Myanmar court delays verdict on Suu Kyi
　

UNCERTAINTY: The court said it needed more time to review the charges against Aung San Suu Kyi. Her lawyer said world pressure might have a bearing on the case

AFP, YANGON, MYANMAR
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 1
　

A Myanmar court yesterday postponed its verdict in the internationally condemned trial of Aung San Suu Kyi until Aug. 11, adding to uncertainty over the ruling junta's plans for the democracy icon.

Lawyers for the Nobel laureate said the judges announced they needed time to review the case, in which Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail on charges of violating her house arrest after an American swam to her lakeside home.

“I believe they really have serious legal problems,” her lawyer Nyan Win told reporters after the brief court hearing at Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

“I do not want to say anything regarding politics. But could it be because of pressure from the UN or others? We do not know exactly but there might be something,” he said.

“She should not have been charged in the beginning,” he said.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi had thanked diplomats for attending the hearing and told them that the outcome of the case “mainly depends on the rule of law,” said Nyan Win, who is also the spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD).

Critics have accused Myanmar's iron-fisted generals of using the intrusion by US national John Yettaw as an excuse to keep the opposition leader locked up during elections due next year.

But the regime has appeared increasingly rattled by international outrage over the case, and despite widespread fears of a guilty verdict diplomats have speculated that the court may opt for a lesser sentence of house arrest.

Suu Kyi's international legal counsel, Jared Genser, said the latest postponement in the two-and-a-half-month trial was another attempt by the military government to deflect foreign criticism.

“It is in some ways a smart move — push off the verdict until the middle of August when numerous government and United Nations officials around the world will be on vacation,” Genser said in a statement.

“But it remains to be seen whether this ploy will work or if anticipation will be heightened in the run-up to the issuance of the verdict,” he said.

Riot police surrounded the prison yesterday and police trucks patroled the city following warnings in the junta-controlled state media that protests against a guilty verdict would not be tolerated.

Around two dozen NLD members were arrested around the country on Thursday and yesterday, an exile-based NLD group saud. There was no immediate confirmation from authorities or from Nyan Win.

AIDS orphans from Africa sing Hoklo in Kaohsiung

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 2
　

More than 20 orphans from Africa sang Taiwanese folk songs and performed Chinese Shaolin kungfu routines at Kaohsiung City Hall yesterday, captivating an audience that included Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊).

The performers, whose parents all died from AIDS, live at a shelter founded by a Taiwanese Buddhist monk, Master Hui Li (慧禮法師), in Malawi.

They began a 21-day tour on Monday to express their gratitude to sponsors in Taiwan.

Impressed by the Malawian children’s proficiency in singing in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) and performing martial arts, Chen pledged to donate NT$10,000 a month to the organization.

Chen praised Hui Li for not only volunteering to promote Buddhist doctrines in remote and underdeveloped villages in Africa, but also for building shelters for children whose survival was threatened by hunger and disease.

Hui Li founded the Amitofo Care Center in Malawi in 2001 to offer shelter, care and education for AIDS orphans. Since then, it has sheltered more than 2,000 Malawian children.

At City Hall, the monk expressed his gratitude to the mayor for taking the time to meet him and the children and for her support.

Such support inspired the group to launch the tour of Taiwan that will also take it to Taichung, Tainan and Taipei, the monk said.

Hui Li, who became a monk at the age of 23, is a disciple of Master Hsing Yun (星雲法師), founder of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Kaohsiung County.

He traveled to South Africa in 1992 to build Fo Guang Shan’s Nanhua Monastery, the group’s first foothold — and the first Buddhist hub — in South Africa.

Hui Li left Fo Guang Shan in the late 1990s to start his own religious career in Africa, where Buddhism is often condemned as heresy.

He has since dedicated himself to helping African AIDS children, traveling around many African countries, including Malawi, Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Cameroon. He has also built Amitofo care centers in Zimbabwe and Lesotho.

Hui Li has been quoted as saying that he hopes to be buried in Africa and be reincarnated five times as an African monk.

Over the past 16 years, he has adopted or provided care and shelter for nearly 10,000 African AIDS orphans, earning the sobriquet “African monk,” while many children call him “daddy sent by Buddha.”

PRC must remove missiles, Ma says
　

FEELING ‘UNEASY’: The president said no peace deal was possible unless China removed its missile threat. He added that he was in no hurry to meet Hu Jintao

By Stuart Biggs and Stephen Engle
BLOOMBERG
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that China had to stop targeting Taiwan with hundreds of missiles to extend the deepest thaw in relations in six decades.

“People feel uneasy if we go to the negotiating table on security issues while still under the threat of missile attack,” Ma, 59, said in an interview with Bloomberg yesterday.

While ties with China are “good and getting better,” missiles are “very much on the mind” of Taiwan’s people, he said.

China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has threatened to use force to reclaim it.

China must remove its missile threat before any peace deal is possible, Ma said, adding that China continued to increase the number of missiles aimed at Taiwan by about 100 a year.

The US still felt obliged to provide Taiwan with weapons to give Taipei a stronger negotiating position, Ma said.

“It’s only when Taiwan is properly armed and defended that we have the confidence to make a deal with the mainland,” Ma said.

China’s President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) earlier this week sent Ma a congratulatory telegram on his election as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Ma reiterated in the interview that he was in “no hurry” to meet with Hu, giving more priority to forging an economic agreement.

“A meeting with Hu isn’t possible as Ma is also under tremendous domestic pressure,” Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies Secretary-General Andrew Yang (楊念祖) said. “The concern is Beijing may get impatient if Ma doesn’t respond to calls for talks on security or peace issues and there may be consequences.”

Ma said deepening economic ties with China would be inevitable, even should the Democratic Progressive Party be re-elected.

“This is something that nobody can prevent,” Ma said. “The DPP knows that very well and if they came to power, they would do the same thing,” he said, adding that Taiwanese investment in China had tripled from US$30 billion under the eight years of a DPP administration.

“If people can make money in the mainland they will go, no matter how hard you try to stop them,” he said.

Opening to Chinese investment needs to proceed cautiously because of the danger that Taiwanese business could be swamped by Chinese money, he added.

Foundries and the liquid-­crystal-display and telecommunications industries remain closed. The restriction has prevented China Mobile Ltd’s plan to buy a 12 percent stake in Taiwan’s Far EasTone Telecommunications Co.

The US and other countries welcome the rapprochement because it relieves tension in an area that threatens security in the region more than the potential nuclear crisis in North Korea, Ma said.

“The Taiwan Strait could be the beginning of a bigger conflict that involves the two superpowers of the world. That’s the reason why everybody is happy when we adopted the policy to ease that tension,” Ma said. “I think mainland China also appreciates that very much.”

DPP tells Ma to rein in racist, sexist propaganda
　

By Jenny W. hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should rein in Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members who are spreading racist and gender-biased propaganda in a bid to snatch votes for the year-end local elections and support for a controversial trade pact with China, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.

Acting DPP Spokesman Chao Tian-ling (趙天麟) said at a press conference that the KMT’s Chiayi County branch has been running a “questionable, negative advertisement” insinuating that the DPP nominee in the county commissioner’s race, Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠), was involved in adulterous relations with the current commissioner, Chen Ming-wen (陳明文).

The ad, which appeared in major Chinese-language newspapers on Thursday, compared the DPP’s decision to nominate Chang, a legislator, to a popular soap opera plot line by saying the party resorted to the “second wife” strategy to secure the seat.

Chang, 55, is the widow of late KMT legislator and prominent businessman Tseng Chen-nung (曾振農). At the announcement of Chang’s nomination, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) praised her for making the transition from the wife of a businessman to a politician.

Both Chen and Chang said yesterday they were prepared to sue their pan-blue rivals for defamation.

“It is regrettable that the KMT has stooped so low this early in the race. But this will not stand in my way of winning the seat,” Chang said.

Calling the KMT’s ad part of a smear campaign, Chao yesterday urged Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, to stop his party members using “low-class” and discriminatory tactics in the battle for the commissionership.

Chao said that during Ma’s presidential campaign, his supporters had also published several profanely worded ads in publications around the country.

During the presidential campaign of 2007, Ma’s supporters in Kaohsiung draped a giant banner on the side of a building bearing a phrase that used Ma’s last name in an allusion to a swear word. A pan-blue underground radio station at that time also started its show with a jingle making use of what sounded like an obscene phrase.

“Now, as the president, he has allowed the Ministry of Economic Affairs to distribute racist propaganda to boost support for the economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] that it wants to sign with Beijing. It is difficult not to suspect that these are all mere reflections of Ma’s real sentiments,” he said.

Chao was referring to a comic strip that the ministry had created to promote the ECFA. The cartoon features two stereotypical characters, Yi-ge (一哥), an ethnic Taiwanese vocational school graduate who opposes the ECFA, and Fa-sao (發嫂), a sharp-minded Hakka career woman who supports the deal.

The DPP last month expressed outrage at the cartoon and demanded that the ministry withdraw it.

Although the ministry has insisted there was nothing wrong with the cartoon and refused to remove it from its Web site, the ministry yesterday released a statement that said it had decided to pull the cartoon.

DPP accuses Ma’s sister of possible conflict of interest
By Jenny W. hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 3

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said it constituted a conflict of interest for President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) eldest sister, Ma Yi-nan (馬以南), to serve as a ranking member of the Chinese National Federation of Industries.

Speaking at a press conference, acting DPP Spokesman Chao Tian-lin (趙天麟) said Ma Yi-nan was recently invited to serve as the convener of the organization’s biotechnology section.

Chao said it was possible that Ma Yi-nan could use her position to act as a convenient “gate goddess” (門神) and ensure that the wishes of biotechnology and pharmaceutical interest groups are heard and granted by the government.

During last year’s presidential campaign, Ma Yi-nan’s business integrity and ties to her brother were called into question when DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) accused Ma Ying-jeou of violating the Public Officials’ Conflicts of Interests Prevention Act (公職人員利益衝突迴避法) by helping his sister, who worked as the deputy manager of China Chemical Pharmaceutical Co at the time, secure a contract supplying drugs to Taipei City Municipal Hospital during his term as mayor in 1998.

Chao said Ma Yi-nan had been invited to her current position by a man named Chen Huang-ming (陳煌銘), chairman of Kung Sing Engineering Corporation (KSECO), the primary contractor in the construction of the problematic Neihu rapid transit line.

KSECO has also been accused of funneling large political donations to Ma Ying-jeou and the matter remains unresolved, Chao added.

At a separate setting yesterday, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) dismissed the DPP’s accusation, saying the president has asked his family members, including first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青), to quit their jobs to prevent possible conflicts of interest.

Wang said the Chinese National Federation of Industries was a private group.

Not all opinions from private groups become government policy, he said.

Ma’s ex-secretary takes up government job
　

By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 3

After spending nine months in jail, Yu Wen (余文), a former secretary to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during Ma’s stint as Taipei mayor, returned to the Taipei City Government yesterday to take up a position in the compulsory military service department.

Yu, who had been found guilty of graft under Ma’s municipal administration, was employed in the department secretary’s office after competing with 13 other applicants with civil service qualifications.

Swamped by reporters outside his office, Yu said he was nervous about returning to the city government, but would exercise great caution in performing his duties.

“This is a fresh start in my life ... I will be more cautious in the future,” he said.

Yu declined to comment on whether Ma had talked to him about his new job, but said he kept in touch with many colleagues.

Department commissioner Chu Yea-hun (朱亞虎) said that Yu retained his qualification as a civil servant despite his incarceration, and so was qualified for a job in the city government.

Chu said the department posted the job opening on the Web site last month, and Yu received the highest score at the final oral test.

“The selection process was fair and open,” he added.

Yu was found guilty of graft in August 2007 and sentenced to 14 months in jail for using fraudulent receipts to claim reimbursements from Ma’s special mayoral allowance fund. He was released on parole in April.

He had worked at the city government during the term when Ma was accused of misusing his special mayoral allowance. Prosecutors alleged that Ma had embezzled more than NT$12 million (US$366,000) from the fund with Yu’s help. Ma was found not guilty.
　

Chen’s son, Huang to plead guilty on all charges
　

REDUCING CHARGES: The former president’s son and his wife cooperated fully with prosecutors and don’t want to delay their trial any further, their lawyer said
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 3

Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and daughter-in-law, Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚), will plead guilty on Tuesday to all charges against them, their lawyer said yesterday.

Taipei District Court Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) summoned Chen Chih-chung and his wife, among others, to appear in court on Tuesday to hear both sides’ arguments on whether they would enter plea negotiations.

Unconfirmed rumors have circulated in the media that because the couple had been unable to wire back the family’s overseas funds, they would not be able to enter plea negotiations with the prosecution and therefore face heavier sentences.

Attorney Yeh Ta-hui (葉大慧) said Chen Chih-chung and Huang would plead guilty to the charges against them on Tuesday and would ­request a reduced sentence.

Yeh said the couple had cooperated fully with prosecutors and had no wish to delay the legal proceedings.

Chen Chih-chung and his wife, who are facing charges relating to the former president’s corruption trial, had promised to wire about NT$1.2 billion (US$36.6 million) from Swiss accounts and paper companies back to Taiwan as part of conditions to enter plea-bargaining.

However, none of the money has been remitted because Swiss authorities froze the funds based on the two countries’ judicial mutual assistance agreement. Taiwanese prosecutors are in the process of requesting that the money be unfrozen and wired back.

Pro-China politics and the tracking of stocks
　

By J. Michael Cole 寇謐將
Saturday, Aug 01, 2009, Page 8

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was “elected” chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday with no competitor and 92 percent of about 300,000 votes cast. The following day, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), clearly satisfied with the result, broke 60 years of diplomatic ice by sending Ma a congratulatory telegram in which he pompously said: “I hope our two parties can continue to promote peaceful cross-strait development, deepen mutual trust, bring good news to compatriots on both sides and create a revival of the great Chinese race.”

In an article on the Hu letter on Monday, a wire agency added that Ma’s “election” and Hu’s telegram “helped boost Taiwan stocks … which rose 0.79 percent … to end above 7,000 points for the first time in 11 months.”

In recent months, wire agencies and analysts have tended to equate rises in the Taiwanese market with “improved relations with China” and to blame drops on Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “troublemakers.” A subsequent telephone interview with the agency in question confirmed that the conclusion was based on the assessments of financial analysts working at local and foreign banks.

What the agency failed to say is that on Monday — to quote The Associated Press — “Asian markets extended their winning streak … as hopes company earnings will rebound along with global growth continue to drive investors into stocks.” (Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock average rose 144.11 points, or 1.5 percent, to 10,088.66; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 268.83, or 1.4 percent, to 20,251.62; South Korea’s KOSI gained 1.4 percent; and so on.)

What the agency also did not mention was that (a) the Taiwan Stock Exchange opened flat that morning, and (b) investors had known for quite a while that Ma would win the “election.” While recognizing that financial analysts, when contacted by wire agencies, cannot remain silent and must attribute a market’s rise and fall to something, linking Ma’s “election” or the Hu telegram to a 0.79 rise in the local bourse when region-wide macroeconomic factors and agreement on better global economic prospects far better explain the modest rise is dishonest.

The reflex to use cross-strait developments as a proximate cause of stock performance in Taiwan is so prevalent that one wonders if some are not letting agendas interfere with assessments. For example, On Oct. 24 last year, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) reported that the Taiwan Stock Exchange was down nearly 3 percent as the result of a rally organized by the “right wing” and “separatist” DPP, failing to mention that on the same day, all Asian markets were markedly down: Japan by 7 percent and South Korea by 9 percent, among others.

Then, on Oct. 30, DPA said Taiwan’s bourse was up nearly 6 percent on “positive signs in Taiwan-China ties” ahead of “important dialogue from Nov. 3 to Nov. 7 [a visit by China’s envoy] to discuss expanding ties.” Again, the agency did not say that on the same day the Hong Kong stock exchange was up 12.8 percent, Tokyo almost 10 percent and Seoul 4 percent, while Australia, Singapore and the Philippines added 4 percent or more — developments that had far more to do with macroeconomic factors than cross-strait ties.

It is increasingly evident that big business and financial investors — at least in certain sectors that stand to benefit — favor cross-strait rapprochement, if not eventual unification. By invariably portraying rising stock value in Taiwan as a direct result of Ma’s successes — and conversely, by blaming devaluation on DPP shenanigans — these analysts are politicizing their assessments and undermining their credibility, while helping the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party take Taiwan closer to economic ultradependence and unification.

J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.