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Air
force spy ring cracked by military on Sep 06, 2004 Air
force spy ring cracked by military STATE
SECRETS: At least two suspected spies have been caught after faxing classified
documents to a Taiwanese businessman based in Guangzhou, China By
Jimmy Chuang Two
suspected spies were arrested late Saturday evening on suspicion of stealing
secret information about Taiwan's Mirage 2000-5 fighter aircraft and selling it
to China, the military announced yesterday. Special
agents from the Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau (MJIB) and military
police transferred the two alleged spies to the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors'
Office in Kaohsiung, while another suspect is in military custody for
questioning. The
bureau issued a press release late on Saturday regarding its cooperation with
the Ministry of National Defense's (MND) Political Warfare Department in the spy
case, and announced the arrest of two primary suspects: former air force
sergeant first class Chen Jiunn-hung and Ho Ping, a Taiwanese businessman based
in Guangzhou, China. As
of press time yesterday, the interrogations of Chen and Ho were continuing, and
prosecutors have not yet filed any requests to detain them or allow them to be
released on bail. According
to the bureau, the men's espionage activities began in September 2002, when Chen
and Ho met each other through a Yahoo-Kimo online chat room. Ho traveled to
Taiwan and met Chen in person, and then convinced him to betray his country by
using his privileged access to air force information to steal state secrets. On
July 5 last year, Chen introduced his high school classmate Chiu Chen-hung -- an
air force master sergeant stationed at Hsinchu Air Force Base -- to Ho, who then
promised Chiu a NT$1.6 million reward in return for his clandestine activities.
On July 27, Chiu gave more than 190 pages of classified information about the
Mirage fighter jets to Chen. Chen faxed the documents to Ho in China. Chiu
decided to report his espionage activities to his superior officer a few days
later, because he never received any money from Ho or Chen, and therefore felt
that they had deceived him. Chiu
was immediately detained by military investigators. In the meantime, military
investigators also began cooperating with Taiwan High Court prosecutors, as well
as MJIB agents, in the search for Ho and Chen. What
surprised law enforcement officers was that Chen also reported his espionage
activities in September last year. Investigators said it was not immediately
clear what had prompted Chen to turn himself in. "The
MJIB began to follow, monitor and investigate Chen ever since he reported to us
last year. However, we decided to wait for the best chance to arrest Ho since Ho
travels very often between Guangzhou and Taipei and it was difficult to arrest
him at the scene with sufficient evidence," a high-ranking MJIB official,
who wished to remain anonymous, said. In
the meantime, the MND said that the spy case had not seriously affected Taiwan's
defense capabilities, because what Chiu had stolen was only
"skin-deep" information, which would not jeopardize either the
aircraft themselves or the air force's deployments. "What
Chiu stole from his base was classified. However, it was merely some maintenance
records for Mirage jet fighters, so it will not hurt us too much," a
spokesman at the MND said.
Drill
cancelation divides analysts SIGNALS:
When China called off its Dongshan Island exercise, Chen decided to do the same.
But many doubt the move was meant as a gesture of goodwill By
Joy Su Following
the cancelation of Chinese military drills, a surprising turn of events leading
to the termination of live fire drills on Taiwan's part has analysts divided as
to how significant the move is to cross-strait relations. "You
have to calculate whether Beijing did or did not [cancel its drills] before you
make any decisions," said Alexander Huang, former vice chairman of the
Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and now a professor at Tamkang University. After
reports of China's cancelation of the Dongshan Island military drills last week,
President Chen Shui-bian followed suit and called off the annual Han Kuang live
fire military drills originally scheduled for Sept. 9 in what officials called
an extension of reciprocal goodwill. While
government officials, including MAC Chairman Joseph Wu, admitted soon after
Chen's decision was made public that no formal confirmation of China's decision
to cancel its war games was received -- the decision was nonetheless defended as
a move to reduce cross-strait tensions, regardless of Beijing's stance. "Reducing
cross-strait tension is our responsibility and China's also," Huang said,
noting that the US welcomed the decision to cancel military drills. However,
Chen's critics were quick to call the cancellation of military drills premature,
given the failure of the government to verify whether China's decision was a
gesture of goodwill, or even related to the cross-strait situation at all. "Not
only was [Taiwan's] cancelation premature, it wasn't reciprocal -- the Han Kuang
exercise is a nationwide annual defense drill, whereas the Dongshan exercises
are regional in scope, offense oriented, and conducted several times each
year," said Holmes Liao, a research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of
Research. Arthur
Ding, a military affairs expert and research fellow at the National Chengchi
University's Institute of International Relations said that while the Han Kuang
exercises are high-level drills for Taiwan, China's Dongshan Island exercises
are not necessarily so. "It
is very clear that our enemy is China, but for Beijing, the situation is more
complex. They face more threats. The Dongshan Island military drills are aimed
at Taiwan, but it is just one of many military drills that might be aimed at
sending a message to other nations," Ding said. Liao
expressed skepticism about the assumption that the move was an act of good will
toward Taiwan. He suggested that other factors could have led to the cancelation,
such as the typhoons that have hit the region recently, or a possible power
struggle within the Communist Party. "Beijing
has never extended goodwill to Taiwan ? that they would do it now is next to
impossible," he said. Whether
or not Beijing actually called off the war games out of goodwill seemed to be
beside the point, with experts disagreeing on their fundamental outlook on the
communist giant's cross-strait strategy. "Cross-strait
relations is not based on the extension of goodwill, but rather on
strength," Liao said. "If
we purchase many weapons and don't perform drills, then what's it all
worth?" he asked. Ding
took a similar stance, saying that "peace requires strength." But
how much strength is enough for peace? "I'm
not talking about the amount of weapons we need, but the mental preparedness we
should have. It's about psychological defense, and Taiwan's psychological
defense is not there," Liao said, adding that the Han Kuang drills as they
are currently conducted do not reflect the psychological preparedness necessary
in case of an invasion. "The
Han Kuang exercises decrease in scale every year while preparation takes longer.
The live fire drills take three months to prepare for. The training scenario
also is becoming more and more unrealistic," he said. "No
one fights war like this anymore. This is from Napoleon's time. Taiwan's combat
readiness is problematic," he added. However,
experts also pointed out that the nation's military readiness was not
significantly compromised by the calling off of this year's live fire portion of
the Han Kuang drill. Although the live fire aspect of the exercise was canceled,
other aspects of the drill went on as scheduled. "Taiwan
simply cancelled the last and final portion ... it's a political gesture,"
Huang said, adding that the cancelled exercises did not involve the testing of
new weapons, but existing systems and equipment. "The
cancelation was a gesture to show good face for our friends in Washington and to
take measures to pacify cross-strait tensions," Huang said, noting that the
decision was announced while Chen was traveling abroad. Ding
pointed to internal affairs in his interpretation of Chen's decision. Diplomatically,
a few recent events have been unfavorable to Taiwan's international status --
recent remarks made by Australia's foreign minister and Singaporean Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong, for example. "All
these have led people in Taiwan to worry," Ding said, characterizing Chen's
cancelation as a political move aimed at placating the Taiwanese people. No
matter what the move was intended to achieve at home, Huang said it was a
win-win situation abroad. "The US appreciates what we did and now the ball
is in [China's] court."
Delegation
cancels China trip after permits are denied SNUBBED:
Chinese officials denied entry permits to some members of a legislative
delegation -- but officials here declined comment on rumors of an anti-green
campaign A
legislative aide delegation was forced to cancel a plan to travel to China
recently after Beijing refused to issue entry permits to some delegation
members, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san said
yesterday. According
to Chiu, Beijing authorities denied permits to some staffers of the Legislative
Yuan's legal affairs bureau. Chiu said the MAC is unaware of the reasons for
Beijing's entry permit snubs. He declined to comment on media speculation that
Beijing has decided to suppress engagement with Taiwan's "pan-green"
politicians after President Chen Shui-bian defeated the pan-blue camp candidate
-- Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan -- in the bitterly fought
March 20 presidential election. Chiu
said that although Beijing has been vocal in opposing Taiwan's independence, it
has yet to formulate concrete steps for a campaign to snub pan-green
politicians. "Against
this backdrop, some lower-level Chinese officials would rather adopt a tough
stance than a soft one in handling cross-strait exchange affairs, to avoid being
blamed by their superiors," Chiu explained. Moreover,
Chiu said, since the Chinese Communist Party will soon hold the fourth plenary
session of its 16th-term Central Committee, working-level Chinese officials are
believed to be reluctant to handle any sensitive Taiwan-related affairs. Quoting
MAC tallies, Chiu said the number of Chinese professionals coming to Taiwan
dropped slightly between March and May, probably because of Taiwan's political
climate. Nevertheless, he added, the number of Chinese professionals coming to
Taiwan for cultural, commercial and social exchanges rebounded to the normal
level between June and July. Chinese
academics often travel to Taiwan during the summer to attend seminars or conduct
research But this summer, the number of Chinese think tank members traveling to
Taiwan has declined.
Democracy
in the region at a critical crossroads By
Paul Lin
Taiwan
will also hold legislative elections at the end of this year. If the green camp
can win a majority in the Legislative Yuan, it will be able to resolve the
legislative chaos created by pro-China politicians and implement policies and
reforms smoothly. Hence, the democratic movements in both Taiwan and Hong Kong
are at a crucial juncture. Under
such circumstances, democratic forces in Taiwan and Hong Kong must unite to
preserve democracy. This will not only further the welfare of their people, but
will also aid China's democratic development, since the political progress of
Taiwan and Hong Kong is a positive influence. Unfortunately, cooperation between
them remains insufficient due to psychological obstacles. As
Taiwan's democratization and localization are proceeding simultaneously, with
excessive attention paid to the latter, the country often ignores globalization,
and the development of China and Hong Kong. This is seen in the quantity of
local media reports which ignore the special relations between Taiwan and China,
which also includes Hong Kong. Hong
Kong must eliminate its bias against Taiwan. A true democrat must respect the
Taiwanese people's choice for their future -- unification or independence. The
people of Hong Kong do not want to be manipulated by an authoritarian regime
either. Canada's province of Quebec was able to hold a referendum on
independence, Czechoslovakia was able to split into the Czech Republic and
Slovakia in 1993 after the communist forces collapsed, and even East Timor was
able to vote for independence from Indonesia. Why can't Taiwan, which has not
been occupied by China, remain independent? Today,
Hong Kong's understanding of Taiwan remains unchanged, with media reports about
the island being mostly negative. Hong Kong does not understand that even if the
development of Taiwan's democratic movement is seriously flawed, it's better
than that of Hong Kong, where the people do not have a direct election for the
chief executive. While
Beijing often smears the territory's democratic movement as
"populism," some Hong Kong democrats echo Taiwan's pro-China figures
and do exactly the same to Taiwan. This is sad. Perhaps it is a result of the
long-term influence of Taiwan's pro-China media on their Hong Kong counterparts,
which have ignored the Taiwanese people's voice. If
the people of Hong Kong can view the situation from the perspective of the
changes in the territory's media, in which pro-democratic media have been
blocked, they should be able to understand Taiwan's present predicament,
especially the media's influence on public opinion. Freedom
of speech in Hong Kong has been limited since the territory's return to China.
Particularly, political accusations of treason and spying can be heard almost
everywhere, while fake Chinese nationalism grows. Therefore, Taiwan should try
to understand the difficult situation faced by Hong Kong's democrats. On
the other hand, while Hong Kong's democrats do not necessarily have to show
their support for Taiwanese democracy, it's not necessary for them to attack
Taiwan, or make reckless anti-independence and pro-unification remarks. After
all, as long as Taiwan is not annexed by China, Beijing will maintain its policy
of "one country, two systems," and let Hong Kong continue to serve as
an example for Taiwan. This helps the territory avoid rapid sinification. Paul
Lin is a political commentator based in New York.
China
law is for domestic audience A
couple hundred years ago China thought it was at the center of a world divided
into two parts: one which accepted Chinese superiority and received the benefits
of Confucian culture and another which ought to have. The idea that China can
legislate for the world seems to have held fast. Last week we learned that a law
mandating Taiwan's unification has been drafted in Beijing. We wondered what
other country might pass laws about places and polities over which it had no
control. Imagine the environmentally conscious Swedes passing a law forbidding
gas-guzzling Americans from driving SUVs. Or the workaholic Germans passing a
law restricting Spanish lunch breaks to a swift 30 minutes. Chen
Shui-bian said last week that China is trying to provide a legal justification
for its revanchist ambitions toward Taiwan. Perhaps. But for whom is this legal
justification made? Obviously not for the rest of the world since an act of
international aggression cannot be legitimized by a country's domestic law.
Perhaps it is simply to persuade Chinese that they should risk their lives in
the dubious enterprise of stopping their Han brethren on Taiwan from enjoying
the freedoms that they long for themselves. The question "why are we
fighting Taiwan?" is perhaps more forcefully answered "because it's
the law" than simply "because we should." But we would have
thought that in ultranationalist China, with its anachronistic ambitions for
what Kaiser Wilhelm II would call "a place in the sun," such a reply
would hardly be needed because such a question would not be asked. Taiwan
has to see passage of this "law" as a threat. But the cloud may have a
silver lining. To say that China needs to come up with new thinking about Taiwan
is a familiar refrain for this newspaper. Officially China has staked everything
on "one country, two systems." And when that formula might yet have
worked, there was little reason to give thought to any other way of bringing
Taiwan back into the Chinese fold. By
any standards, however, "one country, two systems" has clearly failed.
Far from Hong Kong basking in enviable prosperity created by its capitalist
system, enviable freedoms guaranteed by the Basic Law, and enviable security as
a part of the "upcoming superpower," it now has none of those things.
The only people there who appear content are the clique of businessmen China has
appointed to run the place. It is quite obvious that Hong Kong's fate now
provides the strongest disincentive for Taiwan to consider a unification deal. The
only solution Beijing will consider to its "Taiwan problem" is
therefore vacuous. Beyond that there are also a host of limitations on the way
the Taiwan issue can be discussed in China. Taiwan independence, which in de
facto or de jure forms is what the majority of Taiwanese want, can only be
regarded as the wish of a small minority of deluded "compatriots,"
most of whom are dupes a "foreign power." However unrealistic this is
-- and the delusion is perfectly obvious to any Chinese scholar with Internet
access -- it is a thought crime in China to discuss Taiwan in any other way. That
doesn't mean people haven't been doing so. The very prominence given to
rent-a-quote "academics" toeing the official line by Xinhua and other
state-owned media, along with anecdotal evidence from personal contacts,
suggests to China-watchers both new thinking and an attempt to suppress it. The
draft law is a tool in that suppression. It is there to, in effect, criminalize
any proposal concerning resolution of the Taiwan issue except that mandated by
the government. Ironically, Beijing needs this not because of Taiwan itself --
over which it has no control -- but because new thinking on Taiwan calls
attention to the failure of Hong Kong. And that is something that simply cannot
be admitted.
Hong
Kong is ready for democracy By
Christine Loh Hong
Kong's residents used to be branded as "apolitical." But that
description hardly seems appropriate nowadays. Since turning out to rally in
record numbers on the anniversary of the handover to China in 2003, hundreds of
thousands of Hong Kong citizens have taken peacefully to the streets on various
occasions to protest government decisions and demand political reform. But
China's government continues to claim that Hong Kong's people are not ready for
democracy. In April, China's legislators ruled out universal suffrage in Hong
Kong's 2007 election of its chief executive, as well as for its 2008 Legislative
Council election. They acknowledged that under the city's special constitution,
the Basic Law, these elections could be the first opportunities for the
territory to choose its representatives according to the principle of "one
person, one vote." But they expressed concern that major reform could
undermine political stability and economic development. Currently,
all eyes in China are on Hong Kong's upcoming legislative election on September
12, which will indicate to Hong Kong's government and to China's leaders what
people think about the pace and direction of reform. A high turnout in favor of
pro-democracy candidates is expected, although this won't guarantee them a
majority in the legislature because of Hong Kong's unusual political structure.
For this month's election, Hong Kong's 3.2 million registered voters can elect
only 30 of the 60 seats. The
pro-democracy camp is likely to win 22 seats of those 30 seats, which are based
on five large geographical constituencies. The other 30 seats, however, are
chosen through functional constituencies, which represent specific interests,
such as banks, insurance companies, stockbrokers, chambers of commerce and
transport operators. Only 199,000 voters, some of them representatives from
corporations, elect the legislators who fill these seats. Some
of these constituencies have only a few hundred voters and are easily controlled
by a small number of vested interests. Indeed, at the close of nominations on
August 4, eleven functional candidates were chosen without opposition, including
those representing banks and the Chinese chamber of commerce. The
British and Chinese governments in the 1980s designed Hong Kong's awkward
political system during their negotiations over the eventual transfer of
sovereignty. Its purpose was to ensure that the will of the public could not be
fully expressed through the ballot box. After
1997, Hong Kong's government made doubly sure that legislators' already limited
powers to initiate debates, legislation and amendments to laws were further
restricted. It imposed rules requiring majority support from members of
functional constituencies as well as geographic constituencies to take such
steps. So
resistance to change is built into the system. If the government can influence
16 of the 30 functional votes, it can thwart proposals from the directly elected
legislators. This has happened with controversial issues concerning political
reform and government accountability in recent years. Yet
no one should forget that on July 1 last year, over 500,000 people protested
because the government refused to allow more time to discuss proposed national
security legislation. Hong Kong's government felt it could ignore public opinion
and push the bill through with a large majority of the functional members, plus
a handful of directly elected pro-government legislators. It only backed down
when the pro-government Liberal Party, which held a number of functional seats,
broke ranks as a result of the intense public pressure. The
Civic Exchange-Hong Kong Transition Project's survey results from early August
recorded a sharp upturn in public protests over the past year. It noted that
people increasingly adopted informal means of showing unhappiness with Hong
Kong's government because they didn't think formal channels were sufficient.
People began taking matters into their own hands by attending rallies, signing
petitions and donating to political parties and activist groups in unprecedented
numbers. The
survey also showed that although China's government ruled out universal suffrage
in the 2007 and 2008 elections, over 40 percent of respondents still wanted
democracy by then, with nearly 20 percent more wanting it by the next round of
elections in 2011 and 2012. Furthermore, the majority did not think
democratization would hurt the economy, although there were clear concerns that
political instability could arise from China's intervention in Hong Kong
affairs. China's
government may well adopt a new Hong Kong policy after the election. The best
case would be if China agreed to universal suffrage no later than the 2011 and
2012 elections, gaining legitimacy in Hong Kong by backing reform of the
political system. While China's rulers may fear losing control, they also need
to recognize that the current system is causing intense discontent. The
worst case would be if China disregarded a decisive pro-democracy win in 2007
and 2008 and continued to insist that Hong Kong's people were unready for
democracy or to allege foreign manipulation of the pro-democracy camp. Hong
Kong's people may well conclude that they have no alternative but to use every
occasion to protest chief executive Tung Chee-hwa's unpopular government, making
it even harder for him to govern. Christine
Loh was a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council. copyright: project
syndicate
Shallow
knowledge not the answer By
Chen Meei-shia Recently,
a survey was published that showed that the international knowledge of young
Taiwanese is not up to scratch. Although
currently overseas, my heart is bound to Taiwan and I cannot help commenting on
this finding. Imagine that Taiwan's youth had achieved a higher score for their
international knowledge, and knew the location of the Olympic host Greece, the
capital of the US and the name of the premier of Japan. Would that help solve
the nation's many social problems?
Taiwan
certainly needs an international outlook. But it doesn't need a superficial one,
consisting of knowing the geographical location of every country, what their
capitals are or who their presidents or prime ministers are. What Taiwan needs
is people with global thinking that is rooted in Taiwanese society -- paying
close attention to social sentiment, speaking up for the disadvantaged and
taking local action to improve society. A
week or so ago, I attended the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological
Association (ASA) in San Francisco. The speakers included former president of
Ireland Mary Robinson, who is sparing no effort to bring human rights to people
in every nation; former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the
founder of an influential development theory, who currently leads a project to
bring together non-governmental organizations from around the world to
participate in UN activities; and Arundhati Roy, a well known writer and social
activist who is involved in India's anti-reservoir movement and speaks up for
the most disadvantaged groups. Although these public intellectuals come from
different countries, and although they talk about different issues, they have
one thing in common: They are all concerned and engaged with the problems facing
the societies in which they live.They take a bird's-eye, international view when
analyzing these problems, and they are all involved in local activities aimed at
resolving them. The
main problems facing each and every nation are the growing gap between rich and
poor; rising unemployment; falling public expenditure as the growing numbers of
poor and unemployed need protection by the state; serious threats to human
rights, including the rights to health, education, employment, political and
civic rights, and other economic, social and cultural rights; and far-reaching
environmental destruction. Many public intellectuals have reached a consensus:
behind these serious social problems facing every country there seems to exist a
fundamental culprit -- the neoliberalism that began sweeping the world in the
1980s, and the unrestricted free markets, commoditization and rampant
globalization of capital initiated by this intellectual trend. Taiwan,
like many countries, did not resist the global trend towards neoliberalism. In
the late 1980s it began moving toward marketization, commoditization and
privatization. As a result, Taiwan, like other countries, saw a worsening of
social problems. The rich-poor gap increased: In the 1990s, the incomes of the
richest 10 percent of households was 10 times higher than that of the poorest 10
percent, while today, a decade later, the difference has increased to 70 times.
Unemployment figures increased from about one percent in the 1980s to five
percent in 2003; public expenditure diminished, government organizations were
streamlined, social welfare expenditure dropped sharply, the public health
system deteriorated and the medical care system was thoroughly commercialized.
The public's rights to health, education and employment came under threat --
especially those of disadvantaged groups. Environmental destruction led to
landslides and worsening pollution. The
fact that the international outlook of Taiwan's young was found wanting is cause
for some worry. But more importantly, if the young do not concern themselves
with the social problems that have long plagued Taiwanese society, if they do
not understand how to apply an international outlook to address the difficult
situation facing Taiwan's disadvantaged groups, and if they are unwilling to get
involved to solve these problems, then they will be unable to reform and improve
Taiwanese society -- no matter how many foreign capitals they've memorized. Chen
Meei-shia is director of the department of public health at National Cheng Kung
University. Translated
by Perry Svensson
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