DPP thumbs nose at assembly permits
　

UNHAPPY MAYOR: After the DPP said it would not apply for a permit, Hau Lung-bin said the sit-in would be illegal, but authorities would handle it with a ‘soft approach’
　

By Rich Chang and Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTERS
Wednesday, May 13, 2009, Page 1

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday the party would hold its 24-hour sit-in protest against the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) and a draft amendment to the act without applying to the Taipei City Government for permission.

“We oppose this ridiculous Assembly and Parade Act and oppose the government’s proposed amendment to the Assembly and Parade Act,” Tsai told reporters yesterday.

The protest is scheduled to start on Sunday in front of the Presidential Office after the party’s rally against the government’s pro-China policies.

A draft amendment of the act proposed by the Cabinet would allow police to restrict the public’s right to protest, Tsai said.

She also said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had been playing tricks, first to block the sit-in, then to make it seem that Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) had helped the DPP.

The KMT arranged for “civic groups” to apply for rally permits on Ketagalan Boulevard on Monday to prevent the DPP’s 24-hour sit-in, she said. Later, Hau claimed he had negotiated with the groups on behalf of the DPP and convinced them to yield to the sit-in, she said.

Tsai said Hau’s behavior was “ridiculous and hypocritical,” and the DPP did not appreciate his supposed “help.”

The DPP has a permit for its Sunday-night rally on Ketagalan Boulevard, but could not secure a permit for the sit-in as the space had been booked for Monday.

Hau then called on the DPP to negotiate with the organization over use of the space. He was referring to the Taipei City branch of the KMT.

Yesterday he said the KMT had agreed to yield to the sit-in after being contacted by the city government over the matter.

Hau yesterday urged the DPP to complete the legal procedures for holding its sit-in and promised the permit would be granted.

“Ketagalan Boulevard is a major traffic artery and many residents have to use the road on Monday ... Applying for a road permit is [meant to] protect the rights of the majority,” Hau said.

Hau said the city government was concerned about the impact of the sit-in on traffic and would have trouble presenting a traffic control plan if the DPP did not apply for a road permit.

After news that the DPP would not apply for the permit, Hau said the sit-in would be illegal and the city government would handle the matter with a “soft approach.”

“I believe the DPP is a responsible party that will take the public’s rights and perspectives into consideration,” he said.

Chen returns to detention center
　

By Shelley Huang and Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTERS
Wednesday, May 13, 2009, Page 3
　

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) returned to the Taipei Detention Center yesterday morning after spending three days in the hospital.

TV footage showed Chen being wheeled out of the Banciao branch of Taipei County Hospital covered with a blanket and wearing a facemask.

He arrived at the detention center at about 8:15am.

Chen signed a disclaimer after midnight yesterday agreeing to leave the hospital and return to the detention center, Taipei Detention Center Deputy Director Lee Ta-chu (李大竹) said.

“[Chen] still refuses to eat anything, but he drank some water,” Lee said.

Chen has been receiving treatment from doctors at the detention center because he is coughing and has phlegm in his left lung, he said.

The former president has been on hunger strike since Thursday after he returned to the Taipei Detention Center following his detention hearing. He appeared weak in court and later that day issued a statement saying he would not appeal any verdict in the case, immediately dismiss his attorneys and stop calling witnesses.

He was hospitalized on Saturday with dehydration.

The hospital performed various examinations, including a blood test, an x-ray, an electrocardiogram and an ultrasound.

On Monday, the Taipei District Court ruled that Chen would remain in detention, citing fears he would collude with witnesses or abscond.

The court also canceled a court date Chen had yesterday because of his poor physical condition.

The court date had been scheduled to summon Su Chih-cheng (蘇志誠), a top aide to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), and former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) in the trial over Chen’s alleged embezzlement of the presidential “state affairs” fund.

Chen has said he will not eat or drink until Sunday to show his support for the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) rally scheduled for that day to protest against the government’s China-leaning policies.

Chen has been on two hunger strikes since his incarceration, but ended them after pressure from his family.

Meanwhile, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday the extension of Chen’s detention was a political decision that was manipulated by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.

“We did not see proper legal procedure in the ruling to extend Chen’s detention. This is a political decision that damages the credibility and independence of Taiwan’s judiciary, and it is a warning to Taiwan’s society,” Tsai told reporters yesterday.

DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said the court had detained Chen for five months and that the party and the public believed the detention was a “punishment detention” meant to humiliate his supporters.

DPP caucus whip Kao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said the court made up its mind to detain Chen and then fabricated reasons for his custody.

“The court wants to detain the sick Chen until he dies,” Kao said.

Former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of the DPP said yesterday that because Chen is not in good health, he would not abscond if he were free and the court should release him.

KMT legislators lauded the court’s decision to extend Chen’s detention. KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) gave Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) a thumbs up for “standing up to pressure from the DPP.”

Lee urged Chen to “learn how historical figure [Chinese poet and minister] Qu Yuan (屈原) dedicated himself to his nation and people” now that Chen has to spend the Dragon Boat Festival inside the detention center. The festival is partly held in commemoration of Qu.

“The public now hopes Mr Chen will fully cooperate with the judiciary,” KMT caucus secretary-general Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) said when asked for comment.

KMT Legislator Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said Chen had set a poor example by trying to stall his trial by launching hunger strikes.
　

Taiwan’s ‘undetermined’ status

Wednesday, May 13, 2009, Page 8

It is hard to believe that retired ambassador Saito Masaki, head of the Japan Interchange Association (JIA), Tokyo’s de facto embassy in Taipei, would deliver himself of so profound a “personal” observation as “Taiwan’s status is unsettled” without instructions from his government. With the Taipei government increasingly inclined to define Taiwan as China’s sovereign territory, it’s no wonder Japan is alarmed. Taiwanese themselves should be alarmed. Taiwan’s post-World War II “undetermined” international status, an explicit artifact of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, is after all the metaphysical nucleus of Japan’s relationship with Taiwan.

It is the core precept in the US’ relationship with Taiwan as well. Other countries that signed the treaty, like the UK, Australia and Canada, also share a philosophical appreciation of Taiwan’s 迭吟ndetermined-ness,” although 58 years later, they don’t necessarily lie abed every night fretting about it. Taiwan’s “undetermined” status does, however, keep Japanese diplomats awake at night — at least the ones dealing with China and Taiwan. It is possible that in his talk at Sun Yat-sen University’s international affairs symposium in Chiayi on May 1, Saito may have slipped from his intended talking point: ie, that Japan “takes no position” on the matter of Taiwan’s international status. This was the alternative position that JIA Chairman Atsu貞hi Ha負a虺e要a虺a proffered in response to the partisan firestorm of indignation that swept the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) last week.

In the eyes of the KMT, it is evidently permissible for the Japanese government to say it “takes no position,” but Japan must not be allowed to explain why. And the “why,” as Saito so impolitely put it, is because Japan’s government believes “Taiwan’s status is undetermined.” A better question is why the KMT cares if the Japanese representative’s statements reflect his government’s views. Surely the KMT remembers that Japan broke relations with the KMT’s “Republic of China” (ROC) in 1972 and instead recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “sole legal government” of “one China.” But while Japan “respected” China’s claims to Taiwan in 1972, deep down inside, the Japanese government really does consider Taiwan to be a separate entity from the PRC — and calling Taiwan’s status “undetermined” is the only workable way around the issue.

Americans make similar “misstatements,” but not so elegantly or so well thought-out. In August 2007, Dennis Wilder, then US president George W. Bush’s senior Asia adviser, allowed his tongue to slip in a direction just the opposite of Saito’s — but botched it completely: “Taiwan, or the Republic of China,” he stammered, “is not at this point a state in the international community.” He then confused the issue by adding: “The position of the United States government is that the ROC — Republic of China — is an issue undecided, and it has been left undecided, as you know, for many, many years.” Wrong, wrong, and (oh my!) wrong again.

The “Republic of China” does not exist in US eyes. The PRC succeeded the ROC as “China.” As far as the US government is concerned, there is only one China and the PRC is China’s sole legal government. Period. There is nothing “undecided” about the US position on the “ROC” at all, I’m afraid. That’s the essence of the Dec. 16, 1978, Normalization Communique. Wilder, unlike Saito, apparently did not take the time to distinguish mentally between “Taiwan” and the “Republic of China,” otherwise he would have noted that Taiwan — not the “ROC” — was the “undecided issue.”

Moreover, if Wilder had thought about it just a few moments more, he would not have confused Taiwan’s objective status as a “state in the international community” (which it has) with the official US government position-to-take-no-position on Taiwan’s status in the international community. We didn’t hear the KMT complain about Wilder’s gaffe, probably because Chinese nationalists all insist that Taiwan is part of China — regardless of whether that China is the PRC or Wilder’s indeterminate ROC.

Ironically, shortly before Wilder’s infelicitous utterance, Taiwan’s “undetermined” status was restated strongly and authoritatively by US diplomats to UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs B. Lynn Pascoe, who presumably needed no reminding since he had once served as director of the American Institute in Taiwan.

The US diplomats affirmed several points: that “we take no position on the status of Taiwan. We neither accept nor reject the claim that Taiwan is a part of China”; that, unlike Wilder, “we do not define Taiwan in political terms”; furthermore, that the position that Taiwan is “for all purposes ... an integral part of the PRC ... is not universally held by UN member states, including the United States”; and finally, that the UN Secretariat must “avoid taking sides in a sensitive matter on which UN members have agreed to disagree for over 35 years.” On this last point, the US diplomats threatened that if the UN persisted in “describing Taiwan as a part of the PRC, or on using nomenclature for Taiwan that implies such status, the United States will be obliged to disassociate itself on a national basis from such position.”

Pretty tough stuff — for US diplomats, I mean.

Taiwanese should be comforted. The US government is (still) willing to stick its neck out and remind the UN of Taiwan’s “undetermined” status; and Japan’s ambassador Saito is willing to draw fire to remind the Taiwanese people of their “undetermined” status. They do not engage in this behavior merely for the fun of belaboring the minutiae of international law left over from the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951.

They do it to remind the Taiwanese people that the Chinese civil war is over, and that the communists won. There is no rational excuse for Taiwan’s government to continue the fiction that it is the government of all China, or to pronounce that Taiwan’s interpretation of “one China” is — as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has postulated — the ROC. To say that the ROC is still the government of all China is nonsense. No one under the age of 70 believes it. Not even Ma himself. He is, nonetheless, the constitutional president of the ROC and he must at least maintain that constitutional fiction for purposes of legitimacy. But he need not overdo it. After all, no one over or under the age of 70 believes that the PRC is the legitimate government of Taiwan.

In the end, a doctrine of Taiwan’s “undetermined” status is the only formulation under international law that might permit Taiwan to exist separately from the PRC. It is the only formula that permits the major democracies of the world — the US, Japan, the UK, Canada and Australia, to name a few — to maintain their support of Taiwan’s democracy in the face of Chinese accusations of “gross interference in China’s domestic affairs.” Saito’s gentle reminder that Japan — at least — still does not recognize China’s sovereign claims to Taiwan was indeed his “personal opinion” — but it is also that of the Japanese government — and the US government as well. Taiwan’s government and ruling party must not make it more difficult for the world’s democracies to support Taiwan than it already is.

John Tkacik is a retired US foreign service officer who had postings in Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. He was chief of China intelligence at the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the first Clinton administration.

Unrivaled threats to security in Taiwan
　

By Taiwan Thinktank 台灣智庫主權與國際研究小組
Wednesday, May 13, 2009, Page 8

Since the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, it has constantly claimed that a diplomatic truce and cross-strait reconciliation would not compromise Taiwan’s sovereignty. But experience shows that China likes to play a dominant role in cross-strait issues, while the Ma government seems incapable of dealing with China. Sovereignty and security in Taiwan are encountering unprecedented threats.

First, there has recently been much criticism about cross-strait dialogue being that between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Since cross-strait issues are discussed via a KMT-CCP forum, the government can evade legislative supervision and exclude the opposition from the picture.

Even if cross-strait agreements are signed via the mechanism of the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, their evasion of legislative review creates the impression that cross-strait talks are closed-door meetings between the KMT and the CCP.

The content and execution of cross-strait agreements have gradually made people worry about issues like cross-strait relations becoming domestic issues and the territories of Taiwan becoming part of China. Since Ma asserted that relations between Taiwan and China are not “state-to-state,” but “region to region,” the government has in practice labeled cross-strait air routes as domestic by opening domestic airports to China, but not to other countries. The government has also opened the nation’s seaports to China, giving the international community the impression that the Taiwan Strait has become part of China. There have been several recent cases in which Chinese tourists attempted to enter Taiwan without the required documentation. The government then rushed to apply for permits on their behalf. It is extremely worrying to think that Taiwan might soon become a province or an area of China and lose its sovereignty.

The Ma administration’s emphasis on cross-strait policy over diplomacy shows that it thinks the quickest route into the international community is via Beijing. This has also given rise to the possibility that rumors about Taiwan’s international space becoming something for Beijing to decide will start to circulate in the international community. By saying that Taiwan’s invitation to become an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA) represented China’s goodwill, the Ma administration helped spread these rumors throughout the international community, which means that Taiwan’s WHA observer status could become Taiwan’s first major loss in its diplomatic battle with China.

Lastly, the Ma administration’s promotion of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China is making a “one China market” more likely. Without carrying out any assessments, without any plans and without having gained a consensus on the matter within Taiwan, the Ma administration has persistently pinned the hopes of Taiwan’s economy on China. This will have various negative effects, including the relocation of local industries and a continued rise in unemployment, and will make Taiwan lose all its bargaining chips in political talks with China.

The international community and Taiwan must come up with timely controls to stop the Ma administration and the CCP from conspiring to rob Taiwan of its sovereignty. Therefore, we would like to urge each Taiwanese to stand up and take action to help protect Taiwan’s sovereignty. We cannot keep waiting, as there is a risk the situation will reach a point of no return.

Taiwan Thinktank is an independent, nonprofit public policy research organization based in Taipei.