Dec. 5,2000 --- To: Trent Lott, Denny Hastert, George W. Bush

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The two reasons made Taiwan economic and political uncertainty;

New government cannot effectively handle the 55 years of KMT’s government for a short time.

WTO and Beijing’s pressure are forcing Taiwan to go into economic reorganization and political instability.

Who could doubt it, with the opposition Democratic Progressive Party taking the presidency, after over 50 years of uninterrupted rule by the Kuomintang (KMT)? Sure, the KMT is making noises about recalling President Chen Shui-bian, but so far, that is all they have been --- noises. The non-DPP parties are still deeply divided, despite their pledges to cooperate.

The term Free China, with its overtones of the Cold War, has fallen from favor, but it adequately expresses why Taiwan, for all its faults, has survived and prospered, despite losing its diplomatic links with all but a few countries, mainly much poorer and more backward than Taiwan. Many did not count on Taiwan long surviving when it lost its formal diplomatic links with the United Nations and then its protector, the United States. Yet Taiwan not only survived, it prospered.

Legislator Chin Huei-Chu yesterday held another press conference to allege that President Chen Shui-bian and one of his senior advisers had colluded with Beijing leaders.

The Presidential Office refuted the allegation once again while the National Security Bureau said it had found no evidence for Chin’s charges.

Chin said the letters’ content show Jiang had suggested that Chen utilize the reputation of Dr. Lee, a Nobel Prize laureate, to help Chen win the hearts of people in Taiwan. In Chen’s reply to Jiang, he said he had done according to Jiang’s suggestions.

She added that in the letter dated Oct. 17, Jiang told Chen that he had instructed the spokesman of the State Council in Beijing to publicly deny her earlier accusation about a US$5 million donation that President Chen received from Beijing during his presidential election campaign.

In the same letter, Jiang also wrote that Beijing authorities respect and are pleased with Chen’s decision to scrap the fourth nuclear power plant in Taiwan and his dismissal of former Premier Tang Fei.

In addition, the lawmaker also showed to reporters a letter from Jiang Mianhen, Jiang Zemin’s son, to Dr. Lee expressing his gratitude for taking the same position as the mainland government in supporting President Chen.

A Beijing official handling Taiwan affairs held a press conference to officially deny Chin’s allegations. Chin said she had anticipated the response of denial from Beijing. But she also noted that Beijing officials have never denied that they and former President Lee Teng-hui had sent emissaries for secret meetings years ago.

Meanwhile, several lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) held a press conference to refute Chin’s charges. They demanded that PFP Chairman James Soong clarify if he is behind Chin’s allegations. DPP leaders had in the past frequently attacked Soong as leader of a group that may “sell out Taiwan.”

In his response, Dr. Lee issued a statement saying that Chin’s allegations were sheer fabrication that may caused national and social instability.

When answering questions raised by reporters, Ting Yu-chou, director of the National Security Bureau, said the bureau found no evidence showing inflow of funds from the mainland for supporting specific presidential candidates.

Ting said Jiang Zemin’s signatures on the letters produced by Legislator Chin are not identical to Jiang’s penmanship. He added that Jiang rarely uses personal chops in his letters as shown in letters presented by the lawmaker.

While it is natural that the government, like all governments, would want to take credit for Taiwan’s economic miracle, the truth is it is the men and women of Taiwan, working a myriad of businesses big and small – but mostly small --- whose energy has made Taiwan a beacon for freedom and economic progress.

Taiwan is a trading economy. Its people are always ready to strike a deal and in the end, everything is negotiable. Although in the early years of Taiwan, the KMT’s grip on power tolerated few challenges, the potential for the development of a truly free society, such as we have now, was always a possibility --- and that possibility became reality.

Mainland China, on the other hand, represents the absolutist tendency in Chinese culture. The leaders on the mainland, with the example of the collapse of the Soviet Union before them, have tolerated a freer economy --- but the Communist Party’s grip on power remains absolute. The establishment of some economic liberties has not weakened this iron grip. Indeed, the widespread persecution of religious believers on the mainland has reinforced that notion that the Communist Party will not tolerate threats to its authority.

That’s what makes Taiwan’s relations with mainland China prone to difficulties. For the government and businessmen of Taiwan, ultimately everything is negotiable. They do not deal in absolutes, but possibilities. For the people of Taiwan, it is hard to come to terms with the fact that certain things --- such as the Communist Party’s hold on power and Taiwan independence --- are not on the table, and as long as the Communist Party is in power, never will be.

The Dalai Lama celebrates 50 years as Tibetan head of state on Monday --- a golden jubilee marked in Indian exile as temporal leader of a government with no international recognition.

Now 65, the Dalai Lama added the secular title to his position as Tibet’s spiritual leader at the tender age of 15. He fled Tibet after a failed uprising against communist Chinese rule in 1959 and established a government in exile in the northern Indian hill station of Dharamsala. The 50-year milestone comes at a crucial and difficult time for the Tibetan freedom movement.

While international respect for the Dalai Lama and sympathy for the plight of Tibetans under Chinese communist rule both remain strong, official support for the movement has been sacrificed to the necessity of maintaining political and trade relations with Beijing.

In Tibet itself, Beijing exercises rigid control over religious practice, and its policy of populating the region with migrants from the majority Han Chinese community continues unabated.

Added to this is growing concern over the fate of the Tibetan movement after the Dalai Lama dies – a concern he himself recognizes.

“It will certainty be a great setback,” the Dalai Lama said in an interview recently.

“But our struggle is for the six million Tibetans; their rights, their welfare their future.”

“The Dalai Lama has made it very clear that the Tibetan government in exile should be able to manage without his involvement, and preparations are already underway,” said the exiled administration’s information minister, T.C. Tethong.

For Taiwan, the best hope for a final reconciliation is an organic change in the nature of government and society in mainland China. How likely is this? Just now, there seems to be little likelihood that the communist regime will collapse. Not even the potential seems to exist. Yet just as a few brave souls, who risked derision and ridicule, always said that the socialist system in the Soviet Union was irredeemably corrupt and inefficient, so the people of Taiwan continue to believe that one day, all China will be free. How long will this take? It’s hard to say, but the fall of the seemingly impregnable Soviet Union proves that “never” is not a word that can be used with any conviction in the history of human affairs.

In the meantime, Taiwan must tread carefully. Few want unification with the mainland while the communist regime remains in power in Beijing. For a host of reasons, Taiwan must learn to live with its giant neighbor, or risk being shut out of the world’s most dynamic economies.

Taiwan needs your help.

The survey, jointly conducted by the Association for the Research of National Peace and Security in Taiwan and Trendgo Survey Research Center on 1,119 over 20 yearolds islandwide between Dec. 1 and 2. Its purpose was to learn the view of the public on cross-strait relations, and it carried a margin of error of 2.9 percent.

Seventy percent also did not agree with the mainland’s harsh response to the advisory group’s conclusions and 68 percent doubted the PRC’s sincerity in handling cross-strait matters.

But the results of the poll, rather than indicating the public’s support for any one specific China policy, did show support for the existence of a special mechanism to unify different opinions on mainland matters, said Wang Yu-wei, a professor at the Central Police University.

Andes Yen, director of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s Department of Chinese Affairs, said that the figures show that local people continue to be vigilant against Beijing’s rhetoric, adding that Taiwan cannot let down its guard against the mainland.

Last Thursday, Zhang Mingqing, spokesman for mainland China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, lambasted Taiwan’s refusal to accept the “one China” policy, saying the advisory group’s “three acknowledgements and four suggestions were “a bunch of nonsense” that was simply “neither here nor there, neither fish nor fowl.”

Meanwhile, half of the poll’s respondents were aware of the consensus reached by the advisory group and applauded it as a way of improving Beijing-Taipei relations. Also as many as 67 percent of respondents supported the notion that cross-strait problems should be solved based on the spirit of the constitution of the Republic of China.

Liao Fu-the, researcher at Academia Sinica, the nation’s highest academic institute, said that this shows that the public’s paramount concern is peace, and then the democratic process.

The polls results reflect the Kuomintang’s cross-strait policy, noted Chang Jung-kung, Kuomintang mainland affairs’ director, saying the ideas that Taipei and Beijing are separate political entities and to solve the cross-strait problem peacefully had always been what the mainstream wanted even before Chen took power in May.

The president should respond to the “one China” principle in accordance with the constitution as soon as possible to reopen the cross-strait dialogue, he added.

On ethnic identification, those who believe they are both Taiwanese and Chinese accounted the most, at 46.8 percent; followed by those who said that they are Taiwanese, at 38.4 percent; and those who said they are Chinese, at 12.6 percent.

Chang said that these results show that people who consider themselves both Taiwanese and Chinese are still the largest group, which falls in line with the conviction held by the late president Chiang Ching-kuo, former President Lee Teng hui and KMT Chairman Lien Chan.

Yen also said that the majority of people said they are both Taiwanese and Chinese, which can be considered Taiwan’s mainstream view.

Respondents also reiterated that the people of Taiwan have the final say on the island’s future but most still lacked a clear vision of what that should be.

When asked about the future of cross-strait relations, 39 percent think it varies on the situation, 24 suggested unification with mainland in the future, 15 preferred to continue the existing situation, and only 13 support Taiwan independence.