Toxic dust
storm hits South Korea
AGENCIES, SEOUL
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008, Page 1
South Korea closed schools yesterday and its factories producing memory chips
stepped up safeguards as a choking pall of sand mixed with toxic dust from China
covered most of the country and other parts of Asia.
The annual "yellow dust" spring storms, which originate in the Gobi Desert in
China before sweeping south to envelop the Korean Peninsula and parts of Japan,
are blamed for scores of deaths and billions of dollars in damage every year in
South Korea.
Seoul issued a yellow dust warning at the weekend. Yesterday, school districts
in southeastern regions urged parents to keep kindergarten and elementary school
children at home.
"We advised the closure because kindergarten, primary school students have
weaker immune systems," said Min Eyu-gi, an education official in Busan.
An official with the Meteorological Administration said the first major storm of
the season, which has also hit parts of Japan, was dissipating.
But forecasts from China said cold air and little rainfall would lead to more
storms from tomorrow through next Tuesday, Xinhua news agency reported.
Taiwan mostly avoided the toxic clouds, but skies in Taipei yesterday were
overcast, with the government telling people to wear surgical masks and avoid
exercising outdoors.
In Japan, car drivers and train operators were asked to be on alert because the
sandstorms had greatly reduced visibility.
Japanese Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita recently called on Beijing to
disclose data on the yellow sand.
"About yellow sand, I am not quite sure how and why it can be regarded as a
national secret," Kamoshita told a press conference last month.
"Air is connected beyond national borders and yellow sand travels beyond
borders. I think it is important we share information," he said.
The sand storms have increased in frequency and toxicity over the years because
of China's rapid economic growth and have added to growing tensions with its
neighbors South Korea and Japan.
The dust picks up heavy metals and carcinogens, such as dioxin, as it passes
over Chinese industrial regions, before hitting North and South Korea and Japan,
meteorologists say.
Dry weather and seasonal winds in China hurl millions of tonnes of sand at the
Korean Peninsula and Japan from late February through April or May, turning the
skies to a jaundiced hue.
The state-sponsored Korea Environment Institute said the dust kills up to 165
South Koreans a year, mostly the elderly or those with respiratory ailments and
makes as many as 1.8 million ill.
Annual economic damage to South Korea from the storms is estimated at up to 5.5
trillion won (US$5.82 billion), the institute said.
Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world's second-largest maker of memory chips, said
it had stepped up its filtration systems and made employees take longer air
showers to make sure the dust does not contaminate its production lines and
damage chips, which are made using technology that operates on a microscopic
level.
South Korean retailers, however, have spotted an opportunity, offering special
scarves, hats and other accessories for the yellow dust season.
Chen says
Taiwan will never reverse its democratic path
By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008, Page 3
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that the only way forward for
Taiwan is to uphold Taiwan-centered consciousness and social justice, and that
no matter who wins the presidential election, Taiwan will never reverse its
democratic course.
"Over the past eight years, we insisted on Taiwan-centered consciousness and
have upheld social justice. It is the right way to go and I never regretted it,"
he said. "I believe the next president will go down the same path."
Chen declined to grade himself on his performance during his eight years in
office, saying that there were many things that he did not do or did not do well
enough.
"I need to examine myself for not standing firm on certain issues and am willing
to apologize for any deficiency," he said. "I welcome criticism if I did not do
enough, but as president, I did not betray my conscience."
Chen made the remarks during an interview with the Public Television Service
that was broadcast last night.
When asked what advice he would give his successor, Chen said the new president
must realize that China's suppression of Taiwan will persist, no matter who is
in power.
"My experience over the past eight years tells me that we must insist that we
are a sovereign state, that we are not part of China or its local government,"
he said, adding that Beijing will only intensify its suppression of Taiwan.
It is a "political joke" to claim that the territorial sovereignty covers China
and Outer Mongolia, Chen said, because the Republic of China (ROC) today is very
different from that of the past.
Beijing's argument that Taiwan is a province of the People's Republic of China (PRC)
is unacceptable, he said. Without sovereignty, Taiwan will not have any
diplomacy, he said.
Chen said Taiwan's democracy was the best theater missile defense and democracy
means only the 23 million people of Taiwan have a say on Taiwan's future.
Saying a referendum is democracy in action, Chen urged the public to support the
referendum proposal seeking UN membership under the name "Taiwan." Beijing and
the Chinese Communist Party will be happiest if neither of the two referendum
proposals on UN membership succeed, he said.
"No matter who you support, the pan-blue or the pan-green camp, Democratic
Progressive Party [DPP] presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) or the Chinese
Nationalist Party's [KMT] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), you must support Taiwan," he said.
"The two referendums are as important as the presidential contest, but, if
pressed, I would say the success of the two referendums is more important."
As for the DPP's relationship with the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), Chen said
the DPP and TSU must bury their grudges and move on. With a pan-blue legislative
majority, Chen said he was worried that those who cannot have their voices heard
in the legislature would take to the streets and appeal directly to the people.
The KMT is
killing national defense
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008, Page 8
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has struck again. After years of
successfully blocking arms appropriation bills in the legislature, the party has
now managed to shoot down, before it could even take off, a venture that could
have been of tremendous benefit to the nation's ability to defend itself.
As this newspaper has argued before, Taiwan Goal, the semi-private arms
manufacturer at the heart of a recent controversy, could have provided the
military with the means to develop weapons systems that would have best suited
the nation's defense needs and allow it to circumvent many of the barriers to
procurement that the nation faces because of its international isolation.
But as a result of the KMT's smear campaign and threat to launch an
investigation should the company not be disbanded, that project is now dead.
This raises a number of issues about KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's
(馬英九) promise, made in his speech before the Association for the Promotion of
National Security last month, to strengthen the nation's deterrence
capabilities.
First, Ma argues that the "offensive defense" philosophy espoused by the
Democratic Progressive Party administration -- in which, rather than taking
place on Taiwan proper, battle is pushed "offshore" -- is counterproductive. Ma
says that the KMT would instead work to strengthen the nation's command,
control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance (C4ISR) capabilities to ensure that a first strike would not
cripple Taiwan's ability to defend itself.
While strengthening one's defenses is a sound strategy, reliance on that alone
speaks of a lack of understanding of the concept of deterrence, which involves
the threat of force to dissuade an opponent from launching an attack in the
first place. This cannot exist if the strategy, as proposed by Ma, is one of
homeland defense alone. In other words, deterrence is the promise of punitive
action, not merely passive resistance. Security specialists are unanimous on
this point: Taking the fight "offshore" is the wisest course for Taiwan.
Second, Ma's defense plan reiterates the need to obtain F-16C/Ds to modernize
the Air Force. Again, this makes sense, but it is symptomatic of a policy of
reliance on US systems that will be costlier than one of indigenous or
semi-indigenous development. The dependence on US weapons is, at best, a
short-term palliative and drains national resources that could be better spent
elsewhere. One wonders, therefore, if the KMT perhaps does not stand to gain
from ensuring that Taiwan continues to buy weapons from the US alone.
Taiwan Goal, while no panacea, would have been a step in the right direction,
and unlike what some critics have argued, it would have tapped into the nation's
world-class private technology industries -- with or without help from the
government.
By shutting it down and by opposing a deterrence strategy, the KMT has
demonstrated a total ignorance of what the cost of a Chinese invasion would be
for Taiwan. By closing the door on new possibilities for weapons development and
acquisition, the KMT has revealed an inability to move beyond the unhealthy
reliance on the US as a patron for the nation's defenses, which also imposes a
needless financial burden on the taxpayer.
Such an approach to defense could only have been dreamed up by a party that does
not believe that China would resort to force to settle cross-strait tensions.
But as we saw from the manner in which Taipei's envoys to Seoul were treated
last week -- a delegation that included Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平)
of the KMT -- the pan-blue camp has a rare talent for misreading Beijing's
intentions.
There is
hope for Taiwan
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008, Page 8
I took part in the "Walk Against the Wind" on the last day. I was touched by the
support and I was filled with hope and love.
At the beginning of the walk, we received thousands of high-fives and cheers.
Many supporters said, "There is hope for Taiwan." With tears in their eyes, some
even prepared water and food for us. When my legs got tired, their support and
words made me carry on.
I come from Taipei, but after the election on Jan. 12, I lost hope for the city.
However, when we passed over the bridge between Taipei City and Taipei County, I
saw hundreds of people waiting for us under the bridge. I was so touched that my
eyes filled with tears. The most touching thing was, I bumped into my good
friend's father. He hugged me and I could not control myself, the tears poured
out. Many people supported us and as we slapped our hands together for
high-fives, we came together because of Taiwan.
At the Zhongshan Soccer Stadium that evening, thousands showed their support. We
bowed and thanked them. "Taiwan still has hope," I thought as I left the stage
in tears. Maybe the "Walk Against the Wind" is over, but its spirit will last
forever.
Chang Yi-hsin
Kaohsiung
A vote for
one man is a vote for the future
By Cao Changqing 曹長青
Tuesday, Mar 04, 2008, Page 8
Last Thursday, 100,000 people gathered at Taipei's Zhongshan Soccer Stadium to
commemorate the 228 Incident. The nature of the tragedy that took place 61 years
ago was two-fold: The Chiang family asserted its autocratic rule by means of a
massacre; and the alien regime used violence to destroy Taiwanese identity.
Therefore, commemorating the victims of the 228 Incident is an effort not only
to prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy but to improve the democratic system
and safeguard Taiwanese identity.
For Taiwanese, "identity" means that they have the right to decide what their
own culture and country are. But if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were to
stage a comeback in the presidential elections less than 20 days from now, it
would cast a shadow on democracy and damage Taiwanese identity.
First, now that the pan-blue political parties control three-quarters of the
legislative seats, if the KMT were to gain executive power, there would be no
system of checks and balances in the government. Taiwan would become a
single-party system and thus less democratic.
An example of this is Singapore, where the party of former prime minister Lee
Kwan Yew (李光耀), controls more than three-quarters of the legislative seats and
rules the city-state as a one-party authoritarian regime. Singapore was ranked
as "not free" in the Global Press Freedom 2007 report by the human-rights
organization Freedom House.
Such a situation is very rare in Western countries with mature democracies. If
we allow a political party that autocratically ruled Taiwan for half of a
century and now has close relations with rival China to completely control
Taiwan's political system, the consequences could be grim.
Also, the KMT candidates' plan for a common market with China comes down to
killing Taiwanese identity with soft measures, as opposed to oppressing it with
violence as in the 228 Incident. A common market is another path paving the way
for unification.
Because of the US, China cannot annex Taiwan by military means, so Beijing's
other is to engender economic and cultural unification. The common market policy
of KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his followers is exactly
what Beijing wants, because this allows the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to use
its tactics and to exercise influence in Taiwan under the guise of a common
market.
Chinese products, Chinese culture and Chinese ideology -- that is, chauvinism
with nationalism at the core -- will enter Taiwan, and the pan-blue camp will
chime in. The result could very well be the formation of a pro-unification
mentality that would eventually take Taiwan toward some form of unification. By
that time, even if Ma doesn't want unification, it might be hard to avoid. In
any case Ma has said he wants "eventual reunification."
This is like the Chiang era, when Taiwan forged an anti-communist mentality. At
that time, even if Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) or his son Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) came
up with new ideas, such as when former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) brought up
an alliance with the CCP, such ideas could not be put into practice, even though
the Chiangs had power. This was because the mentality of society as a whole had
made such ideas impossible.
The common market policy paves the way toward a mentality that is completely
contrary to that of the Chiang era -- a pro-Chinese mentality -- and eventually
to a pro-Beijing and pro-unification mentality. Once this mentality is formed,
it might be very difficult to defend not just Taiwanese identity, but Taiwan's
democracy and independence.
That's why the presidential election is not just a choice between two men, but a
choice for the future of Taiwan.
Cao Changqing is a political commentator based in the US.