Dear Mr. Colin Powell,

“The Cuban people have created a unique culture and written heroic chapters in the defense of state sovereignty and national independence,” Jian Zemin said in an arrival statement after being met by Castro at Havana airport on April 13, 2001.

The two presidents displayed their close ties and signed agreements, critics have slammed them for sharing a terrible rights record.

China is Cuba’s fourth biggest trading partner, at US$ 520 million in 2000. To face the truth, we have touched the expansion of China’s mechanism.

In Taiwan, Vice-President Annette Lu on April 17, 2001 likened China to a “world dictator” for trying to twist Japan’s arm into denying the island’s former president Lee Teng-hui a visa.

“If the Japanese government has to consider Communist China’s attitude on everything before making a decision, wouldn’t Communist China be a world dictator?” said Lu, who is reviled by Beijing for her bluntness.

Most of Taiwanese people agree with former president Lee accused the Japanese government April 15, 2001 of succumbing to pressure from China, which has warned Japan against allowing Lee to visit, saying “the guts of the Japanese government is as small as that of a mouse.”

“It’s puzzling why a great nation like Japan cares this much about Communist China’s reaction,” a government statement quoted Lu as telling Deborah Grey, the visiting leader of the opposition Canadian Alliance party.

Lee, 78, himself scorned by Beijing for trying to break Taiwan out of diplomatic isolation during his 12-year rule, wants to visit Japan for a medical check-up en route to his alma mater, Cornell University, in the United States.

After days of tiptoeing around the issue, Japan headed for a diplomatic quagmire after suggesting on Monday that it might accept a visa application from Lee – a diplomatic coup for Taiwan but a move that could strain Tokyo’s ties with Beijing. 

Beijing has urged Tokyo to keep Lee out, saying it was not a humanitarian but a political issue and would harm bilateral ties.

Taiwan, a country with much smaller economic, diplomatic and military power than Japan, has time and again stood up to China’s absurd threats. In contrast, Japan has only proven tough when it comes to defending its history textbooks and maintaining a “what’s past is past” attitude toward issues arising from wartime atrocities, despite vehement opposition from China and South Korea.

Despite China’s high-decibel protests, Britain allowed Lee to visit last June to see his granddaughter. Britain could not find any good reason to refuse a visa because Lee was an ordinary citizen applying for a tourist visa. Lee’s trip to Cornell in 1995 – when he was president – did lead to a flare-up in China-Taiwan-US relations. But now that Lee has retired, the US has allowed him to visit despite continuing opposition from Beijing. The US has its own laws to follow and it certainly does not need China’s instructions on what to do with a visa application.

In granting Lee visas, both the US and Britain have demonstrated how to exercise national self-determination. Japan, on the other hand, appears to be showing how little it values its independence, as it bows to threats from a second-rate country like China. After all, China needs more favors from Japan than vice versa. Japan is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council, but its diplomatic prowess is by no means inferior to China’s. Japan’s self-defense forces certainly pale in the face of the PLA, but then Japan is protected by the US-Japan security treaty and is barred by law from building up its military power.

Lee has never said or done anything that violates Japanese law. Nor has he caused any trouble while in Japan. On the contrary, he is quite a popular figure among Japanese. However, for all his good feelings toward Japan, the 78-year-old Lee does not really need to go there. He is simply nostalgic for a country in which he spent quite a long time in his early life. The Japanese government’s repeated rejections of this request, however, are likely to tarnish whatever good impression he has of Japan.

In our view, tension between China and its neighbors could rise earlier after China’s assertiveness in claiming a US spy plane violated its territory comes as no surprise.

Maps published in China include in its territory most of the South China Sea stretching past Vietnam almost to Malaysia, territories beyond Taiwan to the east and far north toward Japan.

Communist China belief with obstinacy has a historical right to dominate the region.

We thought China’s principle focus is regional targets such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and North Korea, as well as US military operations in the area.

We want to appeal to China once again. If China wants to solve the cross-strait problem through peaceful means and prevent the US from continuing to sell weapons to Taiwan, the best strategy is to remove its several hundred missiles that are aimed at Taiwan, and to make a public statement that it will never threaten Taiwan by military force.

Chinese leaders should use their immense military expenditures to instead improve people’s living conditions and welfare and to initiate democratic reforms.

Only if China responds to Taiwan with goodwill can the two sides become good neighbors and enjoy prosperity on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

                                                                Yours Sincerely,