Governments must talk, survey says

CROSS-STRAIT: Taiwan's people feel that talks with Beijing on affairs across the Strait should be held by the government, a survey found, rather than by any private group

BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN

STAFF REPORTER

The latest government survey on cross-strait negotiations showed that 58.8 percent of respondents wanted talks to be conducted by the government rather than private groups appointed by the Chinese government.

In addition, 76.2 percent of respondents thought that the Chinese government's demand to designate the Taiwanese groups they would negotiate with was beyond all reason, and 51.5 percent of the respondents didn't think that China was willing to negotiate sincerely with Taiwan.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday announced the results of the routine survey, entitled "The Public's Views on Current Cross-Strait Relations," conducted by the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University.

Although the opposition parties and some private groups have been actively engaged in cross-strait interactions -- like negotiating issues such as the fruit trade and cargo charter flights with Chinese authorities -- the survey showed that most respondents were against these activi-ties, You Ying-lung, MAC vice chairman, said.

The poll was conducted from Aug. 26 to Aug. 28, through a telephone survey of Taiwanese citizens over the age of 20. A total of 1,096 valid samples were collected. With a 95 percent rate of reliability, sampling error was approximately 2.96 percent.

Regarding cross-strait security issues, 63.1 percent of respondents thought that the expansion of the Chinese military posed a threat to its neighbors.

The survey also showed that 87.7 percent of respondents supported President Chen Shui-bian's proposal to establish a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions to build consensus and for the welfare of the people on both sides of the Strait, You said.

According to the survey, the people's thoughts on the issue of reunification with China or independence remained at almost the same level as before -- with 84.8 percent of respondents supporting maintaining the status quo.

Among these, respondents supporting "maintaining the status quo and deciding on independence or unification later depending on the circumstances" made up the largest proportion (40.5 percent), which is consistent with the trend in previous surveys.

As for the pace of relaxation of cross-Strait civilian exchanges, 34.1 percent of the respondents said that it was "just right," a decrease of 6.1 percent from a survey conducted in May. In addi-tion, 25.1 percent of respondents thought the pace was "too slow" while 25 percent thought it was "too fast."

Lies, damned lies and KMT `truths'

Thursday's comments by the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) legislative caucus cause a severe philosophical headache. There are, proverbially, three categories of untruth: lies, damned lies and statistics. The KMT's manipulation of the the results of last year's referendum on the purchase of anti-missile technology involves the misuse of statistics to disseminate damned lies. So into which category does it fall, or is there a whole fourth category of untruth of its own: KMT statements?

The KMT's argument is that the proposal to purchase PAC-3 missile batteries was defeated in the referendum and according to the Referendum Law (公投法) the issue cannot be put before the people again until 2007, so a fortiori a budget for the purchase of the weapons cannot be passed.

This is not just rubbish of the sort we expect from this source, it is a dangerous lie that is making every single resident of Taiwan significantly more unsafe for longer than they need to be by delaying weapons purchases essential for the nation's defense. Let us be clear: For all of the perhaps frivolous language, this is absolutely no laughing matter.

So what is the truth? In March last year, 7.5 million people voted in the referendum -- 92 percent of which voted for the arms purchases, while 8 percent voted against. The referendum was not, however, considered to have passed because the law requires that more than 50 percent of eligible voters agree to the proposal. This meant that for a referendum to be considered a valid test of public opinion, half of Taiwan's 16 million eligible voters would have to vote either yes or no. Not only did not enough people support either outcome, not enough voted to even make a valid decision possible.

It should be remembered that this was a deliberate strategy of the pan-blue camp. Having been outfoxed by the government over the holding of the referendum in the first place, it encouraged its supporters not to vote in the referendum in order to ensure that the referendum simply failed to produce a result.

It takes an astonishing twisting of the truth therefore to come to the KMT's present position that the vote on the missiles was "defeated" in the referendum. For it to have been defeated, about 8 million people would have had to vote no. How many people did vote no? Some 581,000.

The KMT has deliberately tried to confuse two issues: the referendum's failing to be valid and the defeat of the referendum proposal.

Since the referendum was not valid, it cannot bind the government to any policy in any way. If the KMT wants to think of the referendum as valid after all, then it appears that Taiwanese who care about the issue overwhelmingly want the anti-missile weapons. We could argue that those who didn't vote simply don't care. The pan-blues might call this intellectually dishonest, to which we could cynically reply that "what's sauce for the goose ...." But of course we don't have to.

The referendum was not valid. This is a fact, not a piece of politically motivated obfuscation. An invalid referendum, just like a law that fails to pass, binds nobody's hands.

We could of course add that the referendum was on the topic of the purchase of more anti-missile weapons, and point out that those under current consideration had been requested and approved long before the referendum by the KMT itself. But comparing the KMT in the days of former president Lee Teng-hui with the bunch of sniveling scumbags on China's payroll today is a futile exercise.

What matters is this: Taiwan is in grave danger because its legislature is controlled by a group working in the interests of its enemy. It is as if al-Qaeda controlled the US Congress. The question is: What are patriotic Taiwanese, desperate to save their country, going to do about this?

China's "truths" are just more lies

By Paul Lin

On Sept. 1, the Xinhua news agency published excerpts from a white paper on the government's policies and positions on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. The aim was to create an image of Chinese President Hu Jintao as an "angel of peace" prior to his planned North American trip.

China rushed out the report in response to the threat to use nuclear missiles against the US in mid-July made by Major General Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎), as well as the Pentagon's annual report on China's military power, both which had led to more talk about the "Chinese threat."

Before discussing this issue, it is necessary to clarify a sentence in the white paper -- "China's national defense budget has been reviewed and approved by the National People's Congress, and it is both public and transparent."

According to the "Report regarding the implementation of the 2004 budgets for the central and local governments and the draft 2005 budgets for the central and local governments," this year's defense budget says: "To improve the ability of our military to use advanced technology in defensive warfare, respond to sudden incidents and protect our national sovereignty and territorial integrity, 244.656 billion yuan [US$30.3 billion] has been allotted to national defense, an increase of 12.6 percent over last year." Given only this figure and ignoring the rest because they are "military secrets," the congress passed the budget.

Is this what they mean by "public and transparent?" Basing the report on such a lie also makes the whole report a lie.

The white paper's first topic is an explanation of China's nuclear-arms policy. It reiterates the claim that China will not be the first to use nuclear arms. Repeating it 100 times, however, would still be useless, since Beijing hasn't punished Zhu for airing an opinion that violates government policy. If Zhu did not violate discipline, then the white paper is a big lie.

The second topic deals with biological weapons. The white paper states that China respects its obligations under international treaties, but it doesn't deny that it is conducting research into such weapons. The reason this topic is discussed is that there have been outbreaks of strange diseases in recent years, raising suspicions that these stem from viruses developed in biological warfare-related research. The outbreaks have been classified as national secrets. Leaking any details about them is banned. Why the ban if these are not military secrets?

The third topic deals with "preventative" policies. Last year, Chinese submarines went as far as Guam for "preventative" purposes. During the recent Sino-Russian military exercise, Russia used long-distance bombers that China is considering purchasing. It might get both technology and patents, allowing it to build its own planes. These aircraft can fly 5,700km without refueling, which is more than the distance from the China's coast to the west coast of the US. If China builds these planes, we can only wonder where it plans to drop its bombs.

The fourth topic is troop reduction and maintaining a low level of defense spending. The two issues are lumped together to show that increased military expenditure is largely due to improving the welfare and pay of military personnel. The size of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been almost halved since 1985. But since 1989, China's defense expenditures have increased by two-digit figures annually.

If the above were true, PLA personnel would be very well-off, so it is odd that veterans have made so many appeals for better treatment that Beijing had to ban further appeals. It is evident that all the increased defense spending has gone toward purchasing weapons or been embezzled. In any case, it is widely accepted that China's actual military expenditure is three times the stated amount.

Fifth, China claims that it has been active in international non-proliferation efforts. Not true. Nuclear and missile technology in North Korea, Iran and Pakistan can all be linked to China's weapons proliferation. Last October, the Sinopec Group signed an oil-gas agreement with Iran in exchange for closer military ties.

The white paper also makes threats against other nations. It says "China does not wish to see a missile-defense system produce a negative impact on global strategic stability." It also says "As the Taiwan question involves its core interests, China opposes the attempt by any country to provide help or protection to the Taiwan region of China in the field of missile defense by any means."

China does not explain what it means by "core interests" but clearly this is a reference to the interests of the senior leadership.

All this proves that China is no more than a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in New York.