Su Jun-pin rebuts report that premier has criminal ties
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 1

Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) yesterday rebutted a report that Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has criminal connections, but confirmed that Wu took a trip with a group that included a paroled former gangster.

“It is true that the premier went to Bali [in Indonesia] with a number of people who care about the development of [Nantou County] during his legislative term last year,” Su said at the Executive Yuan.

“Members of the group might have included an ex-offender who has been rehabilitated, as alleged by the media, but there is no need for people to overinterpret [this],” Su said.

Su was responding to a story published in the issue of the Chinese-language Next Magazine that hit shelves yesterday. The story claims that Wu, his wife Tsai Ling-yi (蔡令怡), Nantou County Commissioner Lee Chao-ching (李朝卿) and Chiang Chin-liang (江欽良) — a former gangster on parole — visited the Indonesian island of Bali on Dec. 18 last year.

The story said Chiang was a powerful gangster in central Taiwan who has been involved in several cases of extortion and shootings.

“As a person with more than 30 years of experience in politics, how [Wu] handles his relationship [with Chiang] could withstand any measure of public scrutiny,” Su said.

Wu said yesterday that Chiang had repented and dedicated himself to charity work over the past decade, urging the public not to ostracize him.

Top US official meets Aung San Suu Kyi

AP, YANGON, MYANMAR
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 1
　

A US State Department official met Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday in a visit that marked the highest-level talks between a US diplomat and Myanmar’s detained opposition leader in 14 years.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for East Asia, greeted Aung San Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his hotel in Yangon, US embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

The topic of their discussion was not immediately known, but the meeting offered Aung San Suu Kyi, who wore a pink traditional Burmese jacket, her first trip in years outside the confines of her dilapidated home and Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison.

The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest.

Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Myanmar since 1995. Their trip stems from a new US policy that reverses the previous administration’s isolation of Myanmar in favor of direct, high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.

Their two-day visit is the second step in “the beginning of a dialogue with Burma,” State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington on Tuesday after the officials had met with senior junta officials in Myanmar’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw.

“They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue,” Kelly said. “But they were mainly in a listening mode.”

Campbell is continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, which at the time were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade.

Campbell met Burmese Prime Minister General Thein Sein yesterday morning before flying to Yangon, the commercial capital, Mei said.

Aung San Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year’s elections, which will be the first in two decades.

Campbell was scheduled to meet later in the afternoon with leaders of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party at their headquarters, followed by talks with other political parties.

For years, the US had isolated the junta with political and economic sanctions, which failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms.

The administration of US President Barack Obama decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.

Washington has said that it will maintain the sanctions until talks with Myanmar’s generals result in concrete change.

Campbell was the most senior US official to visit Myanmar since a September 1995 trip by then-UN ambassador Madeleine Albright.

Authorities allow animal abuse, rights activists say
　

‘WASTE’: The activists said the problem was not a lack of funding, but a lack of management and accountability, which meant that some stray animals were left to starve
　

By Vincent Y. Chao
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 2
　

Animal rights activists accused government authorities yesterday of allowing widespread animal abuse to occur when strays are rounded up.

The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) said that despite the passage of the Animal Protection Law (動物保護法) more than a decade ago, officials are turning a blind eye to cases of stray dogs and cats being denied water, food and proper care.

Nearly 900,000 stray animals have been picked up by local authorities over the past 10 years, EAST said. In the last year alone, 133,000 animals were collected and of this total 96,400 were put to death.

After visiting 326 facilities in a process that spanned three years, activists said that most stray animals were treated as waste and processed as such. They said that in many cases stray cats and dogs had not had anything to eat or drink in days. Many lay dying from a lack of care and fighting among the animals was common.

The group said a lack of management and accountability rather than funding was the main reason for such abuses.

They said that most abuse occurred at makeshift shelters where the pets were held before being sent off to larger permanent facilities.

“The authorities don’t adhere to the [Animal Protection Law] because they don’t care about this issue,” EAST officer Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said. “We are calling on the authorities to close down these makeshift shelters and implement stricter oversight on the other facilities.”

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) backed the activists’ call.

“These problems occur because these animals don’t have the right to vote,” Tien said. “The fact that we let these abuses [continue for so long] showcases our lack of compassion for life.”

Officials from the Council of Agriculture (COA) promised to launch a thorough investigation and to introduce accountability into the system. However, they said that the responsibility for stray pets falls within the jurisdiction of local governments.

“We will launch a full investigation if abuses under the Animal Protection Law are occurring,” chief of the COA’s Livestock Administration Section Lin Chung-yi (林宗毅) said.

Facing questions about the urgency of the issue, Lin promised to deliver results within “a few weeks.”

In response, EAST said that if this investigation was not concluded on schedule, it planned to launch a series of nationwide protests.

Activists call for release of Falun Gong practitioners
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 2

“If Ma dares not say a word in the face of China, his promise to promote the nation’s human rights will be nothing but a lie.” — Kenneth Chiu, former chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights

A number of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, human rights activists and family members of two Falun Gong practitioners yesterday urged China to release the pair ahead of the fourth round of cross-strait talks.

At a press conference at the legislature, DPP Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said the two practitioners — 63-year-old Li Yaohua (李燿華) and her daughter Zhang Yibo (張軼博) — were arrested by police at their residence in Shanghai without any warrant in the middle of the night on June 4 because they distributed 30 Falun Gong flyers to their neighbors’ mailboxes.

Tien said Li, a Hong Kong citizen whose father is a Taiwanese national, and Zhang, a Chinese national, had been detained for more than five months without bail even though Li had been suffering from a chronic illness.

Li’s son Zhang Yi-yuan (張軼淵) said government agencies in Taiwan, including the Ministry of Justice and the Mainland Affairs Council, had sent letters to their Chinese counterparts urging the Chinese authorities to allow family members to visit Li and Zhang Yibo, but to no avail.

DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said China should show its “sincerity” ahead of upcoming cross-strait negotiations by releasing Li and her daughter.

Taiwan should also seek help from international human rights organizations to rescue the pair, Pan said.

Pan said the DPP is also considering launching a legislative proposal to ban Chinese officials suspected of having persecuted Falun Gong practitioners from entering Taiwan.

Former chairman of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights Kenneth Chiu (邱晃泉), who also attended the conference, urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to take action to rescue Li and Zhang Yibo.

“If Ma dares not say a word in the face of China, his promise to promote the nation’s human rights will be nothing but a lie,” Chiu said.

Chiu also urged the government to pursue a cross-strait human rights cooperation framework agreement before signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.

“Only when both sides guarantee the protection of human rights can cross-strait economic cooperation be possible,” Chiu said.

PRC increasing media warfare: expert
　

PRESS FREEDOM: While China continues to use media as a tool for propaganda, the rising number of citizen reporters could serve as a catalyst for change, a forum said
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 3

Beijing's efforts to improve its media technology are part of its public opinion warfare against Taiwan, an expert attending a cross-strait forum said yesterday, while calling on citizen reporters to help push press freedom and democracy in China.

Wang Tan-ping (汪誕平), director of the state-owned Radio Taiwan International (RTI), said since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in May last year, media exchanges and cooperation between Taipei and Beijing have increased. However, the relationship between Taiwanese media and their Chinese counterpart is complicated.

“While there is cooperation, there is also competition. They have become more open, but there are still many restrictions,” he said. “There are some breakthroughs, but there are obstructions. There are exchanges, and yet there are still doubts.”

Wang made the remarks during a forum entitled “Cross-Strait Media Exchanges and Cooperation in the WEB2.0 Era.” The event was co-sponsored by Ming Chuan University at the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei yesterday morning.

Wang said while the size of China's newspapers and of its Web and mobile phone users are much bigger than Taiwan's, Taiwan leads in the size of its of satellite news gathering (SNG) network, with 82 SNG units in 2006.

Despite improvements in Chinese media technology, Wang said Beijing still considers the media a tool for propaganda and opinion warfare.

However, the increasing popularity of citizen reporters could serve as a catalyst for press freedom and democratic politics in China, Wang said.

Meanwhile, Wenny Wang (王文靜), CEO of Business Weekly, raised the question of what the future holds for media that are heavily dependent on subscription and retail sales when free content is easily accessible on the Web.

Taking the US magazine BusinessWeek as an example, Wenny Wang said the 80-year-old publication was sold to Bloomberg. Although the weekly has ventured into China, it is barely surviving because it is not familiar with the massive Chinese market.

“They have been there for a long time, but they have had a hard time biting into the big pie,” she said.

China Television chairman Lin Sheng-fen (林聖芬) said he hoped to see media outlets on both sides of the Strait gain more and freer access, adding that he would also like to see Taiwan and Beijing relax regulations to allow media outlets to establish branches on each side.

Given Beijing's tight grip on the media, Lin said Chinese have taken full advantage of the Web to integrate civic forces. He expected to see these private forces help each side better understand each other and eventually bring change to China.

Yang Jen-feng (楊仁烽), president of the Economic Daily News, said as China is becoming more open, the outside world is getting to know it better.

The media cooperation between Taipei and Beijing is multi-faceted, he said, including content, capital, technology and products.

Yang said both sides were bound to develop a closer relationship on various fronts, including media, after signing an economic cooperation framework agreement and financial memorandum of understanding.

Prosecutors confirm freezing of assets of former president
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 3

Prosecutors in charge of investigating former president Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) alleged corruption and money-laundering activities yesterday confirmed they had frozen the bank accounts, stock holdings and real estate holdings of several members of Chen's family.

Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), spokesperson for the Supreme Prosecutors' Office's Special Investigation Panel (SIP) which is in charge of investigating the cases, said that the SIP had sent official notices to banks, securities companies and government land offices on Oct. 23 requesting that they freeze those assets so that if members of the former first family were found guilty, the illegal profits could be returned.

The frozen assets include NT$8 million (US$250,000) in a savings account held by former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍); NT$18 million in a savings account held by Wu's brother Wu Ching-mao (吳景茂); NT$10.3 million in savings held by Chen Shui-bian’s son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中); stock holdings with an estimated market value of NT$24 million held by Chen Chih-chung; NT$10.8 million in savings held by Chen Chih-chung’s wife Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚); and about NT$100 million in diamonds and other jewelry.

Because there is no evidence that Chen Shui-bian's daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) was involved in the alleged money-laundering activities, her assets had not been frozen, Chen Yun-nan said.

The SIP has also left several bank accounts active, including one the holds Chen Shui-bian's salary as a former president, to provide the former first family with enough money to cover daily expenses, Chen Yun-nan said.

The amount of frozen assets in Taiwan totals about NT$500 million, while the amount of funds left active totals about NT$50 million, he said.

Can ECFA negotiations be trusted?

Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 8

The government’s atrocious handling of the expansion of US beef imports — opaque, peremptory and confused, regardless of the merits of the products — is becoming a real cause for concern in terms of the bigger picture: cross-strait detente, and particularly a proposed economic pact with China.

On Tuesday, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Secretary-General Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉) met with Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中), deputy chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, in Taipei and settled on four issues that SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) will discuss in their meeting in Taichung next month.

While the government’s proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing will not be on the agenda, SEF spokesman Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) said both sides would “exchange opinions” on the matter nonetheless.

One legacy of the US beef controversy is that many more people have little or no confidence in the government’s ability to negotiate with China without jeopardizing Taiwan’s interests.

Case in point No. 1: Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) had promised that only US bone-in beef would be allowed into the country. But it turned out the protocol with the US also allowed ground beef, intestines, brains and spinal cords.

Similarly, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has time and again promised that the government will not open the market to Chinese agricultural products or labor if an ECFA is signed. Given the inability of the government to coordinate and deliver a consistent message on something as concrete as a protocol with the US, promises along these lines do not convince.

In an attempt to ease anger at the relaxation of US beef imports, the government said it would implement strict safety checks to ensure that imports are not contaminated. This rather tricky — not to mention ad hoc — approach to administrative duties can only prompt doubts as to whether an ECFA would trigger a range of policy U-turns and last-minute, superficial customs-control measures — and all in the absence of adequate information for the public, let alone a public consensus.

Case in point No. 2: Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the signing of any cross-strait agreements, including an ECFA, would respect the need for public support and legislative oversight. But if the government can act in obvious defiance of a legislative resolution passed in 2006 that required the Department of Health to report in detail to the legislature before lifting bans on US beef, what is to be made of such commitments from the premier?

On Oct. 23, the department announced that Taiwan had signed an accord with the US agreeing to relax curbs on US bone-in beef and cow organs. Yet, as of yesterday, a majority of the public is being kept in the dark on the details of the protocol because the government has not issued a Chinese translation. Once again, this cavalier attitude toward ordinary people only raises suspicion as to how open and trustworthy any agreements between this China-friendly government and Beijing will be.

The government set a precedent of obliviousness by suddenly easing bans on US beef imports without due preparation and public consultation. This sorry episode is now signaling the need to place sustained pressure on the government to keep its ECFA dealings transparent. Otherwise, the next sudden announcement from the government might be a very destructive one, indeed.

The PRC’s malign currency policy
　

By Thomas I. Palley
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 8

Over the last several weeks, the US dollar’s depreciation against the euro and yen has grabbed global attention. In a normal world, the dollar’s weakening would be welcome, as it would help the US come to grips with its unsustainable trade deficit. But in a world where China links its currency to the dollar at an undervalued parity, the dollar’s depreciation risks major global economic damage that will further complicate recovery from the worldwide recession.

A realignment of the dollar is long overdue. Its overvaluation began with the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, and was officially enshrined by the “strong dollar” policy adopted after the East Asian financial crisis of 1997. That policy produced short-term consumption gains for the US, which explains why it was popular with US politicians, but it has inflicted major long-term damage on the US economy and contributed to the current crisis.

The overvalued dollar caused the US economy to hemorrhage spending on imports, jobs via off-shoring, and investment to countries with undervalued currencies. In today’s era of globalization, marked by flexible and mobile production networks, exchange rates affect more than exports and imports. They also affect the location of production and investment.

China has been a major beneficiary of the US’ strong-dollar policy, to which it wedded its own “weak renminbi” policy. As a result, China’s trade surplus with the US rose from US$83 billion in 2001 to US$258 billion in 2007, just before the recession. So far this year, China’s surplus has accounted for 75 percent of the total US non-oil-goods trade deficit. The undervalued yuan has also made China a major recipient of foreign direct investment, even leading the world in 2002 — a staggering achievement for a developing country.

The scale of recent US trade deficits was always unsustainable, and the dollar has therefore fallen against the yen, the euro, the Brazilian real and the Australian and Canadian dollars. But China retains its undervalued exchange rate policy, so that the yuan has appreciated relatively less against the dollar. When combined with China’s rapid growth in manufacturing capacity, this pattern promises to create a new round of global imbalances.

China’s policy creates adversarial currency competition with the rest of the world. By maintaining an undervalued currency, China is preventing the US from reducing its bilateral trade deficit. Furthermore, the problem is not limited to the US. China’s currency policy gives it a competitive advantage relative to other countries, allowing it to displace their exports to the US.

Worse still, other countries whose currencies have appreciated against the yuan can look forward to a Chinese import invasion. China’s currency policy means that dollar depreciation, rather than improving the US trade balance and stanching its leakage of jobs and investment, may inadvertently spread these problems to the rest of the world. In effect, China is fostering new imbalances at a time when countries are struggling with the demand shortfall caused by the financial crisis.

The dollar is part of an exchange-rate Rubik’s cube. With China retaining its undervalued currency policy, dollar depreciation can aggravate global deflationary forces. Yet a mix of political factors has led to a stunning refusal by policymakers to confront China.

On the US side, a lingering Cold War mentality, combined with the presumption of US economic superiority, has meant that economic issues are still deemed subservient to geopolitical concerns. That explains the neglect of US-China economic relations, a neglect that is now dangerous to the US, given its weakened economic condition.

With regard to the rest of the world, many find it easy to blame the US, often owing to resentment at its perceived arrogance. Moreover, there is an old mentality among Southern countries that they can do no wrong in their relationships with the North, and that they should exhibit solidarity with each other regarding those relationships.

Finally, all countries have likely been shortsighted, imagining that silence will gain them commercial favors from China. But that silence merely allows China to exploit the community of nations.

The world economy has paid dearly for complicity with and silence about the economic policies of the last 15 years, which have culminated in the deepest and most dangerous recession since the 1930s. It will pay still more if policymakers remain passive about China’s destructive currency policy.

Thomas I. Palley is a fellow of the New America Foundation.

Ma’s covenant of political silence
　

By David S. Min 敏洪奎
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 8

‘Do [Ma Ying-jeou’s] party comrades have such faith in his infallibility that they are willing to follow him without question?’

It was reported a few days ago that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), declared that “covenants” would be drawn up for the party’s legislators-at-large to keep their political statements in line with party policy.

In real democracies like the UK and the US, such a weird idea as a “political covenant” would probably only appear in the writings of satirical columnists. It is not uncommon for members of the US Congress to speak or vote against the positions of the president, even if they belong to the same party — and no president would ever think of trying to control them with a “covenant.”

For seven years before he became British prime minister, Winston Churchill repeatedly criticized the leaders of his own Conservative Party in parliament for underestimating the growing threat posed by Nazi Germany, and he went so far as to aim his criticism at the policies of then Conservative Party leader and prime minister Neville Chamberlain.

At the time, dominant figures in the party merely distanced themselves from Churchill. Nobody thought of using a “covenant” to shut him up. The imposition of iron discipline by central party leaders is something that happens only in totalitarian countries.

Most people’s impression of the KMT is that it is an authoritarian party whose members allow their opinions to be molded by their leader and dare not express other opinions, but this has not always been the case. In the 1920s, KMT founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙), finding himself in a weak position, wanted to build ties with the Soviet Union.

Senior members of the KMT were outspoken in their criticism, warning earnestly that this policy was not in the best interests of the party or the nation. They spoke out even at the risk of annoying Sun.

Later, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who indirectly succeeded Sun as head of the KMT and supreme leader of China, was assailed repeatedly by KMT heavyweights for allowing members of the powerful Kung (孔) and Soong (宋) families to sully the party and corrupt the state.

Teng Wen-yi (鄧文儀), a high-ranking military and civilian official who graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy (黃埔軍校) headed by Chiang, went so far as to suggest sending the heads of these families, H.H. Kung (孔祥熙) and T.V. Soong (宋子文), into exile.

Even after the KMT government was defeated by the Communists and withdrew to Taiwan, where Chiang and his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) had firm control of the state apparatus, dissenting voices could still be heard in the KMT. While the most well-known dissenter was presidential adviser and newspaper publisher Lei Chen (雷震), there were others who were expelled from the KMT for their outspoken views, such as legislator Chi Shih-ying (齊世英) and Control Yuan member Tsao Teh-hsuan (曹德宣). Clearly, the older generations of KMT members were not all sycophants and yes men.

This tradition of outspoken criticism within the KMT has gone out the window now that Ma is in charge. Although murmurs are sometimes heard in the party, they are only concerned with minor issues or personal interests. When it comes to important matters, nobody speaks out in opposition to Ma. This is a worrying trend.

Ma’s theme of putting relations across the Taiwan Strait above all else is an extremely important political tactic with far-reaching consequences, but no one in the KMT has questioned it. Even KMT founder Sun encountered obstruction from within his party when he advocated the alliance with the Soviet Union and tolerance of the Communist Party.

Is Ma’s prestige greater than Sun’s? Do his party comrades have such faith in his infallibility that they are willing to follow him without question?

Ma’s proposal to abolish conscription and work toward a fully professional military is also highly problematic. It would be hard to find an example of other countries that have scrapped conscription while facing threats from a hostile neighbor. The change presents many uncertainties, such as whether the state coffers can cover the cost of the new structure and whether enough recruits can be found for those units that face the greatest dangers.

The move from conscription to recruitment would be irreversible. What will we do if the change turns out to be a mistake? Can Taiwan’s leaders evade responsibility by bowing for 10 seconds like Ma and his Cabinet did after their poor performance in disaster relief following Typhoon Morakot?

It seems that the decision to scrap conscription was made hastily by Ma and a few people in his coterie, rather than through a process of broad consultation and listening to a full range of opinions.

It is quite shocking that nobody in the KMT has questioned this policy.

Ma’s proposal to institute “political covenants” is not a sign of a democratic mindset. The almost complete lack of dissenting voices in the KMT suggests that the party no longer has straightforward and outstanding statesmen who are concerned about the great issues of the day.

These developments are bad news not just for the KMT, but for everyone in Taiwan.

David S. Min is a political commentator and author of Heartfelt Wishes of a Citizen.

Why be a mere spoke of a future China hub?
　

By Peter C.Y. Chow 周鉅原
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 8

The proliferation of regional trading arrangements in East Asia offers challenges and opportunities for several countries in the region, including Taiwan.

Because of different levels of development, asymmetrical GDP size and divergent economic structures in East Asia, the emergence of trading blocs — be they ASEAN plus China or ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea — would generate a domino effect in favor of the largest countries.

As Nobel laureate Paul Krugman predicted, a free-trade area between large and small economies results in all factors of production, except land, transferring to the larger country, and thus the “hub and spoke” scenario.

Richard Baldwin has argued that a bicycle model of East Asian integration “with two natural hubs and many overlapping spokes” will emerge in the region. Essentially, there would be a Japan-centric versus China-centric hub, surrounded by many spokes across the region.

One can locate the divergence between the hubs: The Japan-centric hub would be driven by market forces through trade, investment and technology flow, whereas the China-centric hub would be largely motivated by foreign policy. Also, the Japan-centric hub is dominated by the nation’s industrial democracy — a leader of East Asian industrialization and well endowed with “oceanic civilization.”

On the other hand, China has been and still is an authoritarian regime, and is traditionally tied with “continental civilization.” The China-centric hub is, in addition to its political leverage over Hong Kong and Macau, manipulated by Beijing’s “good neighborhood” policy relating to Southeast Asian countries, as well as its overtures toward Taiwan.

From a global perspective, the China-centric hub would be technologically inferior to the Japan-centric hub. Unlike Japanese investments overseas, China’s outward foreign direct investment aims to exploit natural resources and obtain strategic supplies with little or no possibility of technology transfer to host countries. Moreover, China remains an emerging market economy at an earlier stage of development and industrialization relative to Japan.

What are the options for Taiwan? Since the Dutch arrived in the 17th century, Taiwan has belonged to an oceanic civilization. In its postwar development, Taiwan has been following the Japanese trajectory since its economy took off in the 1960s. By the measures of economic development and degree of industrialization, Taiwan is more similar to Japan than to China.

Therefore, if Taiwan signs an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China without also signing individual free-trade agreements with the US, Japan and other ASEAN countries, then it will become one of the many spokes (or peripheries) of the China-centric hub. By integrating itself with a Greater China Economic Zone, Taiwan would become vulnerable to a clash between the oceanic and continental cavitations, as Samuel Huntington’s thesis dictates.

As long as unification is Beijing’s goal, economics cannot be separated from politics. Once Taiwan signs an ECFA with China, it will become part of Greater China economically — and eventually join China’s orbit politically.

Those who proclaim that trade pacts do not affect sovereignty are either naive or putting their heads in the sand. While Hong Kong has had no choice but to sign its trade pact with China, Taiwan still has autonomy — and vital alternatives in the process of globalization.

Taiwan must adopt a cosmopolitan perspective for the sake of its future. Globalization is not the same as Sinicization.

Peter C.Y. Chow is professor of economics at the City University of New York and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Chinese trials reveal vast web of corruption
　

A recent crackdown and court cases in Chonqing have uncovered a murky underworld populated by crime bosses, lowly thugs, wealthy businessmen and Communist Party officials who through the country’s mix of state control and free-market economics exercise pernicious powers

By Andrew Jacobs
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , CHONGQING, CHINA
Thursday, Nov 05, 2009, Page 14

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Wen Qiang (文強) had a fondness for Louis Vuitton belts, fossilized dinosaur eggs and B-list pop stars. For a public employee in charge of the local judiciary, he also had a lot of money: nearly US$3 million that investigators found buried beneath a fish pond.

But Wen’s lavish tastes were nothing compared with the carnal appetites of his sister-in-law, Xie Caiping (謝才萍), known as “the godmother of the Chongqing underworld.” Prosecutors say she ran 30 illegal casinos, including one across the street from the courthouse. She also employed 16 young men who, according to the state-run press, were exceedingly handsome and obliging.

In recent weeks, Xie, Wen and a cavalcade of ranking officials and lowbrow thugs have been players in a mass public trial that has exposed the unseemly relationship between gangsters, police officers and the sticky-fingered bureaucrats.

The spectacle involves more than 9,000 suspects, 50 public officials, a petulant billionaire and criminal organizations that dabbled in drug trafficking, illegal mining, and random acts of savagery, most notably the killing of a man for his unbearably loud karaoke voice.

But like all big corruption cases in China, this one is as much about politics as graft. The political machine in Chongqing, a province-size megacity of 31 million people in the southwest, has been broken up by a new Communist Party boss, Bo Xilai (薄熙來), who is the son of a revolutionary party veteran and has his eye on higher office.

Bo, a former trade minister sent to Chongqing to burnish his managerial credentials, has conducted the crackdown in a way that appears devised to maximize national attention. The drawn-out nature of the trial and the release of lurid details of the criminal syndicate have given Bo a new reputation as a leading corruption fighter, though the inquiry has yet to implicate any really high-ranking party officials.

So far six people have been sentenced to death. Xie got off relatively lightly, receiving an 18-year prison term on Tuesday.

How Bo’s performance is regarded by the party elite is a matter of speculation. There are some suggestions that his swagger, including boastful comments to the news media,

strikes some fellow officials as excessive.

Anti-corruption campaigns by China’s one-party state are generally calibrated to show resolution in tackling venality, but also to reassure the public that whatever problems are uncovered are localized and effectively contained.

“These guys are all for fighting corruption, but they are a little alarmed by the way Bo Xilai has been going about it and building up his personality,” said Sidney Rittenberg, one of the few American citizens to join the Communist Party here and a confidant of Chinese leaders since 1944. “People I talk to say he’s getting too big for his britches.”

A so-called princeling whose father, Bo Yibo (薄一波), was an economic planner and a onetime ally of the paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), Bo, 60, is already a member of the Communist Party’s powerful Politburo. He is often talked about as a future top leader in Beijing, although in the party’s rigid hierarchy the No. 1 posts in the party and the government have already been assigned to other younger officials.

Recent statements by Bo suggest he understands the perils of drawing too much attention. Two weeks ago, he defended the crackdown, saying he was forced to act by the rampant violence and brazen criminality that had given this perpetually foggy city a reputation for lawlessness.

“The public gathered outside government offices and held up pictures of bloodshed,” he said. “The gangsters slashed people with knives just like butchers killing animals.”

In the three weeks since trials began, the crowds have continued to come, and their stories of bloodshed are indeed horrifying. They press outside the gates of the 5th Intermediate Court, hoping to glimpse the orange-vested defendants who are paraded through the hearings.

Others desperately seek out reporters willing to hear tales of crimes unpunished. “The bandits used to live in the mountains; now they live in the Public Security Bureau,” said Zheng Yi, a vegetable wholesaler.

Unlike past sweeps that brought down crime bosses and their henchmen, the crackdown in Chongqing has yielded a number of wealthy businessmen and Communist Party officials, exposing the depth of corruption that has resulted from the mixing of state control and free-market economics in China.

Ko-lin Chin, who studies the intermingling of organized crime and government in China, said the line between legitimate business and illegal conduct had become increasingly blurred, although most official corruption involved bribery, not violence.

“As these gangs have become more powerful, their existence depends entirely on the cooperation and tolerance of the Communist Party,” said Chin, a professor of criminal justice at Rutgers. “But when things get out of hand, as they did in Chongqing, the party can really go after these groups with a vengeance.”

Among those on trial this week is Li Qiang (黎強), a local legislator and billionaire who the authorities say owned a fleet of 1,000 cabs and 100 bus routes. So great was his power, they say, that he orchestrated a taxi strike last year that brought the city to a standstill. On trial with him are three government officials suspected of acting as his “protection umbrellas” in exchange for payments of about US$100,000 each.

While Li stood in the dock, more than 200 people gathered outside in the rain, including women who said they were roughed up in October last year when they refused to vacate their homes for a redevelopment project. One of them, Wu Pinghui, 67, said 40 people were herded into a government-owned bus and dumped in the countryside. By the time they made it back, their homes were gone.

“We called 110,” she said, referring to the Chinese emergency number, “but the police said they couldn’t get involved in a government affair.”

Hong Guibi also came to the courthouse. She said the Communist Party chief of her village, enraged when she and her husband refused to give him part of their orchard, watched as thugs attacked the couple with cleavers. Hong, 47, was critically wounded, and her husband was killed. “The neighbors heard our screams, but they were afraid to do anything,” she said.

Although heartened that so many are being prosecuted, Hong is still waiting for someone to prosecute the village chief. “If I could just kneel down in front of Bo Xilai,” she said, “I’m sure he would solve my problem.”

American Taiwanese couple tie the knot in Taiwan temple

Thursday, Nov 05, 2009,Page 15

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A few days ago, Andy Lu, who was born in Taiwan but migrated to the US, came back to Taiwan with his Hong Kong-born girlfriend Carmen Ng to tie the knot at the West Kuan Yu Temple in Yilan City. Lu’s father Lu Chin-tsung says “Catholics and Protestants can get married in churches, so we can get married in temples.” Andy says he was blown over by the arrangements his family made. A spokesperson for the West Kuan Yu Temple says the temple was consecrated 170 years ago, but this is the first time the deity Lord Kuan has been witness to a wedding there. It is a very joyous occasion, he adds.

30-year old Lu, who went to study in the US after finishing elementary school, now works for the international courier firm UPS. His 31-year-old bride Carmen Ng moved to the US with her family when she was little, and now works as a lawyer. The two have known each other for 18 years.

In order to prepare for the wedding, the groom’s father went to the temple early in the morning to do a practice run. He arranged for six pairs of men and women to present the couple with flowers and wish them good fortune. The participants went through the moves in a dress rehearsal, and details of the ceremony were worked out with Lu Chin-tsung as director. He was even busier and more conscientious than the couple themselves. The father of the groom said “Our old home was next to the West Kuan Yu Temple, and Lord Kuan is venerated as a deity by our whole family.” Lu hopes his son will cherish his marriage in the loyal and solemn spirit exemplified by Lord Kuan, never leaving or abandoning his family.

Using an unexpected turn of phrase, Lu Chin-tsung says he hopes his son and daughter-in-law will “make love” forever. People standing nearby are somewhat taken aback by this expression, but he goes on to explain that he means they should always love their parents, family members and other relatives. The wedding ceremony follows ancient traditions with offerings of incense, prayers for happiness and gifts of flowers. Under the watchful gaze of Lord Kuan, those present wish that the couple will live in conjugal bliss to a ripe old age, that they will soon be blessed with children, and that they will do well in their professions in America and enjoy good health.

Andy Lu says he is overjoyed by the arrangements his family has made. Everyone is happy and it was very lively. It was a great feeling, he says. When asked whether maybe it was too traditional and unromantic, he says, “It’s not unromantic. The main thing is to be together with our families.” Carmen, for her part, says “I am very happy and it has been great fun.” (LIBERTY TIMES, TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG)