Praying For Peace

Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, greets audience member last Thursday in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Dalai Lama is giving a series of talks on the importance of universal responsibility, compassion and altruism and met with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen last Friday.

We have each other

Two infant recoons cling to each other as they take shelter in the crook of a tree in LaPorte, Indiana, last week.

Why does Taiwan toady to Beijing?

One of the great problems with China's repeated snubs to Taiwan and attempts to downgrade its international status is not that other nations are prepared to let Beijing get away with it but that Taiwan all to often is itself prepared to roll over and do nothing. It is high time this stopped.

Turning the other cheek might be a worthy example of Christian humility but it is not practical international politics. Taiwan's situation resembles that of an abused spouse who, no matter how many bones are broken, is too scared or weak to hit back or walk out of a terrible relationship. More backbone is needed. A slap in the face deserves a slap back. Only by such measures will China ever realize that it cannot get what it wants through aggression and bullying.

Recently we have seen two classic examples of China's disgusting behavior. The first was Beijing's efforts to stop Taiwan gaining even observer status at the World Health Organization (WHO), on top of its immoral and pernicious attempt to claim that it was in some way looking after this nation's medical needs in the now subsiding SARS outbreak -- helped in doing so by its agents in the PFP, by the way.

And then there is the ongoing dispute over Taiwan's status at the WTO. Beijing, through its "friend" WTO Secretary General Supachai Panitchpakdi is seeking to get the level of Taiwan's representation downgraded to that of Hong Kong and Macau -- as a province of China. The illegalities of Supachai's demand are dealt with elsewhere on this page. Our point here is that Taiwan must not take this lying down.

What, however, can Taiwan do to show its displeasure? Its leverage on China in the international community is, after all, not very large. One thing it can stop doing, however, is abetting China in its attempts to belittle the government of this country.

China will not address the government as an equal, though it has far more legitimacy than that of its Beijing counterpart. And Taiwan has for a decade been prepared to accommodate this idea -- that Beijing will deal with it but only on terms of insolent contempt. It is for this reason that we have the Straits Exchange Foundation with its fictional status as a private entity which talks to what Beijing refers to as the "Taiwanese authorities" and Beijing's own fictional private Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait so that Beijing does not have to recognize those "authorities" itself.

Enough of this. The government is quite willing to talk to China's administration -- on the basis of equality and mutual respect. The foundation exists simply because Beijing is not prepared to grant that respect -- as is clearly manifested by its behavior elsewhere. If China has anything to say to Taiwan it can say it ministry-to-ministry as is the practice among other nations or simply not bother. We have no interest whatsoever is anything that Beijing might want to say to the "Taiwan authorities," only in what Beijing is prepared to say to Taiwan's government. Why then, should this country maintain an organization which effectively connives at its own belittling.

It is high time, then, that the foundation was abolished. It is to the credit of the Chen Shui-bian administration that the foundation has in fact been little used in the past three years. It would be even more to its credit if it were abolished and the reason for its abolition -- that the government refuses to acquiesce to the status China awards it -- made clear.

Chen earned a lot of respect when some years ago he said of the National Reunification Council that it was "as much use as an appendix." The foundation is not only of no use, its existence is deleterious to the nation's status. Get rid of it.

Lying China still on Taiwan's tail

By Paul Lin

In a farcical gesture, China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) recently offered to donate medical supplies to Taiwan for SARS prevention. China has committed two major offenses against Taiwan as far as SARS is concerned.

First, by covering up the epidemic, China caused the virus to spread to Hong Kong and then to Taiwan. This not only caused loss of life in Taiwan but also resulted in incalculable economic damage.

Second, despite the immediate threat of SARS, China has continued its political oppression of Tai-wan. From former health minister Zhang Wenkang, who covered up the epidemic, to the "iron lady" Wu Yi, a heartless rumormonger, they are all of the same ilk. They act this way in Beijing and also carried their bad behavior onto the international stage in places such as the World Health Assembly meeting in Switzerland and the UN's headquarters in New York.

Because of these offenses, the people of Taiwan have a right to demand that China's authorities apologize to Taiwan or even pay damages.

Beijing is well aware that its record is poor and that the feelings of the Taiwanese people have been badly hurt. To cover lies told in international forums about helping Taiwan combat SARS, they are trying to make amends quickly by having ARATS step forward to donate medical supplies to Taiwan.

For this purpose, they have been willing to play fast and loose with the truth by twisting the words of the Straits Exchange Foundation, which has accepted donations from Taiwanese businessmen based in China and other civic groups, to imply acceptance of the official donations from Bei-jing. After the foundation refused the ARATS' aid, Beijing's shame turned to rage and it began to sow discord between the foundation and the Taiwanese public in an attempt to shirk their own res-ponsibility for disseminating the virus.

There were two reasons for the foundation's refusal of China's aid. On the one hand, they wanted to point out that China had hurt the feelings of the Taiwanese people. On the other hand, they hoped China would use that medical equipment to help its own citizens, whose need were even more dire than their own. This reasonable and sympathetic response was described by China as a "crass refusal" -- a reaction which shows that when the trap laid by the authorities in Beijing was exposed, they were infuriated and lashed out irrationally.

A Chinese proverb says, "A weasel wishing a hen season's greetings has ulterior motives." China is just such a weasel, never having abandoned its ambition to swallow up Taiwan. Could their sudden donation of medical supplies really indicate concern for Taiwan's people? If they truly cared about the people of Taiwan, how could they let Taiwan become a backwater beyond the reach of the World Health Organization's (WHO) influence?

If they truly cared about the people, how could they cover up the epidemic, thereby causing it to spread throughout the country and even to Taiwan? Even when confronted by Beijing's imposing power, the foundation has never hesitated to uphold this nation's sovereign status. For this reason, the foundation has been opposed by Beijing, which hopes to open other channels for negotiation and to make the foundation irrelevant.

In reporting about this matter, however, some media appear to remain impartial by giving the accounts of both sides and leaving people with a kind of Rashomon feeling. Such "impartiality" in fact confounds right and wrong and misleads the public. It makes one think of certain media organizations and politicians that didn't criticize Beijing for its recent behavior oppressing Taiwan and diminishing Taiwan's sovereignty at the WHO and the WTO. Instead they claimed the government of Taiwan was whipping up "populist" sentiment and propagating the notion of a "China threat."

One doesn't know whether people who speak this way stand on the side of Taiwan or that of China. Taiwan's public has been provoked by China's SARS invasion and military threats. How can this be called "populism," and how can anyone claim China hasn't threatened Taiwan? In fact, this problem of perspective is a problem of national identity, and it is something Taiwan must work out in the course of its development.

Could the people of democratic Taiwan identify with the PRC? Even those who support the notion of greater China shouldn't feel that way. Please consider the following fact. On May 30, China's State Council convened yet another press conference on the subject of SARS. At this press conference, Vice Minister of Health Gao Qiang delivered remarks denying that China had covered up the epidemic. He also denied that the former health minister had been sacked for covering up the epidemic.

To outsiders this is, of course, more of China's shameless irresponsibility, but China does have its logic. Recall for a moment -- what was a reason given when the health minister and Beijing mayor Meng Xuenong were sacked? Did Beijing ever admit to covering up the epide-mic? These were merely the unfulfilled desires of outsiders, but the foreign media can't wait to announce that China has become "transparent" and "pragmatic."

Transparent? Or is it a black box? Pragmatic? Or just a pack of lies?

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in New York.