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DPP, KMT at loggerheads over US policy on holding any national referendums

BIG BLOWUP: A report that the US is against Taiwan holding referendums has sparked controversy and led to finger-pointing on both sides of the political spectrum

By Sandy Huang

STAFF REPORTER

"Both the KMT and the PFP have long harbored anti-US sentiment as shown by their opposition to the US-led war on Iraq."－President Chen Shui-Bian

The DPP and KMT legislature caucuses traded barbs yesterday, accusing each other of disclosing information regarding the US' stance on referendums in Taiwan.

Chinese-language newspapers reported on Saturday that, in a meeting with President Chen Shui-bian, American Institute in Taiwan Director (AIT) Douglas Paal expressed opposition to the idea of Taiwan holding plebiscites on domestic issues.

DPP legislative caucus whip Chen Chi-mai yesterday said it was the KMT and the PFP who had spread rumors of America's disapproval in a bid to sow discord between the administration and the US.

"The relationship between Taiwan and the US has deteriorated since the DPP took office," Chen said. "On the other hand, both the KMT and the PFP have long harbored anti-US sentiment, as shown by their opposition to the US-led war on Iraq."

Given the pan-blue camp's long-term opposition to creating a referendum law, Chen said, it is understandable that the PFP and KMT would take the opportunity to spread the rumors in a bid to "to graft one twig onto another" and make it look as if the US is against Taiwan holding referendums.

However, KMT legislative caucus leader Lee Chia-chin blamed the DPP for passing on the information to the press. According to Lee, the DPP did so to stop former DPP chairman Lin Yi-hsiung from continuing his persistent calls for a referendum.

Lin, who heads an anti-nuclear campaign, has been pushing the administration to hold a national plebiscite on the future of the controversial Fourth Nuclear Power Plant before the next presidential election. President Chen Shui-bian pledged last month to hold two referendums -- on Taiwan's entry into the World Health Organization and whether construction at the plant should continue -- coinciding with the presidential election on March 18.

Stressing the KMT's stance opposing the use of referendums as a means to changing the country's status quo, Lee called on Chen to promise that a referendum would not be used to promote Taiwanese independence.

However, Lee added that the KMT would support the Initiation and Recall Law which sidesteps controversial issues dealing with independence and unification, national security and military affairs.

Taking a similar stance, PFP legislative whip Chung Shao-ho said his caucus would support an amendment to the proposed law, but not the proposed referendum law.

"The PFP legislative caucus would not support a referendum law because it would encompass too broad a scope that could easily and ignite controversy over the issue of independence and unification," Chung said.

Meanwhile, Minister without Portfolio Hsu Chih-hsiung, said the US' reported opinion on the referendum issue would not affect the Cabinet's progress in assessing the feasibility of a referendum.

Hsu, commissioned by Premier Yu Shyi-kun to lead a feasibility study on holding a referendum on certain issues, added that the study would be completed shortly.

In related news, Chinese-language media reported that Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien said yesterday that Paal had twice conveyed to him earlier this month Washington's "strong concern" about the government's stance on holding referendums.

Referendums a right, Chen says

TOO MUCH DEMOCRACY?: The president and Vice President Annette Lu say no country, not even the US, can deprive Taiwanese of their fundamental right to decide their own future

By Chang Yun-ping

STAFF REPORTER WITH AGENCIES

President Chen Shui-bian yesterday defended Taiwan's right to hold a referendum on its future, saying it is "a basic right that cannot be deprived by anyone."

"As the president, I must safeguard Taiwan's sovereignty, dignity and security and must assert that Taiwan is a sovereign state, not a part, province or state of someone else," Chen said while addressing National Sun Yat-sen University alumni in Kaohsiung.

"Only Taiwan's 23 million people have the right to decide Taiwan's future. Any change to Taiwan's status quo must be approved by Taiwan's people," he said.

"Direct democratic rights, including referendums, are part of our fundamental human rights. I believe those rights can never be deprived, restricted or opposed by any country, government or individual," he said.

Chen's remarks came one day after two Chinese-language newspapers reported that the US has warned Taiwan not to hold a referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant or the nation's desire to join the World Health Organization.

The United Daily News and Apple Daily reported on Saturday that Douglas Paal, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, said Washington opposed the referendums, planned to coincide with next year's presidential election.

Vice President Annette Lu yesterday also said a referendum is a basic human right and a universal value which no country can deprive from Taiwan, including the US.

Lu said she believed reports suggesting the true US position had been misinterpreted.

"I believe a country with high democratic standards like the US would not oppose it [Taiwan's holding a referendum]," Lu said.

She added that Chen had announced the "five no's" after being inaugurated as president on May 20, 2000. The promise included that he would not push for independence, but came with the precondition that China would not use force against Taiwan.

Lu made the statements while addressing the opening of a public affairs class for women sponsored by the Ketagalan Institute, a DPP-backed academic organization.

Lu said the inauguration of the class shows that its 22 outstanding women are ready to dedicate themselves to studying issues relating to gender, national identity and ethnicity.

She encouraged women to challenge and analyze male chauvinism and create their own perspectives.

Lu urged members of the class to embrace independence, confidence and determination to face the challenges of modern society.

Former celebrity Chou Dan-wei, now the head of a biotechnology company, and Lin Ching-yun, a well-known plastic surgeon, are among the class' 22 participants.

MEDIA'S ROLE: Hong Kong reporters were very keen to question CDC chief Su Ih-jen because some of them had an agenda

The media is charged with the responsibility of informing people about what is happening in th. At the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Conference on SARS held in Malaysia last week, a Hong Kong reporter was willing to tell the story her government dared not touch.

Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General of Su Ih-jen led Taiwan's delegation to the conference.

It was not surprising that Su, from a country where the third highest toll of SARS deaths in the world was reported, became one of the media's favorite figures at the conference.

Last Monday morning, after Su had eaten breakfast in the restaurant at the Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel, where the conference took place, Hong Kong's media swarmed in to ask Su questions about SARS.

Su was happy to share his thoughts with the foreign media. A n official specializing in the government's relationship with the media said Su was instructed to catch opportunities to talk to foreign media to let them realize Taiwan's need to join the WHO.

After the impromptu meeting with Hong Kong's media in the restaurant, Su told Taiwan's media: "This fight [referring to the conference] will be very exciting."

"Many countries want to press China to be more transparent in providing its SARS information to the world by interviewing us. Hong Kong is one of them," Su said. He also said that the Hong Kong media would be pressing China to be more transparent in reporting its SARS situation through interviewing Taiwan's delegation.

A female Hong Kong reporter explained on Wednesday morning what Su meant. She, along with reporters from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia, was waiting outside a close-door session entitled "Surveillance and Response Coordination" in which Su was a panelist and she explained the reason Hong Kong's media was following Su so closely.

"It is true," that we are eager to press China, she said. People in Hong Kong have been worried since the WHO lifted travel the advisory on Guangdong Province, from where Hong Kong received its first SARS case, she said

Since the WHO lifted travel advisories on Hong Kong and Guangdong, people in Guangdong have resumed traveling freely to Hong Kong.

The reporter said the SARS situation in Guangdong still is quite troubling. She said Hong Kong, with all its advanced medical systems and surveillance measures, trudged for three months to cool down the epidemic since it broke out in February.

Guangdong, said the reporter, had its first SARS case in November last year. But the Chinese government covered up the severity of the disease for several months until it could hide it no more.

How could Guangdong which had the disease nearly three months before Hong Kong, be removed from the travel recommendations table at the same time as Hong Kong, she asked.

About two weeks before Hong Kong and Guangdong were removed from the travel recommendations table, the number of probable SARS cases reported in Hong Kong was 170 higher than those of Guangdong.

People in Hong Kong were highly skeptical about the number and worried the reopening of its border with Guangdong would bring another SARS outbreak. But the Hong Kong government dared not ask Beijing to do anything, the reporter said.

Calling Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee-hwa Beijing's puppet, the reporter said Tung did not have the guts even to require Beijing to be more transparent in reporting on the SARS situation in Guangdong.

As their government could do nothing, Hong Kong's media wanted words from Su to pressure China to be more honest in reporting its SARS situation, the reporter said.

Su was aware of the Hong Kong media's intention and he told them China was still hiding facts.

Honesty is the best policy. This may be a simple lesson, but nevertheless China needs to learn it.

As we await the precise wording of the latest edict from the US, we had better refrain from obvious cat-calling of a country born as a result of a popular rebellion against unelected authority, which has been an ardent proselytizer of democratic values, conspiring with the unelected dictators in Beijing to frustrate popular democracy in Taiwan.

Let us, more usefully, reiterate just why a referendum is in fact the most pressing political issue in this country today.

If reports are accurate, China has said, and the US "acknowledged," that it is opposed to a referendum on anything in Taiwan as it sees this as a Pandora's box for Taiwan's independence. No matter how local the issue is, nor how contentious -- the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is the obvious choice -- China sees the use of a referendum to decide such issues creating a precedent for decision making on contention issues that it does not want to see.

Of course it is not in Beijing's interest for its own people to see Taiwanese being consulted directly on issues of importance, although, given China's media control and widespread ignorance about Taiwan, this is a secondary problem.

What China wants is sovereignty over Taiwan, pure and simple. And it understands one central point: a referendum motion to reunify with China will never secure majority support among Taiwanese, not now, and while the communists remain in power, not ever. That does not mean that it cannot "recover" Taiwan; simply that, for it to do so, Taiwanese must not be allowed to have a say.

To this end, for the last couple of years it has been planning with various emissaries from the KMT and PFP the terms of a deal to be proposed to Taiwan if the blue-camp parties were to recover power, something both Beijing and the parties themselves expect to happen at the next presidential election.

Interestingly -- and the US should pick up on this -- the most reliable reports of what has been talked about come from US academics with their contacts among Beijing's cadres and think tanks.

What appears to be the deal on offer is that the blue camp will accept something close to the expanded "one country, two systems" deal that has been on offer for well over a decade. In return Beijing will support the transition of Taiwan back to a one-party state with the blue camp in charge. Having lost power once, the blues have decided that they will never run that risk again and Beijing can help them in this regard. The emasculating of Taiwan's democracy and the erosion of its civil liberties -- think here of post-handover Hong Kong -- will swiftly follow.

For this ugly scenario to play as scripted it is essential that the people of Taiwan never have a chance to vote on the reunification question. They must be allowed to vote in the presidential election -- which the blue camp thinks it can win on the economy -- and then never consulted again. It is essential to the reunificationist plan, a plan that, by the way, will destroy democracy in anything but name in Taiwan -- even the Soviet Union held elections, remember -- that there is no precedent for asking the people, via a democratic process, what they think.

And this is where the US seems to have fallen badly for a piece of Chinese flimflam. The referendum question has never been about Taiwan voting for independence. That is not what referendum advocates -- at least the realists among them -- seek. It is about Taiwanese being consulted about any change to their future, as a safeguard from having reunification thrust unwillingly upon them. That is why China and the blue camp are so opposed to referendums, because they think they can, on the basis of a presidential election win and platitudes about "representative democracy," bring off this coup through an undemocratic end-around.