Officials dismiss vaccine side effects
　

By Jimmy Chuang
STAFF REPORTER, WITH STAFF WRITER
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009, Page 1

The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has denied a link between swine flu vaccinations and reports of children feeling unwell after receiving the shot.

The denial came after several reports from around the nation said many children began to feel unwell after receiving a locally produced vaccine against influenza A(H1N1).

On Thursday, Taichung City’s health bureau said 36 students from the city’s Zhongshan Junior High School felt dizzy, fainted and vomited after receiving the shots.

However, the students were fine after they were sent to ­hospitals for treatment, the bureau said.

Similar incidents were reported at Kuang-rong Junior High school in Sanchong (三重), Taipei County, on Thursday, where 24 students were hospitalized after they felt dizzy following vaccinations.

The students were fine after they were sent to a hospital for observation.

Saying that doctors have noted that signs of vaccination dizziness could be easily triggered by psychological stress, Taichung City Education Bureau Director Chang Kung-ming (張光銘) suggested that teachers give students pep talks before they receive shots to help reduce their fears.

“Most children will feel a little dizzy after the shot. It is probably because the children are too nervous, but I can assure you that feeling unwell has nothing to do with the vaccine,” CECC spokesman Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said at a separate setting.

Chou’s remarks were backed by Huang Li-min (黃立民), a doctor from National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Pediatrics.

Huang said that flu symptoms were a normal side effect of receiving a flu shot.

“As long as these symptoms go away within a few days, they are considered normal,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chou said the death of a Kaohsiung County boy on Wednesday night was not ­related to him receiving the vaccine.

Chou said the boy received his vaccination shot on Nov. 19.

He was sent to hospital four days later because of a fever, but died on Nov. 25.

“Initial research shows his death had nothing to do with the vaccination,” Chou said.

The CECC yesterday said that approximately 7 percent of the nation’s population, about 1.6 million people, had received A(H1N1) influenza vaccine shots.

Starting on Monday, the next group to receive vaccination shots in the national anti-A(H1N1) inoculation drive will be high school students, followed by young adults aged between 19 and 24 beginning on Dec. 1.

KMT attacks DPP in campaign ads
　

MUD IN YOUR EYE: Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Huang-liang called the KMT ‘shameless’ for creating what he said was the ‘most unethical’ election in 50 years

By Mo Yan-chih and Jenny W. hsu
STAFF REPORTERS
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009, Page 3
　

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday unveiled its second campaign advertisement for next week’s local government elections, seeking to attract more support by attacking the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Titled “What did the green governance guarantee?” the commercial attacks Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) and Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) for their involvement in corruption scandals, and condemns Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chi-hung (曹啟鴻) for failing to give subsidies to victims on time in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.

“We need to use attack as a means of defense and help campaign for our candidates in Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties,” KMT Spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said yesterday at KMT headquarters.

Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties are traditional DPP strongholds, and the KMT is hoping to win elections in the those places.

Lee said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as KMT chairman, would lead party officials and Central Standing Committee members to campaign for candidates in Chiayi and Yunlin today and tomorrow.

Lee also condemned DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other party heavyweights for making groundless accusations against the KMT during the campaign.

In response to recent controversy surrounding Ma’s public discussion of an opinion poll on the Yilan County commissioner election, Lee said the party would respect the Central Election Commission’s (CEC) decision on whether Ma broke the law.

Lee declined to comment on DPP criticism of the CEC’s Yilan branch after it said it wouldn’t make its decision public until after the election, saying the DPP shouldn’t play up the issue.

The DPP accused Ma of breaking Article 53 of the Election and Recall Act (選舉罷免法), which 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.

The DPP said yesterday that the KMT and the pan-blue camp should be ashamed of itself, rather than accusing the DPP of misconduct.

DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said that although Ma insisted on running a clean campaign, nine KMT candidates had been indicted for vote-buying while all DPP nominees have remained clean.

Each vote costs between NT$2,000 and NT$5,000, he said, calling the KMT “shameless” for creating the “most unethical” election in Taiwan in five decades.

Meanwhile, the DPP headquarters published a list of figures meant to show that Ma has been the “worst president” in Taiwan history and urged the public to express their displeasure by voting against the KMT next Saturday.

DPP Spokesman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said that after Ma took office in May last year, Taiwan’s economic growth has been in the red for five consecutive quarters at a negative 2.53 percent rate, its worst performance ever.

Last year, an unprecedented 550,000 factories and companies shut down. Unemployment also hit a new peak at 6.13 percent, with more than 653,000 people jobless, he said.

The wealth disparity in Taiwan also continued to grow, the DPP said, adding that at least 12,759 households were in poverty. The government deficit was at a record high of NT$4.15 trillion (US$129 million), while net income shrunk 5.54 percent compared with the same period last year, the spokesman said.

Increased economic hardship also led to instability in homes as evidenced by the 84,195 cases of domestic abuse reported last year, the DPP said, but did not elaborate on what percentage of the total cases took place before May during the DPP government.

“The government’s foremost task is to improve social welfare and it is obvious that Ma’s administration has failed to do so. The public must send him a message and a warning through our ballots to show we are not happy with this government,” he said.

Meanwhile, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday inspected Penghu County, saying that the Executive Yuan would back the local government in its efforts to use its natural resources to attract more tourists.

Wu said that the Government Information Office would introduce measures to encourage the film and television industries to shoot scenes in Penghu to promote tourism, adding that the government hoped Chinese tourists would include Penghu on their itinerary.

Despite making no mention of next Saturday’s election, Wu, accompanied by local Penghu officials, lauded the Penghu County Government led by Commissioner Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) for implementing 10 major construction projects to boost tourism.

Wang is seeking re-election.

On Thursday, Wu inspected Kinmen County and promised to begin the long-delayed plan to construct a bridge between Kinmen and Little Kinmen.

The bridge is dubbed the “pontoon bridge” by locals as it is said to be assembled whenever there is an election and disassembled afterwards when politicians abandon their campaign promises.

Planned ECFA needs legislative review: Wang
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009, Page 3

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday called on the Executive Yuan to submit its planned cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) to legislative review.

Wang said the legislature didn’t have a chance to scrutinize the nine cross-strait agreements signed during the past two talks between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.

The government only invited leaders of the legislature’s three caucuses for discussion before signing the agreements and only reported to legislative committees afterward, Wang said, adding that the agreements all took effect one month after they were submitted to the legislature.

The Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) stipulates that cross-strait agreements will automatically take effect within one month after being referred to the legislature if the legislature doesn’t object to the agreements.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus has complained about the legislature not having an opportunity to review the content of the agreements.

“Premier Wu [Den-yih (吳敦義)] has said that the ECFA would be subject to scrutiny by the Legislative Yuan. If the legislature were to effectively supervise [the government, the ECFA] should be required to clear the legislative floor,” Wang said.

“Otherwise, the one-month deadline will soon come, and what can the legislature do to scrutinize [the ECFA] after that?” Wang said.

Wang did not say whether he meant the legislative oversight should come before or after the ECFA is signed.

Wang made the remarks yesterday after saying on Thursday that there was poor communication between the executive branch and the legislature regarding cross-strait affairs. Wang repeated his view that the legislature should organize a task force to supervise cross-strait affairs.

In related news, a survey yesterday suggested that six out of 10 Taiwanese are against an ECFA with China.

Out of more than 1,200 polled earlier this month, 59.7 percent opposed the planned pact, according to results released by National Taiwan University.

Only 34.7 percent supported the agreement, which the government has said will bring both higher growth and more jobs.

Just over 54 percent said they had no faith that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) could protect public interest when negotiating with Beijing on the deal.

The government has been criticized for not explaining the agreement well enough, and the poll confirmed a high level of confusion about its implications. It showed 80.3 percent said they did not understand its content, against only 2.6 percent who said they did.

The Ma government says the agreement will boost the flow of goods and personnel between Taiwan and China and hopes it will be signed early next year. However, the DPP has criticized the pact, saying it would reduce Taiwan to the status of a local government in future talks with China.
　

Thoughts on a perfect American ambassador
　

By John Tkacik 譚慎格
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009, Page 8

James Lilley, who died on Nov. 12, served as the senior US diplomat in both Taipei and Beijing, and was therefore intensely interested in Taiwan-China interactions. But he also had a healthy skepticism of the supposed benefits of cross-strait peace if it meant Taiwan were to be absorbed by China. Jim’s uppermost concerns were the values of freedom and democracy and the interests of the American people.

He was always unsettled by colleagues in the State Department and the CIA who insisted on what he called a “political correctness, the idea that there is a strategic partnership with China that is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, and [that] Taiwan is an obstacle to progress in that relationship.”

He was particularly worried that there were people in the US government who could only think of Taiwan as an “obstacle” to US-China cooperation.

In July 2004, when we at The Heritage Foundation hosted a launch for his book China Hands, he mentioned this in his remarks (listen to them at multimedia.heritage.org/mp3/lehrman-122004.mp3 at minute 32:30). He worried that too many people in the CIA, in particular, “helped at the time to load up the [diplomatic] movements with intelligence, but you can’t do that! The State Department can do it; the Agency can’t. And I think we’ve got to be very much aware of political correctness.”

Of the idea that our “strategic partnership with China is the most important bilateral relationship in the world,” he said that “I think our experience tells us that is a false concept, and the people that try to load up the intelligence to advance that position are not doing their country a favor.”

Jim was a towering figure in US policymaking in Asia, from his years in Taipei as director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), when he helped guide then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) away from reactionaries like General Wang Sheng (王昇) and toward democratization, and his tenure as ambassador in South Korea during the violence of June 1987 to his steady hand as ambassador in Beijing during Tiananmen and its aftermath.

As US assistant secretary of defense in 1992, I can say from personal knowledge that he single-handedly managed to get president George H.W. Bush to approve F-16s for Taiwan, and then sidestepped State Department anxieties. After his retirement in 1993, Jim continued his involvement in cross-strait affairs, and was one of the true “Wise Men” (or, as some called them, “grown-ups who offer adult supervision”) of the China field.

I worked twice for Jim — indirectly in 1981-1982 when I was on the Taiwan Staff at the State Department and he was AIT director, and more directly when I was deputy consul general in Guangzhou and he was my ambassador in Beijing.

Of the eight ambassadors I worked for, he was by far the best, and I worked for many great ambassadors — Leonard Woodcock in Beijing, Leonard Unger in Taipei, Stape Roy also while I was in Guangzhou, and Burt Levin when I was in Hong Kong. All superb diplomats, but Jim was the best — a true leader and inspirational, he respected his troops and was liberal in his praise of their work (and while quick to discipline some, he never seemed to hold a grudge); he was quick-witted and intellectual; and he was a generous advocate for the families of his staffers. He was the perfect ambassador.

I shall always remember him fondly for his career help and personal kindnesses to me, and my deepest sympathies and affection go out to his wife Sally and his entire family.

John Tkacik is a retired US foreign service officer with postings in Taipei, Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou. He was chief of China intelligence at the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research in the first Clinton administration.