US to ignore Ma policy requests: sources
　

PRESSURE: Sources in Washington say that US officials are not likely to sign visa waiver or extradition agreements with Taiwan because China is opposed to them
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER , WASHINGTON
Friday, May 29, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) calls for an extradition agreement and visa waivers for Taiwanese tourists visiting the US are unlikely to bear fruit anytime soon.

Sources in Washington told the Taipei Times: “It’s just not going to happen.”

The major reason is that China is opposed to them, now more than ever. And with North Korea again playing its nuclear card, Washington is anxious for China’s cooperation and will be very reluctant to upset Beijing, sources said.

Ma raised the extradition and visa issues earlier this week when he stopped over in Los Angeles on his way to visit three Central American countries.

During talks with American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt, he stressed the importance of the two issues and asked for early agreements.

But sources said that even though the White House might be sympathetic, it would most likely bow to Chinese pressure.

“The Chinese feel strongly about these issues,” the sources said.

They added: “No Chinese province has an extradition agreement or visa waiver status and granting that to Taiwan would — in Chinese eyes — make Taiwan look like an independent country. And of course that is the last thing that Beijing wants.”

The Obama administration’s sensitivity toward Beijing was stressed this week by political consultant Michael Richardson, writing on the Boston-based Web site www.examiner.com.

He said that Stephen Bosworth, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, had been appointed as special US envoy to North Korea.

Richardson says that Special Envoy Bosworth has written and lectured about both North Korea and Taiwan and “is candid about the need for the United States to work with China and the possible consequences to Taiwan.”

In an academic paper titled Dancing with Giants, Bosworth says: “In terms of American foreign policy, some things have not changed in East Asia, including the two most important items.

One is the continuing problem of Taiwan, the Taiwan Straits and the future of China’s relationship with that wandering province.

The second is the problem of North Korea, where we have what is in effect our third nuclear crisis in the last decade and a half.”

Bosworth continues: “With Taiwan, of course, the problem is that for the last couple of decades we have always hoped and assumed that the problem would cure itself, largely through economic integration.”

“The thinking held that as Taiwan’s economy became more and more tied intos mainland China, the prospect of conflict over the future of Taiwan would diminish. In some measure, I am still confident that is the case,” he said.

“But there is no question that the emergence of democracy in Taiwan has significantly complicated this issue. Not surprisingly, Taiwan believes that it should have the same chance to pursue its destiny that other countries have had,” he said.

Richardson said: “As Bosworth begins his diplomatic effort to isolate North Korea and put pressure on them to disarm he will be looking for help from China — help that may only come at the expense of Taiwan.”

Meanwhile, Forbes magazine said that “if it weren’t for Beijing, Pyongyang would be impotent.”

China’s youth unlikely to follow Tiananmen’s path

REUTERS, BEIJING
Friday, May 29, 2009, Page 4

Final year Chinese university student Li Teng knows finding a job during the global economic crisis will be tough. Yet he shakes his head at the thought of taking to the streets to protest.

“I think the government is working hard to fix the economy,” the fashionably dressed history major said. “Besides, this is not a problem which started in China. I have confidence.”

How things change.

Two decades ago, China’s youth were at the forefront of a movement to bring democracy to the world’s most populous nation in demonstrations bloodily put down around Beijing’s central Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Today, after years of breakneck economic growth, the young are more pro-government, more suspicious of the West and genuinely proud of China’s achievements, such as the Beijing Olympics, making a repeat of June 4 unlikely.

The China of 20 years ago, where the chaos of the Cultural Revolution was still fresh in many people’s minds, is also very different from the China of today, with its shining skyscrapers, bustling malls and expanding middle class.

“One good thing about young people today is that they are luckier than in the past,” said Bao Tong (鮑彤), a former senior official purged after the 1989 demonstrations.

“My son and daughter grew up in difficult circumstances, with rationed food ... They didn’t have enough nutrition,” he said in a recent interview. “Now, there are no grains coupons, no meat coupons.”

That is a sentiment postgraduate student Zhang Haiping understands.

“In that era, people were very idealistic. But students have changed since then,” Zhang said. “China has changed, whether you’re talking about reforms or the economy.”

The potential for unrest among a disaffected youth has not gone away, though, thanks to the global economic crisis.

More than 6 million university students will try to enter China’s workforce this year. Up to a quarter could have difficulty finding jobs, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in December, as the economy slows.

Many are already getting desperate.

The Yangtse Evening Post reported earlier this month that in the relatively affluent eastern province of Jiangsu, 46 university graduates had applied for jobs as public toilet attendants, such was the state of the labor market.

“Better to be a ‘toilet master’ than unemployed at home,” it cited one of the applicants as saying.

China’s stability-obsessed government has reacted fast to the economic crisis, unveiling a 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus package and trying hard to find work for graduates, even as village officials in China’s rural heartland.

“In the short term, it’s probably something the government will be able to cope with because they are doing quite a lot to find places for these people as they’re worried about having large numbers of unemployed graduates,” said Rana Mitter, Chinese politics lecturer at Oxford University. “I think over the longer term they will be worried that urban youth in particular have grown up with much greater expectations of what they can have.”

Other students say politics simply does not interest them.

“I’m interested in charity work and the like, but not at all in politics,” said Jiang Yun, a first-year medical student at the prestigious Peking University. “I may pay attention to it, but I won’t get involved. I don’t really have any opinions either way.”

Tsai must be clear on Chen’s right to fair trial
　

By Chen Shih-meng 陳師孟
Friday, May 29, 2009, Page 8

After delivering a closing speech at the end of a 24-hour sit-in protest that followed the May 17 anti-government rally, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) sought to assure some demonstrators who were reluctant to disperse, saying: “The DPP’s position on former president Chen Shui-bian’s [陳水扁] case is very clear — he must have a fair trial. The DPP will firmly uphold Chen’s judicial rights. The party will not make you feel isolated.”

Members of the DPP expect the party, with Tsai at the helm, to take timely action to support Chen. In our view, although the humiliation Chen has endured before and during his trial is particular to his case, the case could become a focus for judicial reform. It could, like the Kaohsiung Incident, be a milestone in the fight to remove political interference from the judicial process.

The party leadership should consider forming a team to demand a fair trial for Chen and holding an international symposium on judicial rights.

This would help overcome a split within the DPP between those who support Chen and those who oppose him, uniting the two to save Chen from injustice based on the understanding that judicial rights apply to everyone.

A few days ago, former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun committed suicide. Regrettably, some members of the DPP took advantage of his death to express their anti-Chen views.

Former DPP legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) appeared on two TV stations — TVBS and CTiTV — calling Chen “shameless” and mocking him for not killing himself and admitting his guilt like Roh, who had been implicated in a graft scandal.

These callous comments came as a shock, especially coming from someone whose opinions are as influential as Lin’s.

From a judicial point of view, Lin’s comments amounted to pronouncing Chen guilty before any conviction. On another level, it shows that some people seek to blame Chen alone for all the DPP’s difficulties. The first point shows that these people pay only lip service to human rights and the rule of law. The second shows that they are not willing to bear their share of political responsibility.

To rephrase an old saying, with DPP comrades like these, who needs enemies?

Tsai, as party chair, should not excuse Lin by saying he is free to say what he wants or that his comments do not represent the DPP’s standpoint.

She should publicly declare her commitment to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, which is an essential concept for all countries where the rule of law prevails.

She should request that all members of the party refrain from personal attacks against Chen while his trial continues. This should be the bottom line for the DPP in dealing with Chen’s case, and these are points on which party members should have been educated long ago.

If influential DPP members cast aside the presumption of innocence even for a member of their own camp, who will believe that the party’s protests against unfair judicial procedures are anything but pretense?

If the party cannot even uphold the basic civil rights of a former DPP chairman and president, who will believe that the DPP is committed to human rights?

As things stand, the public is having difficulty telling right from wrong and true from false. The DPP is divided, with members and factions each going their own way. If, at this critical moment, Tsai remains aloof and indifferent, it will cast doubt on her pledge to safeguard Chen’s rights and her promise not to isolate his supporters.

Chen Shih-meng is chairman of Beanstalk Workshop.