China confirms rioters were shot

OFFICIAL WORD: Beijing said for the first time that three villagers had been killed after police fired on them last week, although residents said the death toll was higher

AGENCIES , DONGZHOU AND BEIJING, CHINA

China has confirmed that police shot dead three protesters "in alarm" during an attack last week on a wind power plant, and a newspaper said yesterday the official who ordered the shooting had been detained.

Human rights group Amnesty International said it was the first time Chinese police had fired on protesters since the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed in 1989.

Estimates from residents and rights groups put the number of dead between two and as many as 20.

Residents gave new details of last Tuesday's violence. They said they heard bursts of gunfire for at least 12 hours after the clash.

Yesterday, at least 100 police with riot shields and helmets stood guard in the village. Police stopped vehicles at roadblocks, looking for local men. There was no violence, but residents could be seen arguing angrily with police.

Police trucks drove through the village blaring promises over loudspeakers that officials would deal with local grievances.

"Have confidence in the government," the announcement said in the local dialect. "This matter will be handled well."

China's government defended the shootings, saying on Saturday that police opened fire after protesters with knives, spears and dynamite attacked a power plant and then turned on authorities. It said three people were killed and two arrested.

The government said the protests centered on land taken for use by a power plant using wind turbines, though villagers said the dispute was over a different, coal-fired power plant.

Several residents said they heard gunfire beginning at about 6pm on Tuesday. They said there were sporadic bursts of shooting through the night, lasting for about 12 hours.

"We were terrified. We all stayed inside," said a farmer who lives nearby and would give only his surname, Chen. "Even now, we all stay indoors after it gets dark."

A woman who would give only her surname, Luo, said she heard people screaming, "Save me! Save me!"

The official Xinhua news agency said in an overnight report that villagers in Dongzhoukeng and Shigongliao attacked the plant on Monday and Tuesday last week.

"The first assault on Dec. 5 caused a seven-hour suspension of the plant's power generation," Xinhua said.

"In the second onslaught, over 170 armed villagers led by instigators ... used knives, steel spears, sticks, dynamite powder, bottles filled with petroleum, and fishing detonators."

Police used tear gas to break up the protesters and arrested two, Xinhua said. The villagers then formed a blockade in a attempt to free their colleagues.

"[One of the villagers] shouted through a loudspeaker that they would throw detonators at the police and blow up the wind power plant if the police refused to retreat," Xinhua said.

"It became dark when the chaotic mob began to throw explosives at the police. Police were forced to open fire in alarm. In the chaos, three villagers died, eight were injured."

Villagers contacted on Saturday by phone gave death tolls ranging from 10 to 20. They said others were missing.

The Guangzhou Daily newspaper described the killings as a mistake and said that the Guangdong official who had ordered police to open fire had been detained.

It did not identify the official.

"The commanders at the spot did not handle the incident properly and the resulting deaths and injuries are a mistake," it said.

A middle school student said by phone the "main riots" happened on Tuesday and that police killed two villagers.

"The following morning, some families found about 20 family members missing." The next day, she said, police were no longer carrying guns, but batons.

According to the farmer Chen, the dispute began in March last year. He said farmers complained about pollution from the coal-fired power plant, which is still under construction but partly operational.

The police shootings were the deadliest known clash yet amid growing anger in areas throughout China over land seizures for construction of power plants, shopping malls and other projects.

Yesterday, government banners hung at the entrance of Dongzhou said, "Following the law is the responsibility and obligation of the people" and "Don't listen to rumors, don't let yourself be used."

China won't give Ma an easy ride: ex-MAC official

CROSS-STRAIT TIES: The commitments the KMT has made to China may make it more difficult for Ma Ying-jeou if he wins the presidency in 2008

By Shih Hsiu-chuan

STAFF REPORTER

Managing cross-strait relations will not be easy for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) if it wins the 2008 presidential election, given the commitments it has made to the Chinese government, a former cross-strait affairs official said yesterday.

"Many of the commitments will actually be difficult to carry out even if the KMT gains power in 2008," said Chen Ming-tong, a former vice-chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), at a book release press conference.

"Cross-strait relations will only get worse as a result of its failure to fulfill the commitments," the official said.

"I was invited to Beijing early last month for an academic exchange. They said it seemed to them that [KMT Chairman] Ma Ying-jeou was still living in the anti-communist era. They said that Beijing won't give Ma an easy time handling cross-strait affairs," Chen said.

Ma is widely touted as the most likely candidate to represent the pan-blue camp -- the KMT and its political ally the People First Party -- in the 2008 presidential election.

Given that Ma might win the 2008 election and that he may not be as sympathetic to China as former KMT chairman Lien Chan was, Chen said that Beijing has been trying to tame him for quite a while.

"Lien's trip to China this year and the communique he signed with Chinese President Hu Jintao were part of China's strategy to make Ma more docile toward Beijing," Chen said.

The communique outlined the common goals of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for cross-strait policy, such as sticking to the "1992 consensus," which recognizes the "one China" principle, and opposing Taiwan's independence, among others.

While the CCP has been eager to realize the communique's principles, many Taiwanese oppose the parties' political goals, Chen said.

It might be easy for an opposition party to sign such a communique with China, but it will discover the consequences should it take the office, Chen said.

MAC Chairman Joseph Wu said that the KMT's move to negotiate with China and then ask the government to accept the result had been a big blow to the spirit of democracy and had had negative influence on the MAC.

More human-rights work needed: experts

PROGRESS HALTED: A conference noted that the political deadlock needs to be broken in order for Taiwan to make significant improvements in its human rights

By Chiu Yu-Tzu

STAFF REPORTER

Human-rights experts attending a conference held yesterday to mark Human Rights Day, which fell on Dec. 10, said that in order to transform Taiwan into a state that fully upholds human rights, a new constitution appropriate to Taiwan and government review over existing injustices is urgently needed.

Experts at the conference, held by the Taiwan New Century Foundation, a think tank dedicated to the advancement of human dignity values in Taiwan, said that the political deadlock in the Legislative Yuan has seriously hampered Taiwan's efforts in achieving an overall improvement in its human-rights situation.

Chen Lung-chu, the foundation's chairman and also a senior research scholar at Yale Law School, said that since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took power in 2000, President Chen Shui-bian has stressed that human-rights infrastructure-building for a human-rights respecting state was one of his key policies.

However, Chen Shui-bian's efforts to establish a national human-rights committee and make the International Bill of Rights national law were both rejected by opposition parties in the legislature.

"Taiwan does need a new constitution. Advancing the levels of democracy and human-rights development in Taiwan relies on a collaborative partnership between the government and the people," Chen Lung-chu said.

Chen Lung-chu argued that Chen Shui-bian's two ideas regarding human-rights infrastructure-building for a human-rights respecting state and the people's right of initiative must be included in any new constitutional system for Taiwan.

In addition to Taiwan's long-term unfamiliarity with international standards of human rights, experts said that, sadly, the nation's people had learned little about violence from their past misfortune and were often unaware of micro-levels of violence that are imposed by both society and the government.

According to Wu Hao-jen, the chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, since 2000, the DPP-led government has not effectively removed the shadow of injustice that clouds the history of many innocent people. Wu said persuasive examples include reversing miscarriages of justice imposed on victims of the "white terror" era, returning forcibly occupied mountainous land to Aborigines, and abolishing the death penalty.

The "white terror" era began in the late 1940s, when the Republic of China regime, lead by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), declared martial law and then enacted the Measures to Eradicate Espionage. Wu said that some "white terror" victims remain unable to reverse previous judgments, even after Martial Law was lifted in 1987.

"Some people whose human rights were jeopardized remain forgotten by political figures no matter which side of the political spectrum," said Wu, also an assistant professor of law at Fu Jen Catholic University.

Wu said one of the most prominent cases was the forced eviction of elderly leprosy patients from the Lo Sheng Sanatorium in Taipei County, a place they have called home for decades but is now a potential site for a future rapid transit station.

Wu said that over the past few years none of the candidates for county commissioner had even considered the patients, who have been abused simply because of their illness.

Since the 1930s, when Taiwan was still a Japanese colony, leprosy patients were "locked" in the sanatorium. Segregation ended in 1945, although the patients had nowhere else to go and chose to stay in the shelter.

Lee blasts DPP for broken promises, inconsistent policy

By Jewel Huang

STAFF REPORTER

Former president Lee Teng-hui said yesterday the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) shouldn't be surprised that it got trounced in the Dec. 3 local elections, because it has been "inattentive" to the public's needs and has broken its promises to voters.

Lee made the remarks at a fundraising event held by the Northern Taiwan Society (NTS) yesterday afternoon.

Lee pointed out that although the pan-blue camp controls the legislature, the DPP government cannot attribute it miserable performance solely to the opposition parties' boycotts, since the DPP has not fulfilled its promises to the people and has therefore fallen short of their expectations.

Idle Government

"The DPP government is just so inattentive in leading the country," Lee said. "Taiwan is not the only country that has to face the fact that the opposition parties dominate the legislature. For example, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party did a good job in dealing with just such a political predicament and did not let the government stay idle. Why can't Taiwan do the same?"

Lee then denounced DPP politicians for caring only about personal and factional interests after it took power, and for being unable to figure out how to overcome its weak position in the Legislative Yuan. The party has manipulated people's expectations with campaign rhetoric, Lee said.

"It's no wonder that the DPP suffered such an unprecedented setback in the three-in-one elections. Its inconsistent and changeable attitudes towards policy-making have made the people run out of patience," Lee said.

Backsliding

Lee singled out a campaign commitment that President Chen Shui-bian made during last year's legislative elections, in which Chen promised that the DPP would initiate a change in the country's official name and write a new constitution for Taiwan. After the election, Chen cast aside his promise and said bluntly that "he just couldn't do it," Lee said.

"[Chen] thought he could cheat people into believing that his short-term manipulation was a response to their longing to build a country," Lee said.

But Lee also said that this failure does not necessarily mean that the DPP can't succeed again. It all depends on whether the party's leader is resolved to winning back the people's support and trust.

Lee also yesterday urged the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government to consider whether it should go ahead with a second economic development conference before it figures out a clear cross-strait economic policy, and gave three suggestions on how to deal with China and guard Taiwan's sovereignty.

More Advice

Lee then proposed three directions for the government's future polices.

First, he said the government should insist on upholding the identification with Taiwan and eradicate the identification with China that has poisoned the nation.

Second, the government should beef up Taiwan's national security and strongly and firmly oppose China's military buildup.

Third, the government is obligated to tenaciously defend the country and the people's economic interests, and stop the mistaken economic policies that further open up China's market to Taiwanese investors.

In the news conference, NTS chairman Wu Shuh-min did not forget to urge people to donate NT$100 (US$3) to help gather the necessary amount for the arms sale budget that has been stalled in the legislature.

Lee said that this donation is also a "declaration of war" on the reactionary power that has overwhelmed Taiwan. "Since the government and the legislature won't do it [pass the arms purchase bill], we will do it on our own," Lee said.

British buying kidneys from Chinese prisons

UNETHICAL: British transplant patients are traveling to China for the kidneys of dead prisoners in a trade some doctors condemn as `disgusting'

THE OBSERVER , BEIJING

Kidney patients from the West are being lured to China by a group offering them new organs taken from executed prisoners.

The horrifying trade in human organs has been revealed by British surgeons who say patients are being tempted abroad, but may not fully understand the dangers or the human suffering behind the transplant operation.

It is thought that as many as 10 British patients may have gone to China this year to receive a new kidney, at a cost of approximately ?23,000 (US$40,296).

One UK patient was believed to be recovering this weekend at a hospital in southern China following such a transplant.

The Internet company transplantsinternational.com, makes it clear that the organs are from prisoners who are about to be executed. The prisoners apparently give their consent and are told that their families will receive money for the "donation."

Under the heading "Where do kidneys come from?" the company states: "A cadaveric kidney comes from a dead person and in the majority of cases in China, the dead people are prisoners, which allows for us to know at least two weeks ahead of time when the kidney will be ready."

It also makes clear that before the death, blood samples are taken from prisoners to ensure they will be the perfect match for their Western beneficiaries.

"All donors are screened to prevent any disease transmission and the prisoners consent to organ donation. Unlike in some Western countries, the prisoners can receive money for their organs," it says.

Peter Andrews, a consultant nephrologist from St Helier Hospital in Surrey, said: "In the past 18 months we've had at least five patients say they are considering this. Five years ago, it would have been unheard of."

Another doctor, Professor Stephen Wigmore, head of transplantation surgery at University Hospital Birmingham Trust said that recently one of his patients had gone some way towards preparing for a liver transplant in China, before deciding against it.

Doctors in Oxford, Nottingham and Sussex have reported similar cases, according to Hospital Doctor magazine.

Professor Nadey Hakim, head of transplantation surgery at Imperial College London said: "It is so disgusting it is hard to know how any doctor can take part in this trade."

"Of course people become desperate for a new kidney -- but do they realize what this trade is like? I first heard about it a few years ago from a Chinese doctor and I couldn't believe it. Would anyone want to receive an organ from someone who died in this way?" he said.

Hakim also has worries about other kinds of transplants carried out in China.

"We know that they have done around 10 arm transplants so far, and I was told that these donors are also prisoners. It raises many difficult ethical issues," he said.

The kidney transplants are carried out at the Southern Hospital in Guangzhou by Lixing Yu, who has performed thousands of kidney transplants over the past 30 years.

According to the Web site, he specializes in research on the long-term survival of patients and has received more than 19 national awards for his work.

Earlier this month, China broke its silence on the issue to admit that organs of executed prisoners were sold to foreigners for transplantation. Vice Minister of Health Huang Jiefu admitted that the practice is widespread, but said they wanted to tighten the rules.

"We want to push for regulations on organ transplants to standardize the management of the supply of organs from executed prisoners and tidy up the medical market," Huang told Caijing magazine.

Taiwan no longer a three-way issue

By Richard Halloran

The conflict over the future of Taiwan is usually seen as a triangular struggle between China, Taiwan -- where the majority seeks to retain their separation from China -- and the US, which is Taiwan's security guarantor.

That is changing, contends a new study by the National Bureau of Asian Research, a non-partisan institute in Seattle. It argues that the Taiwan question has become quadrangular, with Japan having become the fourth nation directly engaged in potentially the most explosive clash in Asia.

Japan's entry into the Taiwan issue is yet another indication of Tokyo's active emergence in Asian international relations after decades of taking a pacifist and passive stance, or what the Japanese call "low posture."

Moreover, the study suggests that East Asia is becoming ever more divided into Chinese and US blocs. Specifically, it says, "if a military confrontation occurred between the US and China over Taiwan, US policymakers can rest assured of Japan's support."

US President George W. Bush seemed to underscore Japan's new position on Taiwan last month in a speech he made in Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, by including warm praise for Taiwan. He applauded Taiwan for having "moved from repression to democracy as it liberalized its economy." Bush lauded the people of Taiwan for being "free, democratic and prosperous." The Chinese, who insist that the Taiwan issue is an internal question of no concern to the US, were not pleased.

The assessment of Japan-Taiwan relations was written by two retired US naval officers experienced in Asian affairs, Michael McDevitt and James Auer; two Japanese academics, Yoshihide Soeya of Keio University and Tetsuo Kotani of Doshisha University; and Philip Yang of National Taiwan University.

The study asserts that: "Taiwan's quiet initiative to push for a greater level of informal defense contacts with Japan arises in no small part from shared history and democratic values, common strategic constraints and island threat environments, as well as the close relations that Tokyo and Taipei maintain with the US."

The shared history relates to Japan's colonial rule of Taiwan from 1895 to 1945 after the nation was ceded by China following Japan's victory in the Sino-Japanese War. Japan's control is generally considered to have been quite benign despite several harsh episodes during the early period.

Strategically, Taiwan sits astride Japan's trade routes through Southeast Asia to the Persian Gulf, a key source of oil, and on through the Suez Canal to markets in Europe. The US is tied to Taiwan by the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires Washington to help defend Taiwan; Tokyo has a security treaty with the US.

In taking this initiative, the authors say, "Taiwan has skillfully seized diplomatic leverage from China, the US, and Japan, and has used this power to promote an agenda that often tests the bounds of Beijing's tolerance."

President Chen Shui-bian, however, may have overplayed his hand. In local elections earlier this month, his Democratic Progressive Party was soundly beaten by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Chen appears to have made voters worry that he might provoke China into military action against Taiwan.

Japanese sympathy for Taiwan has risen since the end of the Cold War, Soeya writes, because of the "deterioration of political and security relations between Japan and China, and Taiwan's steady democratization." He points to several dialogues between Taiwanese and Japanese legislators and favorable press coverage.

Yang writes that behind the new Japanese attitudes is a postwar generation of politicians who "believe that World War II should no longer haunt Japan's relations with its neighbors but see in China a determined unwillingness to forget the past." Bashing Japan, he says, has "become part of the political culture in China."

From the US' point of view, McDevitt says, the success of democracy in Taiwan has tipped the political balance in the US in favor of support for an embattled democracy. Before, the US seemed indifferent to Taiwan's plight.

US military leaders, however, are losing patience with Taiwan's refusal to conclude an arms purchase to which Washington agreed four years ago.

Last week, the opposition parties in the legislature, led by the KMT, voted for the 40th time not to place the arms deal on the agenda so that it could be debated and voted on.

Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.

Taiwan must try to avoid Hong Kong's fate

By Cao Changqing

On the day after Taiwan's Dec. 3 local government elections, the people of Hong Kong once again held a large-scale demonstration, demanding democracy and direct elections, rather than having their chief executive appointed by Beijing. On July 1 last year and the year before, half a million Hong Kongers took to the streets for the same reason. What a contrast to the cheerful scenes when the territory was returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

What caused the change? The main reason is that conditions in Hong Kong have slowly deteriorated since the handover. There are less freedoms, the economy has weakened and public order has worsened. Hong Kongers' quality of life and dignity have declined, because the territory is now under Beijing's thumb. Because of the economic downturn, its position in the world has steadily declined, along with foreign views of the territory.

When people talk about Hong Kong today, what they picture is no longer a free, prosperous and vigorous world-class cosmopolitan society. Instead, it is a part of the communist world with an ailing economy, collapsed public order, and limited freedom.

In the near future, I am afraid that when people talk about Hong Kong, they will talk about it as if it were Shanghai or Shenzhen, and the free and prosperous "oriental pearl" will only be a memory.

China experts in the West have said that Hong Kong is like a frog in a pot of water. It would struggle if put immediately into a pot of boiling water, but it will be cooked to death without realizing it if the water is heated up gradually. This is exactly the territory's situation today, and those who are unwilling to be cooked to death staged the recent protest to voice that sentiment.

Hong Kong's situation serves as a warning to Taiwan. After the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) thrashing in the local government elections, calls for President Chen Shui-bian to loosen his China policy in order to promote cross-strait reconciliation can be heard from both the DPP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

But if Taiwan tilts toward Beijing, the nation will gradually become a second Hong Kong. As Beijing calls on Taipei to open cross-strait links, its purpose is to hollow out Taiwan, while forcing it to accept the policy of "one country, two systems" through economic means.

Since Taiwanese people have not experienced communist rule before, they often underestimate the evilness of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The KMT is clear about the CCP's nature after having dealings with it for over 80 years. Unfortunately, some of the KMT members have united with the CCP in order to attack Taiwan. They uphold nationalism and claim that people on both sides of the strait are Chinese, so as to bypass the fundamental confrontation between democracy and authoritarianism on the two sides. They also use cross-strait economic development as bait to deceive the pure and simple Taiwanese people.

If Chen, under pressure, really leans towards the middle way and opens his China policy as KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou suggests, Taiwan will become like the frog in the water. It may be unable to feel any pain at first, but it will slowly become supper on the dinner table of China's dictators' as Beijing resorts to every conceivable means in its ongoing "united front" effort. By that time, it will be too late for Taiwanese people to learn from Hong Kongers, and too late to take to the streets to cry for help.

Cao Changqing is a writer based in New York.