economic development.

But the 70-year-old leader said the Tibetan people themselves would have to determine their future if China continued to deny them "meaningful" autonomy.

"If [the] Chinese government provides us meaningful autonomy, self law, then it is in our own interest to remain within the People's Republic of China," said the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since he fled Chinese troops in 1959, basing his government-in-exile in the northern Indian hilltop town of Dharamsala.

"As far as economic development is concerned, we'll get immense benefit" if Tibet remained as part of China, he told a 16,000 strong gathering in Washington, where he is on a 10-day visit that included talks with US President George W. Bush.

"Tibet is economically backward although spiritually highly advanced. But spiritual [strength] alone cannot fill our stomach. So we need economic development," the Dalai Lama said.

"If this approach should fail, then of course it is up to the Tibetan people -- I'm going to ask the Tibetan people what to do," he said.

Beijing formally established a Tibetan Autonomous Region in 1965, but the Dalai Lama has said there is no genuine autonomy and has been waging a non-violent campaign to press China to provide greater rights for his 6 million people.

China sees its occupation of Tibet since 1950 as a liberation of the region that has saved the Tibetan people from feudal oppression.

The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Laureate, said that "ultimately the Tibetan people -- not me -- would decide."

A random survey in Tibet years ago showed the people wanted to remain within China but demanded genuine autonomy, he said.

The gathering on Sunday included hundreds of Himalayan, Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhists who came to the US capital to belatedly mark the Dalai Lama's 70th birthday on July 6.

Excessive profits erode security

US President George W. Bush will visit Japan, South Korea, China and Mongolia on his latest trip to Asia. The Bush administration's China policy has increasingly been influenced by experts who favor economic engagement in terms of huge market and business opportunities, while paying less attention to the constant expansion of Chinese hegemony and its authoritarian structure, which oppresses democratic forces.

These experts emphasize the importance of the economic relationship between the US and China, even as others maintain that without political change, China's economic reforms will ultimately be unsuccessful.

If the US regards Beijing as responsible, on what grounds can it condemn countries such as North Korea and Iran? The threat these nations pose to international security and democracy is limited compared with that posed by a nuclear power such as China.

Former president Lee Teng-hui said on Sunday that China is the world's biggest "slave state." It has supported the North Korean regime, helped Myanmar's military government oppress democracy, publicly assisted Pakistan develop nuclear weapons and secretly helped Iran to build up nuclear weapons technologies. It has also deployed more than 700 ballistic missiles that threaten Taiwan, as well as Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. Beijing is exporting its own authoritarianism to other parts of the world.

Meanwhile, China has tried to dress itself in democratic language. Its white paper on democracy uses all kinds of ornamental language to defend the Chinese Communist Party's dictatorial rule. The examples and statistics it cites to demonstrate its democratic development compare the current situation with China under the Qing Dynasty and after, when it was being carved up by Western powers.

The paper made no effort to compare democratic development under more than half a century of communist rule with that of other countries in the region, thus making nonsense of its temporal comparisons.

Those US experts who support economic engagement at the expense of human-rights considerations should be asked how this state of affairs reflects on Beijing's credibility.

The white paper also praises China's development on human rights. Such assertions amount to little more than a joke in the international community.

The US has much to lose if Bush continues to rely on those who take an economic view and champion profit at the expense of international security in the construction of his administration's foreign policy.

China stands out in that it is so clearly poised, both by virtue of its size and its nuclear arsenal, to threaten regional and international peace. If it were not for Beijing's support, would a government like North Korea's dare to act in such a high-handed manner?

The US could do worse than to heed Lee's words and draw democratic countries around the world together to pressure Beijing into making substantial progress in its democratic development, thereby defusing the biggest potential crisis of the 21st century.

Fight China's propaganda

By Rohit Singh

In response to a Walter Chung's letter, "Taiwan needs marketing plan" (Nov. 12, page 8), I fully agree with Chung that Taiwan has a strong case for independence, and that Taiwanese people should strive hard to achieve their rights. The Chinese are not just trying to fool the world by claiming Taiwan as a province. They are in fact ruling over large parts of Mongolia, Manchuria, East Turkestan and Tibet, which they claim are all parts of "China."

Taiwan has been an independent identity for more than 500 years. It was never an integral part of China, although Chinese incursions happened on occasion. Such invasions don't make the target territories part of the aggressor's country. The British and the French, for example, ruled large parts of the world, but their countries remain what they originally were -- and neither encompasses their one-time colonies of India or Vietnam.

The Chinese built the Great Wall, a symbol of a colossal waste of human lives and time, to protect their country from barbarian invaders and demarcate their border. But now they claim that regions far beyond that wall have been integral parts of "China" since time immemorial. For example they renamed Manchuria -- the homeland of some of the fiercest of the barbarian invaders -- as northeast China, though it lies far beyond the wall built to protect China.

In the face of such doublespeak, Taiwan must seize the moment, because a country should never compromise on its independence and self-respect.

Rohit Singh

Mumbai, India

Taiwan's national identity in crisis

By Sushil Seth

It would seem that Taiwan is going through an acute identity crisis. Which is to say that there are multiple voices about how best to relate to China. Beijing, on the other hand, knows what it wants. It wants to annex Taiwan.

As for Taiwan, its people would ideally like to be left alone to run their own country. That has been the position of the ruling party, though it has shifted its position slightly to avoid provoking China through an outright declaration of independence. Beijing has let it be known over the years that any declaration of Taiwan's independence will not be tolerated and will lead to a Chinese invasion. Most Taiwanese, it would seem, do not want this to happen.

Whether or not China will attack is another matter. The point is that even the US is against Taiwan making a formal declaration of independence. While Washington is committed to help defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, they don't want Taipei to provide Beijing with an excuse for this. Washington formally subscribes to the "one China" principle, but not if it is achieved with a Chinese military invasion.

China doesn't seem to have any immediate plan to attack Taiwan. Beijing is, however, keeping up the pressure through deployment of an increasing number of missiles targeted at Taiwan and by building up its military machine. There is no immediate compulsion to attack because things are working out quite well for them through a combination of factors.

The US preoccupation with Iraq and global terrorism has given Beijing much political leeway to destabilize Taiwan. Even though Washington is becoming aware of losing political ground to China, particularly in Asia, it remains too distracted. Besides, it still hasn't made up its mind about how best to deal with China. As US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's recent China visit showed, Washington is urging China to become a responsible member of the global community by being open and transparent -- militarily, politically and economically.

Washington, though, is not too optimistic on this score. For instance, its re-energized defense relationship with Japan, including a decision to base a nuclear-powered warship in Japanese waters, is primarily intended to deal with future threats from China and North Korea.

Rumsfeld didn't mince words during his visit, saying that "China ... is expanding its missile forces and enabling those forces to reach many areas of the world well beyond the Pacific region." No wonder Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda "believes that the continued presence of the US Navy will contribute to safety and stability in Japan, the Far East and the world."

Last month, the two countries endorsed a document entitled the "US-Japan Alliance: Transformation and Realignment for the Future," laying out a more interactive defense relationship, with Japan increasingly playing a bigger role. The document emphasized close coordination at every level "to dissuade destabilizing military build-ups, to deter aggression and to respond to diverse security challenges." In other words, Washington is not going anywhere. If anything, it has plans to become more entrenched in the Asia-Pacific.

But preoccupied and over-stretched as the US is in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it would rather have China on its side politically than be subverted by it on issues like Iraq and terrorism. New political and strategic compulsions softened US President George W. Bush's earlier bold declaration that the US would do whatever it took to defend Taiwan. It hasn't been repeated with the same vigor.

Similarly, Bush's not-so-subtle rebuke urging President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) not to alter the political status quo in Taiwan (and thus desist from declaring independence) was also dictated by the realities of the new situation.

But the US commitment to defend Taiwan is pretty firm, even though Washington is not happy at the stalled sale of a US$15 billion package of US weaponry due to internal political wrangling in Taiwan. Rumsfeld made it clear at a Washington press conference in August that as a "sovereign nation" it was up to Taiwan to decide whether or not to buy the weapons. He emphasized that this would not alter the US' legal commitment to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.

A Chinese attack doesn't seem imminent for three reasons. First, as things are today there is no danger of Taiwan declaring independence. Therefore, China is not under any compulsion to act rashly. Second, the US' commitment to help Taiwan defend itself against a Chinese attack is quite unambiguous. And Beijing is not yet ready to take on the US with all the disastrous consequences for its economic development and superpower ambitions. Third, Taiwan's fractious political landscape is alluring to China, which can manipulate it to its advantage.

It would seem that Taiwan's opposition parties, particularly the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), are on the same wave length as Beijing, favoring unification. The small difference, if any, might be about the timing of unification and the degree of Taiwan's autonomy. Taiwan's business class also, by and large, favors this course, eyeing the cheap and tame labor in China and its large internal market. And Beijing keeps dangling extra allurements to consolidate and expand its constituency.

When Taiwan's political class is so badly divided and the business class is largely dictated by greed, China doesn't need to fume and fret.

It would appear that there is a feeling in some circles in Taiwan that the US will not let China annex Taiwan because of its own strategic requirements. It would set the stage for China's further expansion into the region and the consequent erosion of US power.

The point, though, is that with Taiwan politically divided, the US will be severely handicapped in its task. Therefore, it is vitally important for Taiwan's political class to create a national consensus on identity. Without it, they are extremely vulnerable to Chinese machinations.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.