The arms deal on Oct 23, 2004

Submarine cost threatens to sink weaponry budget

POLITICAL FOOTBALL: The cost of eight diesel subs has become a easy target for opposition legislators to their campaigns for the December elections upon

By Debby Wu
STAFF REPORTER 

The NT$610.8 billion arms deal with the US is no longer about Taiwan's military needs -- it has become a political football for lawmakers to use as they seek an edge in the December legislative elections.

The astronomical amount the government wants to spend is to purchase three types of weapons: diesel submarines, P-3C maritime patrol aircraft and Patriot anti-missile systems.

While the airplanes and the missiles have not raised much of a fuss, the lawmakers from different camps have been arguing about the subs.

Consequently, the Ministry of National Defense and Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers have conceded that it's possible the budget could be cut by NT$100 billion if the submarines were not assembled here. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng expressed a similar opinion after he led a group of lawmakers to the US in June to discuss the arms deal.

Wang has also made it clear that before the budget can be approved by the legislature, the statute governing the arms deal has to be passed by the legislature first.

"We can count on the statute being delivered to the related committees for review before the legislative election, since all sides have agreed to that," Wang, also a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) vice chairman, said yesterday.

Wang has repeatedly said as much during the past few weeks. He has also said that the passing the budget would have to wait till after the election.

The ministry sent both the statute and the budget to the legislature at the end of the last legislative session, but the statute is stalled in the Procedure Committee because of strong opposition to it from the pan-blue camp.

The situation got even more complicated as the People First Party (PFP) caucus proposed its own version of the statute two weeks ago, which stipulated that the budget can only prepared within the regular annual budget.

Instead of discussing and debating the arms deal in a professional manner in the National Defense Committee or in the plenary sitting, the lawmakers are trying to reduce the complicated issue into simple black and white soundbites in a bid to attract voter support.

CAMPAIGN TOPIC

For example, DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung and PFP Legislator Lin Yu-fang, the two on the National Defense Com-mittee who have spoken most frequently on the arms deal, have produced their campaign materials based on their arms-deal platforms.

While Lee outlines the reasons why Taiwan needs the new wea-pons and highlights his efforts to push the deal through in a campaign brochure, Lin is appealing to voters by using "Say no to the NT$610.8 billion arm deal" as his campaign slogan.

But at the same time, questions were raised about the opposition's seriousness in blocking the procurement budget after the National Defense Committee rushed through next year's annual national defense budget -- worth more than NT$ 200 billion -- in just 17 minutes this week.

The smooth passage of that bill was a result of the absence of opposition lawmakers. The meeting was only attended by the commit-tee's chairman for the week, PFP Legislator Nelson Ku, Lee and DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-fang.

Since the annual budget was passed the media have slammed opposition lawmakers for neglecting their duties and questioning their intentions on the arms deal given that they didn't even bother to review the annual budget.

As usual, the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) have united on the arms deal, although the DPP is feeling the heat much more as the governing party while the TSU has focused its election campaign platform more on the efforts to write a new constitution and name ratification.

GREENS UNITED

The DPP caucus has made it very clear that now the arms deal is key to the election.

"Now we are using it as an election issue and seeking public support to back us up," said DPP caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang.

Lee, the DPP caucus' unofficial spokesman on the arms deal issue, agrees with Tsai.

"The more we lose in the legislature, the more we will score with the public. If the statute is not approved before the legislative election, I believe it will be a help to our campaigns," Lee said.

Lee said the pan-blue's opposition to the arms deal, coincidentally or not, matches China's expectations, for Beijing is the main critic of the deal.

"But at the same time, the government needs to explain clearly and in detail to the public why we need to spend so much money on these weapons, otherwise the public may be reluctant to support the sky-high expense," Lee said.

Lee attacked the pan-blue camp's about face on arms purchases.

"The proposal to purchase all three weapon systems was proposed and okayed by the KMT government. That government decided to buy the submarines in 1995, the anti-submarine aircraft in 1997 and the Patriot anti-missile systems in 1998," Lee said.

Lee pointed out that KMT Chairman Lien Chan was premier and Nelson Ku was the chief of the navy when the government decided to buy the submarines, and Lien was the premier who signed off on the aircraft purchase.

Lien has also come under attack from President Chen Shui-bian on the same grounds.

The TSU, out of concern for national security, has given its support to the arms deal without fussing about the cost.

"Only by having a strong national defense as backup can we have enough chips to negotiate with China," said TSU caucus whip Huang Chung-yuan.

"The top priority now is to buy the best weapons available to protect our homeland. The price is not the issue here. We cannot simply measure the arms deal by the price," Huang said.

But the TSU is not particularly eager to appeal to the public during the legislative campaign over the arms-deal issue.

"The arms deal is not the TSU's main election focus," said TSU caucus whip Chen Chien-ming.

PURE BLUE OPPOSITION

The cooperative effort on the part of the KMT and PFP caucuses in blocking discussion of the arms-deal statute in the Procedure Committee has made the public consider them to be on the same side, but there are subtle differences in the two caucuses' stances.

Wang has repeated several times in the past few weeks that he would help push the statute through the Procedure Committee and allow the statute to be delivered to the related committee for review before the legislative election.

Since Wang has made such a clear promise, the KMT caucus, although often sounding as if it is opposed to the deal, has taken an ambiguous attitude toward it. This ambivalence might be caused by Lien's role in the initial arms requests.

"We have not formed an opinion about whether to allow the statute to pass through the Procedure Committee or not before the election," KMT caucus whip Huang Teh-fu said, even though the current legislative session will soon be suspended for a month ahead of the elections.

Wang has hinted that it would be easier for the legislature to discuss the arms deal the elections.

Although Wang said that all sides agreed to have the Procedure Committee pass the statute before the election, the PFP's attitude remains doubtful.

The PFP played a key role in blocking the statute and the budget plan, but its caucus whip, Liu Wen-hsiung, said the party was not opposed to weapon purchases.

"Elections are all about votes, and since the polls show that a certain amount of the voters do not support the arms deal, the PFP has found this to be a good election issue," Liu said. "Further, it is also the lawmakers' duty to review the budget carefully."

"We are not opposed to building a stronger national defense and buying weapons. We are just opposing to arms deals that waste the taxpayers' money," Liu said.

Another PFP legislator pointed out that adopting an anti-arms deal strategy would help with the election campaign, but the legislator admitted that rushing the national defense budget through the committee this week hurt the opposition because it could cause the public to doubt how genuine they are about blocking the deal.

Meanwhile, the PFP's Lin is still raising complaints about the budget plan.

"The defense ministry now says the submarines will not be assembled locally, yet the budget plan still includes the cost of local assembly. If the ministry wants the legislature to review the budget plan, they should prepare a new plan that includes the cost of overseas assembly first," he said.

Lin said he didn't object to the notion of reviewing the statute before the election. But since the time is getting short, he said, it would be best if Wang could convene an inter-party negotiation to push the statute through the Procedure Committee before the election.

Living in a glass house

I wish Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou would get off of his English usage bandwagon. I mean, I'll acknowledge that Ma probably has a better command of the English language than the average pre-schooler in Taiwan, but he can hardly pass for a native speaker of English (I've heard him speak at Stanford before).

Nor, quite frankly, can Ma really pass himself off with native fluency in written English. After all, this was a man who boasts in his Taipei City government Web site biography of his experience as a lawyer in the US, working for "Wall Street law firms." However, the reader should note at this point that Ma is not said to have passed a bar exam in New York (or any other US state for that matter), nor is he described as a member of any bar association in the US. As a lawyer myself, I know that if you are not qualified as a lawyer through passing a bar exam, it's pretty pointless to talk about which firm you worked for.

But before the pan-blues construe this as personal attack on Ma, I just want to remind Ma (and the blues), that he who lives in a glass house ought not to throw stones. By that, I mean that if Ma wants to criticize the education ministry for its English skills, he ought to make sure that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has an impeccable command of English. A quick trip to the KMT Web site, however, shows otherwise.

Let's just count the mistakes on the KMT's English-language Web site. The first thing I noticed on the site was the following paragraph:

Instead of trying to make amends, the DPP recently coined campaign slogans ("he R.O.C. does not exist", or "pushing for a new Taiwanese Constitution".

I guess the KMT and Ma meant to use "the" instead of "he," and generally in English (or Chinese for that matter), an open parenthesis has to end with a closed one. That's two simple mistakes. Next:

Whie will rebuild the morale of civil servants and return to them their self-respect, which was trampled on by the DPP.

I have no idea what a "Whie" is. Is that some new KMT moniker? How about this:

Overcoming the vilification of the KMT by DPP Public Relations (campaign). indispensable tool in democratic politics.

Seems to me there is an incomplete sentence here.

However, we should not con- fuse the will of the people with meaningless calls for reform and political expediency.

I don't know about you, but I am confused by their "con-fused." Did a convict ("con" is the slang for convict) fuse the will of the people?

Those are just five mistakes I found on a couple of Web pages run by the KMT, and these are apparently final work products. My point isn't to harp on the KMT's poor English, but merely to point out that mistakes happen whenever someone puts a pen to paper. Typos, bad grammar, etc are an inseparable part of writing.

There are probably loads of errors in my letter. [Editor's note: There were, indeed, numerous spelling and grammatical errors in this letter. Hopefully most of these have been corrected in the editing process.] But, what's the big deal? Does it mean that I am an uneducated fool? Not really. Unlike Ma, I hold an engineering degree from West Point and a real law degree from Stanford, ie, a Juris Doctor as opposed to Ma's SJD (or JSD, whatever they call it these days).

So the educational ministry had a couple of errors on a draft of their treaty with Palau? Does that mean Taiwan is about to fall into an educational abyss? Not likely, Ma. If we apply this logic, then the KMT -- considering the errors on its Web site -- isn't fit to govern or deal with foreign dignitaries. So relax, Ma, and stop worrying about other people's English skills.

Instead, start worrying about your -- and your party's -- own.

Ryan Shih   New York

Powell visit no cause for panic

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is set to discuss Taiwan's arms procurement plan with China when visiting Beijing next week. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Zhang Qiyue confirmed that Beijing and Washington will talk about the US-Taiwan arms deal, the cancellation of Taiwan-US military exchanges and the Taiwan independence issue. Her words have caused a commotion in Taiwan's media. Independent Legislator Sisy Chen even said the US will soon scrap its arms deal with Taiwan.

But if we study the situation carefully, it's clear that the US only says that it expects to have a chance to respond to the issue regarding the proposed arms deal. In other words, Washington's position will be "passive." This stance is completely different from taking the initiative to discuss it, and the pan-blue camp is in fact creating trouble for itself by sensationalizing the issue.

When the US signed the Aug. 17, 1982 Communique with China in 1982, the former proposed "Six Assurances" to Taiwan, which clearly state that "the US would not consult with China in advance before making decisions about US arms sales to Taiwan." If Washington were to take the initiative to discuss arms sales with Beijing, it would break its commitment to help safeguard Taiwan, and so depart from its Taiwan policy. The situation would then be quite serious.

However, we should not be surprised if Washington merely responds to the issue raised by Beijing. China has always taken the initiative in bringing up the issue during talks in the past. The US has always responded by upholding the contents of the three joint communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). They have even gone farther, saying that Beijing's expanding ballistic missile deployment against Taiwan will not improve cross-strait relations.

When meeting with US President George W. Bush, then Central Military Commission chairman Jiang Zemin suggested that China would withdraw its missiles aimed at Taiwan in exchange for the cancellation of US weapons sales to Taiwan. The problem is that if Beijing continues to expand its military to change the power balance between the two sides of the Strait, Taipei will be forced to constantly improve its defense capability. The root of this vicious circle is China, not Taiwan.

In any talks on the cross-strait situation by senior officials of the US and China, the Chinese are bound to restate the "one China" principle, and the US, in addition to restating their adherence to the three joint communiques and the TRA, will at most add that the US does not support Taiwan independence.

Chen offered an olive branch to China during his Double Ten National Day speech, and the US regards that speech and Chen's inauguration address on May 20 as being creative and constructive. Because of this, it is likely that the US will encourage cross-strait talks, suggesting to Beijing that this is a good opportunity to resume negotiations. But the US is unlikely to become directly involved in any such negotiations.

Until now, the greatest obstacle to cross-strait talks has been Beijing's insistence that Taiwan accept the "one China" principle as a precondition. If the US can convince China to drop this condition and engage in negotiations on terms of equality and mutual respect, then the two sides may be able to move ahead with talks on economic and cultural matters. Only by developing a degree of mutual trust in this way will we be able to chart a course toward cross-strait security.

Powell's decision to visit Japan, China and South Korea on the eve of the US election is clearly aimed at achieving various diplomatic and domestic political goals. Although Taiwan needs to keep a close eye on Sino-US relations, and take precautions against the US sacrificing Taiwan to win China's cooperation for its own advantage, we should watch developments calmly, avoiding reading too much into any given situation and frightening ourselves as a result.

How China missed the window of opportunity

By Liu Kuan-teh

Despite high praise for President Chen Shui-bian's National Day address from the US and Japan, China poured cold water on his gesture toward cross-strait reconciliation once again, and labeled his call for a resumption of bilateral talks as nothing but a blatant assertion of Taiwan independence and a serious provocation of cross-strait tensions.

Intentionally overlooking Chen's suggestion to initiate confidence building measures to minimize cross-strait tensions -- including establishing an arms control mechanism and a "code of conduct across the Taiwan Strait" to reduce miscalculations -- China distracted public attention away from such pragmatic and strategic thinking about the sovereignty issue as a way to invalidate Chen's proposals.

Instead, the spokesman of China's Taiwan Affairs Office Zhang Mingqing decried Chen's proposal that cross-strait negotiations should resume on "the basis of the 1992 meeting in Hong Kong." Beijing insisted that cross-trait talks would be possible only when Taiwan recognizes the "1992 consensus" and unilaterally accepts the "one China" framework.

Regretfully, this is not the first time that Beijing has sabotaged Chen's conciliatory gestures. Starting with his first inaugural address in 2000, Chen has consistently offered olive branches to his counterparts across the Strait. Not only has Chen agreed to discuss the question of a "future China" with Beijing, he has also proposed a model for "political integration" with China. On several occasions, he invited Chinese leaders to sit down -- in any place and at any time -- to straighten out mutual disputes.

China's downplaying of Chen's moderate gesture entails both domestic and external concerns. After successfully transferring power from the old generation to the so-called "fourth generation" of leaders, it is imperative for Chinese President Hu Jintao to consolidate his power base by appealing to nationalism. By characterizing Chen and his government as hardcore separatists and independence advocates, Hu can strengthen his leadership and quiet Taiwan's unilateral pursuit of independent sovereignty.

Externally, Beijing has never given up its strategy of trying to take advantage of Taiwan's post-election political "turmoil" as a grounds for Beijing to "step in" and interfere with Taiwan's domestic affairs. Unless the pan-green camp can secure a majority after the December legislative elections, the chances for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to re-engage in mutual dialogue remain slim.

The question is, can Beijing maintain its policy of no contact with the Chen administration for the next four years? More importantly, can China put all its money on a resurgence of the pan-blues, without recognizing the "Taiwan consciousness?" Is time really on China's side?

The best scenario for restarting cross-strait contacts, under the current circumstances, is for the pan-green camp to win over half the seats in the legislature. With renewed public endorsement, the Chen administration will have more leeway to initiate cross-strait normalization. However, it takes two to tango. Were the pan-greens to succeed during the upcoming legislative elections, Beijing should relinquish its outdated strategy of trying to separate the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government from the Taiwanese public.

Moreover, international forces, led by the US, should accelerate their role in facilitating cross-strait talks. More should be done to educate the Chinese leadership to respect the decisions made by the Taiwanese people through democratic mechanisms and accept the offer that was presented by the DPP government to establish a peaceful and stable cross-strait relationship.

Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.

Lee attacks 'pro-China` forces in fundraising speech

By Mac William Bishop
STAFF REPORTER
 

Former president Lee Teng-hui said it was time to destroy "pro-China forces" in Taiwan and create a "new state" during a speech delivered at a Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) fundraising event last night in Taipei.

Speaking before a crowd of approximately 1,800 TSU supporters, the former president said that the December legislative elections would be a decisive step forward for the nation.

There are three tasks that remain unfulfilled before Taiwan can "stand up," Lee said. The first is to elect a pan-green legislative majority. The second is to create a new constitution for Taiwan, and the third is to make "a new state," Lee said.

Delivering a ten-minute speech in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), the former president lauded the progress made in creating a "Taiwan-centric consciousness," and said that this election would mark a key turning point in the nation's development as a democratic state.

The purpose of the legislative elections is to ensure that the "pro-China forces do not subjugate Taiwan back into the cross-strait framework of the `one China' policy."

"But the pro-China forces will not give up easily," the former president added.

The former president's speech was followed by a presentation lauding the achievements of the Lee Teng-hui School, a group the former president uses as a vehicle to perpetuate his political ideology.

The fundraiser also included performances by singers and dancing groups, as well as an art auction designed to raise funds for the TSU's legislative election campaign.

The event, held at Taipei's Grand Hotel, was attended by numerous pan-green heavyweights, including TSU Chairman Huang Chu-wen and National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Parris Chang.