KMT apologizes over Ma poll remark
　

EMBARGO: The KMT said that although Ma Ying-jeou did discuss an opinion poll during a period when this is prohibited by law, he was not speaking in public

By Mo Yan-chih and Jenny W. hsu
STAFF REPORTERS
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 1
　

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday apologized on behalf of its chairman, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), after he discussed a public opinion poll on the Yilan County commissioner election, but insisted that Ma did not do this to influence the election.

Article 53 of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法) prohibits individuals and political parties from reporting on, publishing, ­commenting on or quoting the results of opinion polls in the 10 days leading up to an election.

Speaking at the KMT’s Central Standing Committee meeting in Yilan County on Wednesday, Ma quoted a media poll about the outlook for the Yilan County commissioner election. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) later lodged a protest, saying Ma had broken the law.

“Chairman Ma was deeply disturbed [by the matter] and felt it necessary to apologize to the public,” KMT Secretary-General Chan Chun-po (詹春柏) told a press conference yesterday at KMT headquarters.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Ma cited the opinion poll, saying the situation in Yilan was tight and that party members should step up their efforts to campaign for the KMT’s candidate, Lu Kuo-hua (呂國華).

Chan said Ma had been unaware that it was less than 10 days until the election when he addressed the committee on Wednesday.

Nevertheless, Chan said, Ma did not break the law, as he made the comments during a KMT meeting, not at a public event.

Chan said it was up to the Central Election Commission (CEC) to decide whether Ma broke the law.

Ma and the party will respect the commission’s decision, Chan said.

When asked how the CEC would handle the case, commission ­Secretary-General Teng Tien-yu (鄧天祐) said the CEC had authorized the Yilan Central Election Commission to investigate the incident.

Yilan Central Election Commission Acting Chairman Chen Yuan-fa (陳源發) told reporters that the commission would send a written request to Ma to present his side of the story.

“We will look at what he has to say before making a decision on whether or how he should be penalized,” Chen said. “But we’re not likely to conclude the probe before the election [next Saturday].”

Several DPP county councilors yesterday staged a demonstration outside the county commission, asking it to launch an investigation immediately.

Meanwhile, the DPP said Ma was setting the worst possible example by violating the Election and Recall Act.

“The president has been quite nonchalant on many issues, including the post-Typhoon Morakot ­reconstruction effort and the US beef issue. Elections are a very serious matter and we ask the president to be more circumspect and stop setting a bad example,” DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said.

She urged the CEC to penalize Ma in accordance with the law to prevent any “future complications.”

DPP Spokesman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) made the same plea to the CEC, saying a DPP campaign staffer was fined NT$500,000 for accidentally mentioning a public opinion poll within the 10-day embargo period in last year’s legislative election.

The DPP’s Yilan County candidate, Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢), urged the county election commission to remain impartial.

“It’s common knowledge that no numbers on candidates’ support rates can be released in the 10 days before the election,” Lin told a press conference. “Ma is a legal expert, he should know this very well.”

At a press conference yesterday, the DPP accused Lu of dirty tricks, saying his campaign headquarters had distributed leaflets depicting Lin as a “womanizer.”

Lin’s wife, who was at the press conference, sobbed as she accused the KMT of handing out leaflets insinuating that her husband was a womanizer because he had been married before.

Lu’s campaign team hit back immediately, denying the accusation and saying the leaflets were leftovers from an election eight years ago, when another candidate ran against Lin.

Lu’s team said Lin should apologize for making false allegations.

The KMT meanwhile continued attacks on former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), saying Tsai should stop Hsieh from creating conflict during the election campaign period.

Heated clashes erupted between KMT and DPP supporters on Tuesday night in Hsinchu when the police blocked off streets as Ma accompanied the KMT’s Hsinchu County commissioner candidate, Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳), on a visit to a night market in Jhubei City (竹北), obstructing a DPP campaign group led by former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).

The KMT blamed the clashes on Hsieh and accused him of provoking the conflict.

KMT Spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said Hsieh was well aware of Ma’s campaigning schedule and tried to create conflict by getting close to his campaign team.

Lee said Hsieh had used the same approach during the presidential election campaign.

After provoking the KMT campaign team into scuffles, Hsieh and his supporters would videotape the clashes and later blame the clashes on the KMT and the police, Lee said.

State-run magazine admits existence of China’s ‘black jails’
　

EXPOSE: Although Beijing has repeatedly denied the existence of the secret jails, a report by a magazine for the party elite could reflect a change in official policy

AP, BEIJING
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 1

It read like a muckraking expose: A magazine revealed a system of secret detention centers in Beijing where Chinese citizens are forcibly held and sometimes beaten to prevent them from lodging formal complaints with the central government.

But the report appeared in the state-run magazine Liaowang (Outlook Weekly), which is written for the government elite and published by China’s official Xinhua news agency.

For some activist groups, the two state-sanctioned articles published on Tuesday signal a possible willingness by the Communist leadership to openly acknowledge a problem it has long denied.

“They have categorically denied there are even black jails. This is the first time an official, high-level magazine acknowledges that they exist. This is fairly significant,” said Wang Songlian (王松漣), research coordinator with the China-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

Detailed reports about these illegal lockups, known as “black jails,” are not new. They have been widely documented by human rights groups, academics and international media.

The victims are mostly petitioners: ordinary Chinese who travel to Beijing and other provincial capitals seeking a resolution to grievances — including corruption, land grabs and abuse — that local officials have ignored. They are grabbed off the street, often by those very local government officials or their agents and held captive in run-down hotels, nursing homes and even psychiatric hospitals until they can be sent home. Often, police either ignore or actively cooperate with the “retrievers.”

But the Chinese government has repeatedly insisted that the unofficial jails don’t exist. Two weeks ago, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) flatly rejected a Human Rights Watch report on the detention centers.

On Wednesday, the Foreign Ministry and Public Security Ministry declined to comment on the articles and referred questions to the State Bureau for Letters and Visits, where a staffer hung up the phone.

The two articles, prominently displayed on the home page of Xinhua’s Web site, come just a week after US President Barack Obama’s visit — when he raised human rights concerns — and two weeks after the Human Rights Watch report.

In China, where media organizations are very tightly controlled and content often censored or restricted, a lengthy piece on a taboo topic is unlikely to have been an accident, longtime China watchers said.

“Coverage in Outlook can be viewed as a direct reflection of decision-making within the central party, and it would certainly be carefully considered,” said David Bandurski, an expert on Chinese media at the University of Hong Kong. “So it is fair to say that party elites are trying to send a message through this coverage of the issue of black jails.”

But he said it remained unclear what that message is and what the government ultimately intends to do.

“We can’t say yet how prepared the government is to more widely acknowledge the existence of this problem,” he said in an e-mailed response.

While the government has never acknowledged the black jails, Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) did say in March that the petitioning system needed to be improved amid fears that unrest from the economic downturn could put more pressure on the system and result in mass protests.

Calling the extensive network of secret jails a “chain of gray industry,” the Liaowang reports say their existence “damages the legitimate rights of petitioners and seriously damages the government’s image.”

They paint a detailed picture of how a whole lucrative industry has sprung up to provide food and accommodation, transportation and repatriation for the petitioners. Local officials pay black jail operators 100 yuan (US$15) to 200 yuan per day for each petitioner held captive, the report said.

One security company manager surnamed Zhang was quoted in the report as saying that his company had been hired by seven or eight different provincial or city governments to provide such services.

The report said there is heavy pressure for local officials to have “zero petitions” from their area, since their performance is linked to the number of grievances filed — a sign of instability — from their locality.

A few Chinese media outlets have written on the issue, most notably the investigative weekly Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend). But Liaowang, which bills itself as a magazine offering analysis of political and social issues for the country’s elite, is not known for its aggressive reporting.

Ultimately, if the articles mark the beginning of more public disclosure about black jails, that could prod the government into action, said Phelim Kine, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, which recently released a 53-page report on the illegal detention centers.

“It’s our hope that the more media elements push the envelope and get greater exposure, the more untenable it will become for the government, and they will take some action against these facilities,” he said.

Trains collide at Neihu MRT depot
　

By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 2
　

Two MRT trains collided yesterday inside the Wenshan-Neihu Line’s Neihu Depot, sparking renewed complaints from Taipei City councilors about the line’s system malfunctions and operational errors.

The collision occurred at 8:33am as train No. 107 was entering the depot for maintenance. Train No. 101 was on the rail waiting for maintenance and was hit from behind.

The waiting train’s windshields and malfunction-detection poles were broken, but no one was hurt, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said.

Tan Gwa-guang (譚國光), the press contact for the MRT Wenhu Line, said the TRTC and Bombardier Inc, which built part of the system, were looking into the cause of the accident.

Members of the Taipei City Council’s MRT Wenhu Line investigation team, including Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors Chou Po-ya (周柏雅), Liu Yao-ren (劉耀仁), Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Councilor Chin Li-fang (秦儷舫), inspected the depot after the accident, and criticized the TRTC.

“It is unbelievable that two trains that were supposed to be on separate rails could collide and cause such a serious accident,” Chou said.

Liu said whether the accident was the result of a malfunction or human error, the accident was not acceptable as the Wenhu line has already been operating for five months.

Tan said one employee was on train No. 101 at the time of the accident, while train No. 107 was in auto mode.

The TRTC suspected that the collision occurred because the spots designated to park the trains were too close, Tan said, but “we are still checking the cause.”

Chen questions Ma reappointment of former NSB chief
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 3

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday asked whether President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) reappointment of former National Security Bureau (NSB) director-general Tsai Chao-ming (蔡朝明) was “a reward for what he did” during the 2004 assassination attempt on his life and that of his running mate Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), known as the “319 Incident.”

In a statement, Chen said Tsai as head of the NSB was responsible for presidential security when the “319 Incident” occurred and was impeached by the Control Yuan for “major negligence.”

However, after Ma took office in May last year, he re-appointed him as NSB head.

“Does it mean President Ma used the appointment as a reward for what director Tsai did in the 319 shooting incident?” Chen asked.

Tsai resigned in April amid an alleged power struggle within the bureau.

Chen asked Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰), State Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) and the Special Investigation Panel to answer his question and many others.

“I, as the victim of an assassination attempt, want to know the truth of the matter more than anyone else,” he said.

Chen made the remarks following a report — made public by the Control Yuan on Nov. 11 — that found several flaws in the investigation into the shooting.

The Tainan Public Prosecutor’s Office closed the case in 2005, saying the shooting was the work of lone gunman Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄), who was found dead 10 days after the incident.

The former president reiterated in yesterday’s statement that he had not staged the shooting, nor did he rig the election.

Chen said it was “regrettable” and “unfathomable” that Control Yuan members did not talk to him about the incident during their investigation.

“Was it deliberate so they could concoct a phony issue and insinuate that I staged the shooting incident?” he said.

Cabinet approves funding for major works projects
　

By Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 3

The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal for the implementation of the “i-Taiwan 12 projects,” a major plank in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) electoral campaign platform, which called for an investment of NT$3.99 trillion (US$123.8 billion) between this year and 2016.

Ma presented the project — designed to upgrade the country’s infrastructure — in November 2007 when running for last year’s presidential election.

The projects began to receive partial funding, or NT$170 billion, in this year’s government budget drawn up by former premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) Cabinet.

The budget for the rest of the projects will now be included in the government budget and will require legislative approval.

Asked why the subject was again put on the agenda of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) dismissed allegations that it was a ploy to boost the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) image ahead of next weekend’s local government elections.

“Elections have never been a factor when the government sets its policy agenda,” Su said.

Included in the projects are plans for a fast and convenient nationwide transportation network, the regeneration of the port of Kaohsiung, a central Taiwan high-tech industrial cluster, a Taoyuan international airport “air city,” industrial innovation corridors, urban and industrial park regeneration, farming village regeneration, coastal regeneration, reforestation efforts, flood prevention and water management plans, and sewer construction.

Su said that the government hoped to attract NT$1.2 trillion in investment from the private sector, while it would contribute a total of NT$2.79 trillion.

It has been estimated that the implementation of the plan will help boost Taiwan’s GDP by 2.95 percent and create 247,000 jobs.

Taiwan Thinktank urges FTAs before China ECFA
　

PROCEED WITH CAUTION: One economics professor urged a referendum, televised debates and the soliciting of opinions from unions before the signing of an ECFA
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 3

The Taiwan Thinktank yesterday urged the government to postpone the implementation of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) it wants to sign with Beijing until Taiwan signs free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US or Japan and they go into effect.

Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志) said Taiwan would be better off if the ECFA were not signed, but if it is signed, it would be better to wait until after Taipei inks FTAs with Washington or Tokyo and they become effective.

Chen said it was difficult to say whether Taiwan would benefit more if it inked FTAs with as many countries as possible, but the ECFA would deal a significant blow to businesses if it were signed.

“Globalization and liberalization do not necessarily benefit Taiwan,” he said. “We must be cautious when we negotiate FTAs with Japan, the US and other countries, but we will be doomed if we sign an ECFA with China.”

Taipei and Beijing have agreed to “exchange opinions” on the proposed pact during high-level talks in Taichung next month. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) hopes to sign the ECFA next year.

Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at the National Central University, urged the Ma administration to resume negotiations on FTAs, especially with Singapore, and a trade and investment framework agreement with the US, as soon as possible.

Even if Singapore eventually signs an FTA with Taiwan, Chiou said, Taiwan should not be too happy because it might be a Chinese scheme to help the Ma administration win support from voters.

He urged that a referendum be held before the ECFA is signed, at least 10 televised debates be held and opinions solicited from national and regional unions.

To help businesses excluded from the planned “early harvest” article of the ECFA, Chiou proposed the government set up a fund in excess of NT$30 billion (US$9 billion) to compensate them for losses.

He also suggested the government levy high taxes on businesses benefiting from the “early harvest” program and use the revenues to compensate industries hit hard by the pact.

Send irrelevant lawmakers home
　

By Ku Chung-Hwa 顧忠華
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 8

Recent media reporting on the legislature has been focused on revelations about Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng’s (吳育昇) extramarital affair, alongside key policy issues such as the importation of US bone-in beef and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with China on cross-strait financial supervision. As a member of a civic group devoted to monitoring the legislature’s performance, I feel that these stories have a common thread — they show that the legislature is becoming more and more devoid of substance.

Even when they are not caught up with love affairs and other shenanigans, our lawmakers have become completely marginalized on important policy issues. The Cabinet feels free to push policies through without even a rubber stamp endorsement from the legislature.

It must be said that lawmakers have brought themselves into disrepute. As if their image were not poor enough, they keep getting involved in scandals, and public confidence in the legislature keeps plunging. The star of the latest scandal is a sharp-tongued lawmaker who has often demanded high moral standards of others, so it came as a surprise to find out that his private life is full of material and physical desires. He likes to take attractive women out to dinner, and when he rents a car it has to be an expensive one. This is in stark contrast to the facade of an incorruptible family man that he put on to win votes.

This political culture, in which the appearance and the reality are so very different, is a smokescreen for all kinds of behind-the-scenes collusion and exchanges of favors between politicians and business interests. Muckraking media have revealed that shady relations over the dinner table are the stock-in-trade of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers. If the media dig any deeper, the whole lot of them may come tumbling down.

The most exasperating thing is that legislators get paid the same high salary whatever they do, and it turns out that their biggest concern is to look after their private relationships and pad their wallets. Who, then, is going to properly oversee the government’s budget and policies? The first big problem facing the legislature is that its members have no self-respect, so few among the public have confidence in them.

The second problem is even bigger. Since the KMT gained control of the executive as well as the legislature, the latter’s right to take part in policymaking has rapidly whittled away. Starting from the agreements reached at the first meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), which took effect automatically, Cabinet agencies, especially those concerned with national security, have come to see the legislature at most as a token body that only needs to be politely informed of government decisions.

Just the other day, the Financial Supervisory Commission went through the motions of telling legislators about the cross-strait MOU in the morning, and the agreement was a done deal that very afternoon — a classic example of the way policies get pushed through these days.

Similarly, negotiations with the US over importing bone-in beef were handled by the National Security Council, which arrogantly asserts that the protocol it signed takes precedence over domestic law. Apparently, the principle that the legislature should serve as a check and balance on the executive does not apply to Taiwan’s “elected monarchy.”

Legislators are the elected representatives of public opinion, but they have no power to block any policy the elected emperor wants to put into force. They are left with only a walk-on role, and therein lies Taiwan’s constitutional crisis.

Maybe it’s because our lawmakers have nothing much to do these days that they have so much time for pulling stunts and getting involved in scandals. Since they aren’t doing their job of speaking up for the public and the legislature has been stripped of its checks-and-balance role, perhaps it is time that legislators’ salaries were halved and a referendum held on whether the legislature should be scrapped altogether. What do you think?

Ku Chung-hwa is chairman of Citizens’ Congress Watch.
　

The beef is really with Ma, not Washington
　

By Jerome Keating
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, Page 8

‘What Taiwanese are upset about is the slipshod manner of negotiations and apparent deal-making that the Ma government is trying to present as a fait accompli.’

On Nov. 14, thousands of Taiwanese took to the streets of Taipei to express their growing concern at the present administration's continued mismanagement of the nation’s international affairs. In line with this, the legislature has been deadlocked on an amendment to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生法). At issue, of course, was the recent agreement by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government to ease restrictions on US beef imports.

Don’t misunderstand this. It is not that Taiwanese do not like US prime rib, T-bones or filet mignon; they love them. What Taiwanese are upset about is the slipshod manner of negotiations and apparent deal-making that the Ma government is trying to present as a fait accompli.

What was the agreement and what was the presumed deal? Back on Nov. 2, the agreement was this: Ma’s government, with little advance warning, lifted its ban on US bone-in beef and other beef products, including offal and ground beef. These items present a clear and present danger for the people of Taiwan and yet that’s where the Ma government has been cavalier in its attitude toward public safety.

Ma blatantly has tried to dodge the issue by in effect professing, “I am letting in poisoned products, but don’t be alarmed I am not forcing you to buy and eat them.” Then why let them in to begin with?

Here then is the second part. What is the presumed deal? Why, with so little discussion or consultation of the legislature and the public, was this made and announced as a done deal? What was to be gained by letting in such potential dangers? Where is the pay-off that Ma wanted and needed?

Ma has asked legislators not to reject this deal or amend the law because it would risk the nation’s credibility. The issue, however, is not the nation’s credibility, but the credibility of the Ma government in making ill-advised deals with little thought for public health.

In effect, Ma is asking the people to save his face by saying, “My people goofed up and were caught. But please don’t embarrass us in front of the world and the US by asking us to go back to the bargaining table. We will look bad.”

Look bad? Of course they will. Ma’s people looking bad has been the story of this government since it took office. Incompetence and an autocratic attitude of trying to squelch any questioning of its performance has been the order of the day.

The issues, problems and opposition are bigger than US beef. Further dangers loom. The Ma’s government has already signed a financial memorandum of understanding with China, again with little serious discussion. Now, worse still, a blind, non-transparent, economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China is coming up, a deal that could damage Taiwan’s industries and agricultural sector and weaken the nation’s sovereignty.

Who will be making the profit on these deals as well? The people of Taiwan have good reason to be worried.

Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.