China to Tibetans: surrender or suffer
　

MEDIA SILENCED: Lhasa police kicked out reporters from Hong Kong TV stations yesterday while foreign reporters were removed from Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu

AP, BEIJING
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008, Page 1
　

Tibet's governor denounced anti-Chinese protesters in Lhasa as criminals and vowed to bring them to justice as a midnight deadline loomed yesterday for them to turn themselves in. More clashes erupted in other Chinese provinces.

Champa Phuntsok, an ethnic Tibetan, said the death toll from last week's violent demonstrations in the Tibetan capital had risen to 16 and dozens were injured.

The Dalai Lama's exiled Tibetan government in India has said that 80 Tibetans were killed -- a claim Champa Phuntsok denied.

The governor steered a line between sounding reassuring and being tough at his press conference in Beijing. He told reporters security forces "did not carry or use any lethal weapons," but promised that authorities would deal harshly with rioters who defy the surrender notice.

"No country would allow those offenders or criminals to escape the arm of justice and China is no exception," he said.

"If these people turn themselves in, they will be treated with leniency within the framework of the law," he said.

Otherwise, "we will deal with them harshly," he said.

Champa Phuntsok described a scene of chaos throughout Lhasa on Friday with "people engaged in reckless beating, smashing, looting and burning."

Shops, schools, hospitals and banks were targeted and bystanders were beaten and set on fire, he said.

Among the 16 dead, he said, three people jumped out of buildings to avoid arrest while 13 were "innocent civilians."

In one case, a person died after being covered in gasoline and then set on fire, he said. In another incident, the protesters "knocked out a police officer on patrol and then they used a knife to cut a piece of flesh from his buttocks the size of a fist," he said.

He said calm had been restored.

Authorities paraded handcuffed Tibetan prisoners in Lhasa yesterday, the Times of London reported in its online edition. The report said four trucks in a convoy drove through the city with 40 people, mostly young Tibetan men and women, standing in the back, their wrists handcuffed and a soldier behind each one holding the prisoner's head bowed.

Going house-to-house, police checked identity cards and residence permits, detaining anyone without permission to stay in Lhasa, the Times said.

The Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet said residents feared a military sweep after the midnight deadline.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called again yesterday for China to exercise restraint and said Beijing should find a way to engage the Dalai Lama. But Russia said it hopes China's government "will take all necessary measures to stop illegal actions and provide for the swiftest possible normalization of the situation."

Security forces were also mobilizing across western China's mountain valleys and broad plains to deal with sympathy protests in Tibetan communities in the provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai.

Officials expelled foreign reporters from Tibetan areas in Qinghai and Gansu provinces yesterday, while police in Lhasa kicked out reporters from three Hong Kong TV stations -- Cable TV, TVB and ATV -- and made TVB delete footage of Friday's violence, TVB reported.

Taiwan could be a second Tibet: Hsieh
　

By Flora Wang, Ko Shu-ling and Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTERS
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008, Page 1

Taiwan could become the next Tibet if Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were to win the presidential election, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign said yesterday.

Ma, however, challenged the remarks, saying Hsieh had denigrated Taiwan's status by comparing it to Tibet although Taiwan is not under the rule of China.

Hsieh spokesman Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said that Beijing's bloody crackdown on Tibet was a cruel warning to Taiwan.

Beijing has suppressed Tibet despite a peace agreement signed between Tibet and China in 1951 and the fact that the Dalai Lama has abandoned the pursuit of independence, she said.

The joint communique signed by former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) [in 2005] is similar to the China-Tibet accord, Hsiao said, adding that the communique has been endorsed by Ma.

"It is a cause for concern that Taiwan could become the second Tibet if Ma is elected president," she said.

Hsieh said that if Taiwan and China were to establish a "common market," there could be an influx of Chinese nationals, adding that Beijing could later send troops to crack down on Taiwanese if they resisted the Chinese.

"We would end up like Tibet if we do not protect Taiwan," he said while visiting a temple in Tamsui, Taipei County, yesterday afternoon.

"I will be the protector of Taiwan if I am elected. I will protect Taiwan's dignity, security and national interests," he said.

Hsieh said he would allow more Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan, relax transportation links and increase charter flight services, but the nation's safety and dignity had to be protected.

He would not open the market to Chinese labor or recognize Chinese educational credentials, he said, adding that he would strengthen the crackdown on poor quality food products smuggled in from China.

The DPP caucus echoed Hsieh's comments yesterday, warning that Taiwan might become a second Tibet if Ma were elected president.

DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said the government should make efforts to support protesters and the Tibetans. He said China signed a peace agreement with Tibet in 1951, and then flooded Tibet with large numbers of Chinese immigrants, destroying its social and cultural autonomy.

Lai said Beijing's policies have caused cultural and racial conflict in Tibet, and the Chinese government had reacted by repressing protests in Tibet.

He said that Ma, who supports Taiwan signing a peace agreement with China, might make Taiwan into a second Tibet. He appealed to the public to vote for Hsieh, adding that Hsieh could better protect Taiwan's sovereignty.

At a different setting in Taipei yesterday afternoon, Hsieh said that the main difference between Ma and him was he wants to lead Taiwan to the world, but Ma wants to sign a peace agreement with China and establish a "one China market."

The public must have a say in the country's future, Hsieh said, and any changes to the "status quo" must be decided by Taiwanese people.

Nobody, not even the president, can unilaterally make the decision for the people, he said.

Meanwhile, the Taipei Society said yesterday it was worried that Ma would end the civil war between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and pursue unification with China.

The society urged the public to support Hsieh saying Taiwan's democracy would be in peril if the KMT controlled both the legislature and the government.

In response, Ma said Hsieh had hurt Taiwan's status by comparing the situation in Taiwan with Tibet.

Ma told a press conference that it would be "incorrect" to make an analogy between Tibet and Taiwan because "Tibet is under the rule of China while Taiwan is not."

He was responding to questions about the unrest in Lhasa and whether Hsieh's comment on Sunday that Taiwan would be "the next Tibet" might affect his election chances.

"Taiwan is not Hong Kong. We are a sovereign country. We elect our own president and our own parliament and run our own government. We are not reigned by Mainland China," Ma said in English.

"Frank Hsieh made a mistake by drawing that analogy. That actually hurt Taiwan's status," he said.

Ma said the situation in Tibet remains of great concern to him, urging a halt to the use of violence.

"Ever since I heard about the tragedy [in Tibet], I've condemned the violence used by the Beijing authority," he said.

"We will continue to be concerned about the situation in Tibet and other human rights violations on the Chinese Mainland," he said.

Ma said he remained committed to seeking a cross-strait peace agreement through negotiations.

"Pursuing peace across the Taiwan Strait is a clear objective of my future administration if I get elected," he said.

"Three years ago, when our former [KMT] chairman [Lien Chan (連戰)] visited the mainland and talked to leader of the CCP Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), they did mention the possibility of discussing the question of Taiwan's international space. I think that is a good beginning," he said.

However, he said that negotiations should not take place until China removes the missiles targeting Taiwan.

"We won't negotiate a peace agreement under the shadow of missiles," he said.

In related news, more than 300 Tibetan supporters took part in a candlelight vigil last night outside the Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall in Taipei to condemn Beijing's use of force in Lhasa.

"The Tibet people are fed up with 49 years of oppression and repression by China. We urge the Beijing government to be more humane [but] the Communists do not believe in compassion because they are atheist," said Khedroob Thondup, a member of the Tibetan government-in-exile who lives in Taipei.

"This is a people's movement from inside Tibet. The power of the people's movement is strong. It has captured the attention of the whole world," he said.

Earlier yesterday, Tibet's Representative to Taiwan Tsegyam told a press conference that the Dalai Lama's Tibet Religious Foundation "sincerely urge the Taiwanese government and all freedom-loving Taiwanese" to condemn China's brutality.

"We strongly condemn China for using military force to oppress the Tibetan people and their peace movement. We urge Beijing to use rational self-constraint to cease all violent oppressive actions immediately," he said.

Chow Mei-li (周美里), president of the Taiwan Friends of Tibet, also called on the Beijing government to permit international organizations to enter Lhasa.

Last night, Ma again condemned China for its actions in Tibet.

"We continue to strongly condemn [China] and urge it to stop the crackdown and manhunt and to release the demonstrators it has arrested," Ma said.

"It should also offer an apology to the world," he said. "It was very unwise of China to take such an action at this moment."

Ma called on China to begin dialogue with the Dalai Lama as soon as possible.

Has Ma Ying-jeou seen the light?

Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008, Page 8

It seemed like a welcome shift last week when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the fate of Taiwan should be decided by Taiwanese alone. Ma reiterated that position in newspaper ads and signed a declaration condemning the "Anti-Secession" Law enacted by China in 2005 or any other policies that would "hurt the Taiwanese people's feelings."

Even Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) has applauded Ma's apparent turnaround, the same Ma who, in 2006, had argued that the future of Taiwan should be decided by both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Whether this rhetorical shift is heartfelt -- a coming out of sorts, a la former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in the 1990s -- or mere politicking has yet to be clarified, but the fact remains that Ma is saying these things publicly and within earshot of Beijing. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of democratic politics that, as election day looms, parties drift toward the center.

And in Taiwan, the center is the "status quo." However uncomfortable it is, the "status quo" is, ironically, quite comfortable. It is the invisible enemy we know rather than the unknown of a sudden shift. It's also a vote-winner, as maintaining that comfortable level of uncertainty seems to be what Taiwanese of all stripes want most.

Welcome as Ma's "determination to defend Taiwan's sovereignty" might be -- and let us assume, for the sake of argument, that he means what he said -- his vow to create friendly cross-strait relations might be more difficult to achieve than he thinks. For upon hearing his comments, Beijing could be forgiven for accusing Ma of himself "heightening cross-strait tensions," in similar fashion to what Ma in the same breath accused the DPP of doing over the past eight years.

Should Ma decide to go down this path, he would soon find -- as every other president before him has found -- that peace across the Taiwan Strait, or its absence, is not in the hands of Taiwanese and their leaders, but in those of the regime in Beijing, which seems to think that time is on its side and that the annexation of Taiwan is inevitable.

In recent years, Beijing had placed its hopes in the KMT, which it saw as a surrogate, a backdoor entry to Taiwan. If Ma shuts that door, it will be 1996 all over again, with the additional layer of 12 years of budding Taiwanese consciousness. Should that happen, all that talk about a common market, of small, medium and big links and friendlier ties will mean very little.

If Ma becomes president, he will soon find out why his predecessors Lee and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were so reviled in Beijing.

And soon enough, following his rude awakening, life would go back to normal, back to the "status quo." The economy would be no better, no worse, and the main question Ma would need to answer would be the one Lee and Chen had to juggle: How to defend Taiwan against a giant whose pride has yet again been hurt, and who is realizing that the longer the "status quo" prevails, the more time is on Taiwan's side.

Ultimately, Beijing's eyesight is blurry. Lee, Chen, Ma -- for all it cares, Taiwanese on Saturday will be voting for "Ma Teng-bian" or "Hsieh Ying-hui." It doesn't care who is in power in Taiwan. What Beijing covets is real estate, all 35,980km2 of it.