DPP blocks bills on Chinese students
　

NO CHOICE: In retaliation for a move by DPP legislators to block doors to a conference room, the KMT guarded a back door to block DPP lawmakers from going to the restroom

By Flora Wang, Ko Shu-ling and Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTERS
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 1

Two legislative committee meetings were paralyzed yesterday by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators who locked the doors to committee conference rooms to block three bills that would allow local schools to recruit students from China and recognize Chinese credentials.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, staff at the legislature’s Conference Department and officials from the Ministry of Education (MOE) were unable to enter the room to the Education and Culture Committee at about 1:30pm.

Police officers stationed at the legislature attempted to open the door with a key and to push the door open, but their efforts were unsuccessful as DPP legislators had blocked the door from inside with tables and chairs.

DPP caucus whip Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅) told reporters by telephone that the DPP caucus was blocking the committee review to avoid physical conflict with KMT lawmakers.

“The bills would have a major impact on students and the nation as a whole, but the government has yet to propose any thorough plan on the matter. We had no choice but to resort to such a self-defense strategy,” Lee said. “Stopping them [KMT] from holding the meetings is the best approach ... the KMT scheduled the review without even negotiating with [the DPP] because the KMT holds the majority of seats in the legislature.”

KMT caucus secretary-general Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) called the DPP’s approach “ridiculous,” adding that such a boycott undermined the dignity of the legislature.

Yang said KMT Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), an Olympic taekwondo medalist, should knock down the door. The KMT retaliated by having its legislators guard the back door to the Education and Culture Committee conference room to block DPP legislators from going to the restroom.

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) condemned the DPP for locking the doors, describing the strategy as “illegal” and “inappropriate.”

“At the very least their move constitutes interference with public functions, seriously impeding the legislative sessions and setting a very bad example,” Wang said.

The face-off lasted approximately four-and-a-half hours, with DPP lawmakers concluding their boycott at 5:56pm after the committee sessions ended.

The DPP’s move came as the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee and the Education and Culture Committee were scheduled to review proposed amendments to the University Act (大學法), the Junior College Act (專科學校法) and the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例).

DPP legislators have accused the KMT of seeking to divide the DPP, which only holds 27 seats, by scheduling the reviews in different committee meetings on the same day.

Earlier yesterday, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) accused the MOE of trying to create a “one-China market in education” by pushing through the bills. Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城), however, said the impact on Taiwanese students of allowing Chinese students to enroll in Taiwanese schools would be more positive than negative.

Cheng said passage of the bills would also guarantee the public’s right to choose where to attend school. If the bill were passed, graduate students from China would be able to attend school in Taiwan starting in February next year, while undergraduate students would follow suit in the fall next year, Cheng said.

Meanwhile, the Internal Administration Committee meeting was forced to adjourn in the morning when DPP legislators took over the speaker’s podium and prevented the meeting from proceeding.

DPP lawmakers tried to stop the meeting by demanding that Wu hold a vote to postpone the meeting. Wu, however, waited more than 45 minutes until more KMT lawmakers had arrived before holding the vote. The DPP was outvoted 8:7.

“This is a conspiracy. Wu held off the vote until the KMT was able to mobilize more people. This is anti-democracy. This is dictatorship,” DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said.

The meeting continued, but the standoff between the DPP and the KMT lasted more than three hours before the chairman, KMT lawmaker Wu Yu-sheng (吳育生), announced the meeting was adjourned until 2:30pm.

The committee failed to reconvene in the afternoon and Wu canceled the meeting at 5:30pm.

This was the first time a committee meeting had ended like this, Wu said.

KMT Legislator Yang Chun-ying (楊瓊瓔) panned the DPP for “sabotaging” the democratic system by holding the meeting hostage, while Wu said the DPP’s refusal to leave the podium was “violence by the minority.”

KMT lawmakers yesterday lashed out at the DPP’s behavior at the legislature, calling them “childish” and “barbaric.”

Saying that the DPP was no different from criminals or a three-year-old, Wu said the DPP set a bad example for the public with its “unreasonable” and “emotional” actions and called on the public to spurn it.

Mainland Affair Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛), who came to the committee at about 5:20pm, said outside the room that the government would ensure that the rights of Taiwanese students were well protected and would only gradually allow Chinese students to study here, beginning with between 1,000 and 2,000 annually.

Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) said the government would not allow Chinese students to take up the quota reserved for Taiwanese students, steal local students’ jobs, or take national examinations to obtain professional licenses.

DPP lawmakers, who came out at 5:50pm, held banners reading “oppose recognition of Chinese educational credentials” and shouted the slogan “oppose allowing Chinese students to study here.”

DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) told reporters that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would complete his plans for ultimate unification with China if the legislature passed the bills this week as planned.

“I hope Ma and the KMT administration do not doubt the resolve of DPP or choose to challenge it,” he said. “We will fight to the death to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty and right to survive.”

DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said the issue should be scrutinized in public hearings held nationwide before being submitted for legislative review.

“Students and teachers would be the most affected if Chinese were to come to Taiwan. But until now, they were never given a chance to voice their opinions,” she said.

The KMT argued that opening Taiwan to Chinese students would boost enrollment and stimulate competitiveness.

The proposed amendment says Chinese students would not be given any preferential treatment, be eligible for scholarships or be allowed to hold part-time jobs while at school. Chinese students would be prohibited from working in Taiwan both in the private and public sectors and must leave the country upon graduation.

Aging population forces health care rethink
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 2

Here are some numbers to crunch: Ministry of the Interior (MOI) data show that the population of Taiwan is just above 23 million people, with 190,000 births and 140,000 deaths a year.

About 10 percent of the population — (2.3 million people) — is 65 years old or older. In 10 years, that number will increase to 22 percent — 5.6 million people.

In 2000, there were 40.9 people aged 65 and above for every 100 people aged under 15. In 2005, the number increased to 52.1, and last year, it was 61.5.

The graying of the country’s population has increased the demand for long-term care and nursing institutions for the elderly, a recent MOI report said.

To cope with the rapidly aging population, the Executive Yuan has commissioned the Council of Economic Planning and Development and related agencies to draw up a plan for a long-term care insurance system that would be set up by 2011.

Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) has said that the system would be implemented by the Bureau of National Health Insurance. The benefits to insured citizens would mainly be the provision and insured coverage of services such as home, community and institutionalized care. In addition, cash payouts would be made to insured persons with some type of disability based on their degree of disability, he said.

Although the concept originated from concern for the elderly, critics doubt whether cash payouts will solve the problem of an increasing number of senior citizens or people with chronic diseases needing long-term care.

Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲), secretary-general of the League of Welfare Organizations for the Disabled, criticized reimbursements for the costs of hiring foreign caregivers.

She said that using cash payouts for those needing long-term care and listing it as one of the items for the long-term care coverage plan was like “using petty cash to dismiss disabled people’s problems.”

“The [government] thrusts the responsibility of ensuring the quality of caregivers on the family,” she said. “Those needing long-term care are unprotected against the risks of foreign caregivers not being able to perform their jobs well.”

“As employers, the families are burdened with the responsibility of caregivers’ working conditions and occupational safety,” she said.

Unequal pay has not only caused dissenting voices in the issue of long-term care insurance, but in all areas of labor, including manufacturing and construction. Some labor associations have urged government officials to cut the number of foreign workers allowed into the country to reserve jobs for domestic workers.

Lorna Kung (龔尤倩), executive director of the Scalabrini International Migration Network in Taiwan, said the problem stemmed from pay differential between foreign and domestic caregivers.

Government officials said insurance payouts for people hiring foreign caregivers may be less than the payout given to those who hire domestic caregivers. The reasoning behind the difference in salaries is to protect the jobs of domestic workers.

Kung said, however, that she believed in the concept of “equal work, equal pay” because “as long as unequal pay exists between different groups, there will exist prejudice and a divide between different groups.”

Because families may receive more cash if they hire a domestic caregiver instead of a foreign one, many people currently employing foreign caregivers may want to make the switch to hiring domestic workers once the plan is introduced. However, the transition should be facilitated by the government instead of having individual families pay the transition fees, she said.

Even if the problem of who pays the transition fees were solved, would there be enough qualified domestic workers to meet increasing demand?

The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) recently reported that as of this year, Taiwan had 44,346 people trained as caregivers. More than 4,100 are employed at government institutions and with civil groups that offer home care services, and 9,926 are employed at homes for the elderly, it said.

To ensure an adequate number of caregivers in the proposed long-term care system, the council has budgeted NT$173 million (US$5.1 million) to train another 32,000 caregivers from last year to 2011, the CLA report said.

Tseng Min-chieh (曾敏傑), vice president of the Taiwan Foundation for Rare Disorders and an associate professor at National Taipei University’s Department of Social Work, is concerned that the training may not go as smoothly as officials expect.

About a decade ago, Taiwan was faced with widespread unemployment among blue-collar workers because many businesses shifted their production to countries with cheaper labor such as China, Tseng said. Back then, the government had also planned to train the unemployed to help them become caregivers.

However, training unemployed blue-collar workers was not as easy as government officials hoped. Many workers had a hard time adjusting to their new jobs after working in factories or construction sites for half a lifetime.

“Now, with so many white-collar workers thrown out of work, it may be even harder for them to adjust to a new job as a caregiver,” he said.

Ma calls on police to be tolerant
　

RESPECT DISSENT: Taiwan is an immigrant society that is made up of diverse ethnic groups, and tolerance is a value bequeathed by our forefathers, the president said
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that law enforcement agencies should be more tolerant of his critics — including five students who heckled him in Tainan on Sunday — saying that democracy is not only about appearance, but also substance.

Ma said the five students protesting the government’s policy to open up to Chinese university students and cross-strait investment were taken away by police. Law enforcement agencies should exercise more caution to ensure that differing opinions can be freely expressed, he said.

Although Taiwan has seen two transfers of power, there is much room for improvement in terms of tolerance, Ma said.

Taiwan is an immigrant society made up of diverse ethnic groups, he said, and tolerance is a core value bequeathed by our forefathers.

“Tolerance is key to the survival of a multi-ethnic society,” he said.

Ma made the remarks at a conference on the 90th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement at Academia Sinica in Taipei.

The movement was launched in China in 1919, with intellectuals and students protesting traditional feudal culture, and was spurred by the allocation of German concessions in China to Japan as part of the Treaty of Versailles. The movement is considered the beginning of China’s modernization.

Ma quoted Hu Shih (胡適), a key figure in the May Fourth Movement, as saying “democracy is a lifestyle of reason and tolerance.”

The essayist believed democracy could create a society that values freedom and tolerates dissenting opinions, Ma said.

Quoting the famous comment often attributed to Voltaire, Ma said: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

“The more civilized a society, the more tolerant [it is] of different opinions,” he said. “Not only should the ruling party be tolerant of criticism against it, but the opposition should be open, too, to different opinions.”

A society with only two voices is not a civilized, democratic society, he said.

Taiwan has undergone two transfers of power and remains steady on the path of democracy, Ma said. Even during the authoritarian era, the country had a constitutional system, he said.

The spirit of the May Fourth Movement was put into practice in Taiwan’s democratization and the public cherishes the results.

Taiwan’s democracy has significance for the greater Chinese community as well, he said.

Meanwhile, Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) told Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday at a question-and-answer session of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee, that “students enjoy the right to express their opinions and their freedom of speech should be protected.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the five students who heckled Ma said the police would not let the group leave until they had offered a full account of their protest.

“We were just voicing our opinion in front of [Ma]. I’m positive that he saw us and turned a blind eye,” the student said.

In related developments, DPP Department of Youth Development director Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said the five students had been beaten by persons wearing black as they protested.

Police did not arrest the attackers, but instead arrested the students, Chao said, accusing Ma and the government of bullying the students and possibly encouraging gangsters to attack them.

Chao said the party had requested the government investigate the incident and charge the assailants.
　

Pakistan nuclear work raises fears
　

‘UNDER DURESS’: While the country’s nuclear project could spark an arms race with India, the advances of local and foreign militants is a more immediate threat

THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 5

“There is a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could then find their way to al-Qaeda or other terrorists.”— John Bolton, former Bush administration official

Pakistan is continuing to expand its nuclear bomb-making facilities despite growing international concern that advancing Islamist extremists could overrun one or more of its atomic weapons plants or seize sufficient radioactive material to make a dirty bomb, US nuclear experts and former officials say.

David Albright, previously a senior weapons inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency in Iraq, said commercial satellite photos showed two plutonium-producing reactors were nearing completion at Khushab, about 250km southwest of Islamabad.

“In the current climate, with Pakistan’s leadership under duress from daily acts of violence by insurgent Taliban forces and organized political opposition, the security of any nuclear material produced in these reactors is in question,” Albright said in a report issued by the independent Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

Albright warned that the continuing development of Pakistan’s atomic weapons program could trigger a renewed nuclear arms race with India. But he suggested a more immediate threat to nuclear security arose from recent territorial advances in northwest Pakistan by indigenous Taliban and foreign jihadi forces opposed to the Pakistani government and its US and British allies.

“Current US policy, focused primarily on shoring up Pakistan’s resources for fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda, has had the unfortunate effect of turning the US into more of a concerned bystander of Pakistan’s expansion of its ability to produce nuclear weapons,” Albright said in the report, co-authored with Paul Brannan.

The Khushab reactors are situated on the border of Punjab and North-West Frontier province, the scene of heavy fighting between Taliban and government forces. Another allegedly vulnerable facility is the Gadwal uranium enrichment plant, less than 100km south of Buner district, where some of the fiercest clashes have taken place in recent days. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an air weapons complex near Gadwal in December 2007, injuring several people.

Uncertainty has long surrounded Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile. The country is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty or the comprehensive test ban treaty. Nor has it submitted its nuclear facilities to international inspection since joining the nuclear club in 1998, when it detonated five nuclear devices. It is estimated to have about 200 atomic bombs.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US Congress recently that Pakistan had dispersed its nuclear warheads to different locations across the country in order to improve their security.

But John Bolton, a former senior official in the Bush administration, said at the weekend that this move could have the opposite effect to that intended.

“There is a tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control. Such weapons could then find their way to al-Qaeda or other terrorists,” he said in an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Since there was a real risk of governmental collapse, Bolton said the US must be prepared for military intervention to seize control of Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile and safeguard western interests.

Pakistani Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani dismissed the warnings, saying: “The specter of extremist Taliban taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is not only a gross exaggeration, it could also lead to misguided policy prescriptions from Pakistan’s allies.”

Gates says obstacles to nuclear-free world are many

AFP, WASHINGTON
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 7

“We have had a number of countries forego nuclear weapons, countries that ... really voluntarily walked away from them: South Africa, Libya, Taiwan, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil.”— Robert Gates, US defense secretary

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday lauded the sentiment behind US President Barack Obama’s wish for a world without nuclear weapons, but said it would be “a long road to get there.”

“I think this is an important goal for everyone to have in the world, but I think that it’s a long road to get there,” he told CNN.

“President Obama is the fourth president that I have worked for who has said publicly he would like to see an end to nuclear weapons and [have] a nuclear weapons-free world. I think that’s a laudable objective,” Gates said.

But the US defense chief said any such move would be the result of gradual and labored disarmament efforts.

“It’s a goal that you have to move toward step by step,” he said.

Obama made his call for a nuclear-free world last month in Strasbourg, France, on the margins of a NATO summit, when he announced his intention to “seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons.”

Gates said on Sunday that “we have had a number of countries forego nuclear weapons, countries that ... really voluntarily walked away from them: South Africa, Libya, Taiwan, South Korea, Argentina, Brazil.”

“So total pessimism with respect to nonproliferation, I think, is unwarranted,” he said.

But he said the spread around the world of nuclear know-how would make it difficult to eradicate such weapons.

“How do you deal with the reality of that technology being available to almost any country that seeks to pursue it?” Gates told CNN.

“And what conditions do you put in place, what UN verification measures or IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] verification measures do you put in place, to prevent others from getting that?”

Still, Gates said, Washington should continue ongoing proliferation efforts, including talks on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and negotiations with Russia on new post-START talks aiming to reduce the US-Russia nuclear stockpile.

“These are all important steps in that direction. But my guess is, it’s a long march,” he said.

‘Status quo’ no longer viable

Huang Chi-yao’s (黃啟堯) insightful piece (“Treaty of Taipei had no claim to sovereignty,” May 2, page 8) exposes the fallacy of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) position over the previous week.

Attaining observer status in the World Health Assembly as “Chinese Taipei,” and not the “Republic of China,” shows once and for all that “one China, two interpretations” is a collective delusion of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and counts for nothing in the international arena: The People’s Republic is the only China.

While “Chinese Taipei” may not offend anyone, it is deliberately ambiguous at a time when clarity is needed, such as what does the word “Chinese” refer to?

It’s not at all helpful that Taiwan could only gain observer status on the WHA merely as a goodwill gesture by Beijing. It meekly accepts in principle where the real power lies, undermining the sovereignty exercised by the Republic of China over Taiwan.

This sovereignty is only further undermined by the signing of economic and trade agreements with the People’s Republic of China — nowhere in the world are such important agreements signed between two governments where one government fundamentally denies the other’s legitimacy. Clarification on what Ma means by “normalization” would therefore be welcome.

Crucially, however, in accepting Beijing’s terms in these matters, the “status quo” — the basis for the US Taiwan Relations Act, even if supported by just 27 percent of Taiwanese, according to a recent poll — appears no longer to be an option. The implication of Huang Chi-yao’s insights would appear to necessitate Taiwanese independence from the Republic of China.

PAUL DEACON
Kuishan, Taoyuan County

PRC-US ties are not so impeccable
　

By Mark Valencia　
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 8

The harassment of the USNS Impeccable by five small Chinese vessels in March supposedly resulted from different interpretations of international law. But more fundamentally it underscored the continued tension over Taiwan and the lack of transparency and trust in US-China relations. In subsequent Congressional hearings, US National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told Congress that “preparations for a Taiwan conflict” still drive the modernization goals of the Chinese military and that the recent naval incident was part of a plan by Beijing to expand its influence.

Given the uncertainty regarding intent, such incidents are likely to increase in frequency and intensity if the two rivals can not develop a modus operandi to deal with their differences.

China and the US made an agreement in 1998 regarding military consultations for the very purpose of avoiding such misunderstandings and confrontations. However China froze such exchanges last October in retaliation for a US$6.5 billion weapons sale by Washington to Taiwan. Even though talks resumed in February, the Chinese side was quoted as saying: “Contacts will remain tenuous unless the US removes remaining obstacles to improvement.”

Adding to the tension in US-China relations, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recently urged the US “not to hesitate” on sensitive arms sale to Taiwan.

“We need high-performance jet fighters to replace our aging F-5s and other unsophisticated arms,” he said.

He was referring to Taipei’s repeated requests for F-16C/Ds from Washington, which has been dragging its feet because of pressure from China.

In the Impeccable incident, according to the Pentagon, “five Chinese vessels shadowed and aggressively maneuvered in dangerously close proximity to USNS Impeccable, in apparent co-ordinated effort to harass the US ocean surveillance ship while it was conducting routine operations in international waters.”

Pentagon spokesman Stewart Upton said “Chinese ships and aircraft routinely steam or fly near US navy ships in this area. However these actions [regarding the Impeccable] were considerably more aggressive and unprofessional than we have seen, and greatly increased the risk of collision or miscalculation.”

The mission of the Impeccable is to use both passive and active low frequency sonar arrays to enable detection and tracking of long range undersea threats including submarines. China argues that the collection of such data is a “hostile act” and a “preparation of the battle field” and thus a threat to use force — a violation of the UN Charter and certainly not a peaceful use of the ocean. The US argues that its data gathering is purely defensive and that such “spying” is not a threat to use force.

Each has legal arguments to back up its position. But the confrontation in waters 120km south of Hainan was not really about the finer points of international law. Rather it was about mutual distrust stemming from China’s military expansion and aggressive US actions to monitor this growing Chinese “threat” so that it can be neutralized if needs be.

Beijing’s main military concern is Taiwan’s relationship with China. The problem is that the US supports Taiwan’s defense with arms sales. Adding fuel to the fire, some Taiwanese strongly advocate open independence, and at times China has threatened Taiwan with violence. But relations have improved since the election last year of Ma as president, who rejects any notion of declaring independence.

On March 25, the Pentagon released a study that said the Chinese government was seeking weapons and technology to disrupt the traditional advantages of the US military, and that Chinese military secrecy could lead to a miscalculation or conflict between the nations.

The report said a main goal of China’s military buildup is to have sufficient forces on hand in the event of war across the Taiwan Strait. A study published by the American Enterprise Institute in January said: “The minimal aim of American strategy must remain what it has been for the past century: to preclude the domination of Asia by any single power or coalition of hostile powers. This is necessary to prevent others from threatening our security and prosperity through any attempts to control the region’s resources, form exclusive economic blocs, or deny our physical access to and through Asia.”

China is currently no match militarily for the US in an all out conflict. However, there may come a day when it is — and the US is taking no chances. It is particularly concerned with China’s fleet of submarines. In the last decade China has acquired 12 Russian kilo-class subs and built two new types of nuclear-powered subs by itself — the Jin class which carries ballistic missiles, and the Shan class attack subs.

China plans to build at least five Jin-class ballistic missile submarines so that like the US it can have a near-continuous nuclear presence at sea.

China has recently built a submarine base at Yulin on Hainan with 11 submerged tunnel openings to accommodate its new subs, hence the US concern and focus on the Hainan area.

Instead of simply surveying the ocean bottom to aid in the future navigation of its own submarines and detection of underwater threats, the Impeccable was probably tracking Chinese submarines.

Indeed it may have been trying to determine at what distance it could detect the subs exiting the Yulin base. It was also likely mapping the navigational channels emanating from Yulin to facilitate targeting in case it one day becomes necessary to bottle them up.

Because China does not have a similar capability to monitor the US fleet and the ocean bottom off its submarine ports, this incident embarrassed the Chinese navy, hence the strong reaction.

The aftermath of the incident was initially rather disturbing for US-China relations. US officials lodged formal protests with the Chinese foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy in Washington and dispatched a guided missile destroyer to escort the Impeccable. The protests were promptly rejected in no uncertain terms by the Chinese foreign ministry.

“The US claims are gravely in contravention of the facts and confuse black and white, and they are totally unacceptable to China” People’s Liberation Army Navy spokesman Ma Zhaoxu (馬朝旭) said.

Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command Admiral Timothy Keating told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Chinese had “behaved in an aggressive and troublesome manner” and “are not willing to abide by acceptable standards of behavior.”

He added that China’s actions were “unlawful and dangerous.”

US conservatives used the occasion to re-emphasize the China threat.

However it appears that cooler heads prevailed — beginning with US President Barack Obama.

He “stressed the importance of raising the level and frequency of the US-China military to military dialogue in order to avoid future incidents.”

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he did not think China was trying to prevent the US Navy from operating in the South China Sea, and he did not see a need for armed escorts.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters after her meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎): “We both agreed that we should work to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.”

Meanwhile, China announced that “top commanders do not have plans to increase the military presence in the South China Sea.”

Some interpreted the aftermath of the incident as a backdown by China but this conclusion may be premature. The plain fact is that now is not the time for either party to expand this incident. The US and China are deeply interdependent in trade and financial flow and need to work together to mitigate the current economic crisis.

There may be room for a tacit compromise. Perhaps the Obama administration would be willing to modify some of its procedures — particularly regarding the more aggressive tracking and targeting of China’s submarines. China might in turn allow some collection of hydrographic information by US naval vessels in its Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ). The latter could actually be in China’s interest because as it expands its capabilities it will increasingly need to collect similar information in other countries’ EEZs, particularly Japan’s. Indeed it already does so.

Perhaps an agreement on incidents at sea could mitigate actual confrontations. But even if such an accord were reachable, it would not address the fundamental US-China relations issue of Taiwan.

Mark Valencia is a visiting senior fellow at the Maritime Institute of Malaysia.

The folly of ignoring cross-strait imbalance
　

By Lin Cheng-yi 林正義
Tuesday, May 05, 2009, Page 8

Most US academics, experts and government officials hope that the government’s China policy will bring stable development to the Taiwan Strait. There is, however, another view. Well-known neo-conservatives and Taiwan experts Robert Sutter and Shelley Rigger, who were Senator John McCain’s national security strategists during the presidential election, have expressed some unease, a reflection of the difficulties Taiwan will experience in striking a balance between the US and China.

The cross-strait relationship is experiencing its most rapid and dramatic improvement in 60 years. Cross-strait political, economic, military and psychological imbalances are increasing. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) may try to restrict or block these changes, but it will be hard put to change the overall situation. Beijing is using the platforms for communication between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), cross-strait talks and cross-strait forums to widen its contacts with Taiwan. In Taiwan, however, China policy is developing along two increasingly divergent political viewpoints.

Taiwan required Beijing’s nod of approval to be invited to the World Health Assembly. The CCP has showed goodwill toward the KMT following the KMT’s acceptance of the “1992 consensus,” the moniker “Chinese Taipei” and dealing with issues on a case by case basis, but there are no guarantees it will extend the same treatment to a DPP-led government. With Beijing’s and Taipei’s opaque handling of key decisions, the rationale is that the results count, not the means.

Growing political, economic, military and psychological imbalances in cross-strait relations are causing a series of challenges to US policymaking. The general view in the US is that the Taiwanese government is relaxing political tension with China, but that the new policy is not risk-free. The question is whether the US government can respond to these unprecedented developments in cross-strait relations, or if it will have to single out a Chinese-Taiwanese economic cooperation framework agreement and passively say that it must not violate US interests in Taiwan.

In addition to relaxing the cross-strait economic and political relationship, Beijing must also eliminate any possibility of a US role in the establishment of a peace agreement and a cross-strait mutual trust mechanism on marine affairs. Rigger said one opinion in the US was that if Taiwan’s only concerns were economic and political exchanges with China and it reduced its military capabilities, the weapons systems the US has provided Taiwan over the years could pass to the People’s Liberation Army. Sutter and Rigger want the US to create a new policy, or at least to conduct a policy review and develop a response plan.

Former American Institute in Taiwan director Richard Bush says that China’s growing strength is making it increasingly complicated for the US and Taiwan to maintain their joint strategic view. What Bush does not say is that one result of China’s increasing strength and Beijing’s increasing ability to direct cross-strait relations is that US influence over the situation is diminishing.

The administration of former US president Bill Clinton could not get a good grasp of confidential cross-strait exchanges, just as the current US administration has problems getting a clear understanding of the ongoing cross-strait talks.

The US and Taiwan are ignoring the expanding cross-strait imbalance as they compete to improve relations with China and come up with ways to respond to new challenges to the relationship between Taiwan, the US and China.

Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica.