Dalai Lama emphasizes religious intent
　

STRAIGHT TO WORK: A press conference set for this morning was canceled after Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng had a word with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu
　

By Flora Wang and Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTERS, WITH AGENCIES
Monday, Aug 31, 2009, Page 1
　

The Dalai Lama reiterated the religious purpose of his trip prior to his arrival in Taiwan last night following an invitation from the heads of seven southern Taiwan cities and counties to host Dharma sermons for victims of Typhoon Morakot, which killed hundreds of people.

The visit marks the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader’s third trip to Taiwan. He first visited Taiwan in 1997 and again in 2001.

Upon arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the Dalai Lama was to immediately board a high-speed train for Kaohsiung. As the Dalai Lama and his staff were scheduled to arrive after the high-speed railway’s last train from Taipei departed at 10:12pm, the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness The Dalai Lama, the de facto representative office of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Taiwan, applied for a special train service, which was paid for by the foundation.

Prior to his departure for Taiwan from New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport, the Dalai Lama issued a three-point statement, reiterating that his trip had nothing to do with politics or any political group.

Stressing that the main purpose of his visit was to console surviving victims of Morakot and release the souls of those killed in the disaster from their suffering, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner said he had not considered anything other than praying for blessings and well-­being for Taiwanese.

More than 200 people, including members from the Taiwan Friends of Tibet, Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association and Guts United, Taiwan, gathered at the airport to welcome the Tibetan spiritual leader.

According to an itinerary originally publicized by the Kaohsiung City Government, the Dalai Lama’s public activities would start with an international press conference today in Kaohsiung before setting out for the typhoon-affected area, including Kaohsiung County’s Jiasian (甲仙) and Meinong (美濃) townships.

However, the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness The Dalai Lama yesterday afternoon said the press conference had been canceled, even though reporters from some 130 local and foreign news organizations had signed up to cover it.

Tsegyam Ngaba, secretary-­general to the Dalai Lama’s Office, said the press conference was canceled because Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) had “strongly” suggested that the Dalai Lama spend more time visiting disaster areas.

While Chen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) denied she had asked the foundation to cancel the media conference, saying she and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) had merely exchanged opinions on whether the Dalai Lama should visit ­typhoon victims or hold the press conference first, Wang said he had suggested to Chen canceling the press conference to avoid politicizing the visit.

Wang said he made the suggestion in a bid to keep the Tibetan spiritual leader’s visit simple as the media was bound to ask “sensitive questions” at the press conference.

“This is a simple religious visit. There would not be any problem if you [reporters] refrain from raising political questions [at the press conference], but it is impossible for you [reporters] to do so,” Wang told reporters on his way to a religious ceremony in Taipei.

But Wang dismissed media speculation that he was afraid the Dalai Lama’s visit might upset China.

“Since this has been defined as a religious visit, we should keep it that way and prevent things from getting out of control,” he said.

China has long vilified the ­Dalai Lama for what it says are his attempts to fight for independence in Tibet. Beijing has said it “resolutely opposes” the Taiwan visit “in whatever form and capacity.” But it blamed the DPP, not President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), for the invitation.

The invitation put Ma in a bind — either risk angering China or give further ammunition to his critics, who have been slamming him and his administration for weeks for their botched typhoon relief efforts.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) said yesterday that he believed the Dalai Lama chose to visit Taiwan to help the nation, rather than “make more trouble for Taiwan.”

“I believe the Dalai Lama has enough wisdom to tell whether the purpose of his visit is religious or political. He should know [his purpose] better than anyone else,” Wu said while attending a prayer ceremony held by local Tibetan Buddhist groups for Morakot victims.

Aside from visiting some of the worst-hit disaster zones, the Dalai Lama will hold a religious service for Morakot victims beginning at 9:30am tomorrow at the Kaohsiung Arena and deliver a speech at the arena at 2pm. Admission to both events is free and both are open to the public.

On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama will meet Catholic Cardinal Paul Shan (單國璽) before leaving Kaohsiung for another speech at the Taoyuan County Stadium (also known as the Taoyuan Arena) on Thursday — which will also be open to the public — before returning to India on Friday morning.

In related news, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) yesterday dismissed concerns that China’s denouncement of the Dalai Lama’s visit of would affect China’s participation in the Deaflympics, which will begin on Saturday.

Hau said the Taipei City Government would make a public announcement on the arrival time of Chinese team once the schedule is confirmed.

As to whether the Chinese team would participate in the opening ceremony of the games on Saturday, Hau said the city government is still negotiating with China on the issue.

Tunghsing Building rebuilt but losses, anger linger
　

RESPONSIBILITY: It took 10 years to reconstruct the only Taipei City building toppled in the 921 Earthquake. Residents blame the city government for the delays and hardships

By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Aug 31, 2009, Page 3
　

In the 10 years since the Tunghsing Building in Taipei City was leveled by the 921 Earthquake in 1999, 68-year-old Mrs. Chien (簡) and most of her fellow residents have been forced to live with relatives or move around while waiting for their home to be reconstructed.

The rebuilding project, which began in 2004 and was suspended twice because of the contractors’ financial problems, was finally inaugurated on Saturday, with more than 70 of the 84 former households preparing to return to the 14-story building at the intersection of Bade Road and Hulin Street.

“I’ve been renting apartments in the vicinity since the earthquake. Ten years is a very long time, and I am glad that I can finally move back home,” she said on Saturday while chatting with old neighbors who gathered to attend the inauguration.

The memory of the night of the massive earthquake, which killed more than 2,400 people, remains vivid for Chien. She and her husband were sleeping in their 10th floor apartment, and they managed to escape through the air conditioning vents as the whole building collapsed in seconds, she said.

The Tunghsiung Building was the only structure in Taipei City to be completely destroyed by the quake, which was centered about 200km outside the city. Eighty-seven people in the building were killed, 105 injured and more than 250 left homeless in the collapse.

While other collapsed buildings around the country were rebuilt over the years, the road to reconstruction was a bumpy one for Tunghsing’s residents. The project was halted twice after two contractors declared bankruptcy, one in 2006 and the other last year, while a lawsuit filed by survivors against the Taipei City Government was an additional financial burden on those residents.

In 2000, the residents filed a NT$1.5 billion (US$45 million) lawsuit against the city for issuing an operation license to the original contractor despite the building’s substandard construction. Then-Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration refused to admit responsibility for the collapse, but the Taiwan High Court ruled in 2005 that the city must pay NT$330 million to the residents. The city appealed the ruling.

The legal war between the city and the residents remained unsettled until 2007, when Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) agreed to pay the residents NT$120 million.

Catherine Liao (廖汶錡), director of Tunghsing Building Reconstruction Association, said the residents had mixed feelings about the 10-year reconstruction process, but she declined to comment on the lawsuit.

“We remain thankful for the city government’s administrative assistance,” she said.

Chen Chien-hua (陳建華), a member of Tunghsing Building Self-help Association, however, criticized Ma as indifferent to the residents’ pain and incapable of handling the aftermath of the building’s collapse.

“It took President Ma Ying-jeou 10 years to rebuild the Tunghsing Building. Let’s wait and see how many years he needs to rebuild the areas hard-hit by Typhoon Morakot,” he said.

Chen, who lost his mother and brother in the 921 Earthquake, said the time-consuming lawsuit and the delays in the reconstruction process resulted in a NT$100 million construction surcharge, forcing each household to pay several million NT dollars in addition to their original mortgage.

Liao said about 90 percent of residents had not moved back into building because of paperwork and mortgage issues. The paperwork process and mortgage negotiation with banks and the contractor could take months.

Chien is one of the lucky few who will be moving back in soon. She will be back on the 10th floor, but just with her son because her husband passed away seven months ago.

“My biggest regret is that my husband did not live to see the new building and return home with me,” she said.

Chen said if the former Ma administration had used its power to help facilitate the reconstruction process, instead of challenging the residents in a legal fight, the building would have been rebuilt years ago, saving residents time and money.

Lin Chung-huan (林崇煥), director of the city’s Urban Redevelopment Office, said the city government had given subsidies to the residents and negotiated with the central government to win the residents lower interest rates on their mortgages.

The office will hold a meeting with Ministry of Interior’s Construction and Planning Agency tomorrow to discuss ways to facilitate the remaining paperwork.

When asked about the mortgage issue and the construction surcharge, Lin said the surcharge was caused by the rising price of construction materials in recent years.

“The city government has no responsibility for the mortgages and surcharge. It is the residents’ job to negotiate with the banks and pay the money,” he said.

Referendum decision bodes poorly

Monday, Aug 31, 2009, Page 8

The Cabinet’s Referendum Review Committee rejected the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) referendum proposal on Thursday in part because the proposal “was not clear enough and asks the public to vote on something that has not yet happened.” These reasons defy common sense and show how the committee is trying to use administrative measures to block the move and thereby deprive the public of its right to hold a referendum.

The committee’s decision is not surprising or unexpected. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) still believes in a party-state with minority rule and opposes the idea that the public should be allowed to directly express its will or help formulate government policy. The KMT can do nothing to stop Taiwan’s democratic progress, but it has used its legislative majority to set almost insurmountable requirements for the proposal, collection of signatures, registration and passage of referendums.

It was only to be expected that the six referendums held under these restrictive rules over the past few years have all failed. With its total grip on power, it was only natural that the KMT would block any referendum related to its proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

The committee ignored procedural justice by forcing through a motion suspending the right to speak and moving to a vote before all committee members had a chance to express their opinions. Absurdly, this meant a decision was reached even before the reasons for that decision had been established.

The committee review should be carried out with a minimum of restrictions, and unless a proposal violates the Referendum Act (公投法), it should be submitted to the public. Instead, the committee overstepped its powers by declaring that the proposal was not clear enough and failing to undertake a substantive review of a proposal submitted by the public.

The argument that the proposal could not be approved because it asked the public to vote on something that has not yet happened restricts referendums to dealing with things past, incomprehensibly rejecting the reasoning behind the right of initiative. From this perspective, public issues would be required to first become reality — potentially causing harm or violating the public will — before a referendum can be held. This reduces direct democratic participation in policymaking to words on paper, hurting both national and public interests.

The committee’s decision is aimed at currying favor with their superiors. Their chop-logic directly blocked a proposal signed by 150,000 people and deprived 17 million voters of the right to directly express their opinion, giving the committee more decision-making power than they rightfully have. Only in totalitarian states can a small minority suppress the basic rights of the majority in this way. That this happens in a democracy is a frightening example of the speed and extent to which the current government is undermining decades of effort toward democratization. The view in both academic and political circles is that the Referendum Review Committee should only make a formal review, but as its superiors’ wishes are obvious, the committee ignored fundamental democratic requirements.

If the government can force through such a major agreement — and is prepared to sign it with an enemy state — without being able to explain it, then what are the chances the government will submit future agreements with China for review by the public?

In addition to filing an administrative appeal, the opposition should file an administrative lawsuit and ask for a constitutional interpretation to overturn the Referendum Review Committee’s inappropriate decision.

Natural disaster to political crisis

Monday, Aug 31, 2009, Page 8

Typhoon Morakot brought Taiwan the worst flooding in decades and the government’s feeble and uncoordinated relief efforts made matters worse for the victims. At the same time, the situation has provided China with an excellent opportunity to advance its unification strategy.

In the first days of the disaster, China used existing links between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to announce a donation of more than 100 million yuan (US$15 million) in emergency aid.

China then openly expressed its willingness to provide rescue helicopters, even saying that if it didn’t have the required types of helicopters, it could rent them from other countries. A fund-raising campaign was launched all over China. As the Ma administration came under fire from all sides, China stepped up its combined typhoon relief/unification strategy with a donation of 1,000 prefabricated houses.

Bypassing the Taiwanese government and the Red Cross, it handed a donation of 20 million yuan directly to Non-Partisan Union Aboriginal Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), ostensibly with the intention of persuading Aborigines to identify with China. Faced with these moves, we are compelled to remind Taiwanese to increase their vigilance, even in the midst of relief efforts, and not to allow China to take advantage of the floods to further its unification strategy.

The floods are the worst since those brought by Typhoon Ellen in August 1959. Unfortunately, the current government is the most incompetent and unsympathetic administration Taiwan has had in at least 50 years, and the least capable of sharing in the public’s hardship. Natural disaster and human incompetence have snowballed to make the situation even worse.

It is, of course, perfectly normal for any country to accept help from abroad when disaster strikes. When the Sichuan Earthquake struck in May last year, killing nearly 70,000 people and injuring hundreds of thousands, the Taiwanese public felt great sympathy and made donations of more than NT$6 billion (US$182 million). If China now wishes to repay Taiwan’s generosity, we are happy and grateful to accept its help.

It must be said, however, that on the numerous occasions when Taiwanese have donated money and materials following disasters in China, they did so for purely humanitarian reasons. There was no nationalistic talk of blood being thicker than water: The help was given out of simple human compassion.

When disasters happen in other countries, Taiwan goes to their aid just the same by making charitable donations or sending rescue teams, as long as circumstances allow.

China’s aid to Taiwan, on the other hand, is laden with political implications. Beijing insists on acting as if it were helping people in one of its own localities, and on tying its aid to nationalistic notions of assisting fellow members of the “great Chinese nation.”

Each move China makes smacks of political maneuvering. Like a hypnotist, Beijing hopes Taiwanese will lose their clarity of judgment, making them pliable and vulnerable to a “tender offensive.”

Chin’s acceptance of China’s donations is a clear example. Accepted international practice calls for donations from abroad to be given to the government of the affected country so that it can decide how to use them.

For example, donations from the US, Japan and other countries have all been given directly to the government through their representative offices in Taiwan, not to particular civic groups or political figures.

In contrast, China’s donations were given first through CCP-KMT party-to-party channels and then directly to a political figure. The intent to cultivate support for China is obvious. Furthermore, Beijing’s assistance is always offered in terms of relations between “compatriots” on each side of the Taiwan Strait, denial of Taiwan’s independent and sovereign status.

When Morakot struck Taiwan, Chin was in Japan calling for the names of Aborigines who were recruited to fight in the Japanese army in the Second World War to be removed from the Yasukuni Shrine. After returning to Taiwan, she spent several days visiting her constituents in typhoon-stricken areas before going to Beijing to receive the donation.

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) decision to meet Chin, convey condolences through her and give her relief money was more a token of Beijing’s appreciation of her protest activities in Japan than a mark of genuine concern for the flood victims.

It doesn’t matter whether people are new or old immigrants, Aborigines or migrants — anyone who identifies with Taiwan can be a master of this country. But when Chin took a group of so-called representatives of the Aboriginal community, dressed in Aboriginal costume, for an audience with Hu, the scene looked like one of vassals paying tribute to an emperor.

Even more surprising was the statement made by former chairman of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, Walis Pelin, who said: “We have never split from the mainland. Taiwan has experienced many alien rulers in its history — the Dutch, the Qing Dynasty, Japan and so on. The Republic of China came from outside, too. If they treat us badly, we can find other friends who will treat us well.”

Chin and Pelin’s behavior degrades the status of Aborigines, turning masters of the country into slaves. It is a disgrace for Aborigines and for their ancestors and descendants.

China’s efforts to use disaster relief to promote unification through certain politicians and political groups are clumsy enough to be seen through by ordinary Taiwanese, so its machinations are unlikely to succeed.

What is most worrisome is that the government is so incompetent that all it can do is turn to China for help. Coming under criticism from all quarters, the government may find itself in such a squeeze that it will become more reliant on China than ever.

It plans to sign a memorandum of understanding on financial oversight and an economic cooperation framework agreement as a means of drawing public attention away from its failings.

China, for its part, is aware that the Taiwanese public’s vigilance may be lowered while they are busy dealing with the disaster, and it is likely to take advantage of the situation and help Ma’s China-friendly administration by making various behind-the-scenes deals that sell out public interest.

If so, when the natural disaster has been dealt with, Taiwan could face an even greater political crisis.