Critics slam Siew’s China visit
　

CROSS-STRAIT: Critics said Vincent Siew’s participation in the Boao Forum, use of a Taiwan compatriot travel document and talks with Hu Jintao could undermine Taiwan’s interests
　

By Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Apr 12, 2008, Page 3
　

Vice president-elect Vincent Siew’s (蕭萬長) participation in the Boao Forum in China might undermine Taiwan’s sovereignty and image in the international community, political analysts said at a forum in Taipei yesterday.

Siew, of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), arrived in China’s Hainan Province yesterday for the three-day 2008 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA). He is participating in the forum in his capacity as chairman of the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation.

“How could the KMT call Siew’s attendance at Boao a ‘diplomatic breakthrough’? It was absolutely an internal matter and by no means a diplomatic affair,” former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Lin Cho-shui (林濁水) told the forum hosted by Taiwan Thinktank.

Siew has attended the annual forum, billed as a gathering of businesspeople and officials focusing on greater trade cooperation in Asia, since its founding in 2003.

Siew sidestepped reporters’ questions on what document he would use to enter China. But Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦), spokesman for Siew’s delegation, said on Tuesday that the vice president-elect would use his “Taiwan compatriot travel document” to enter China – the same practice he had used since 2003.

A Taiwan compatriot travel document is a special permit issued by China for Taiwanese who wish to travel to China since Beijing does not recognize Republic of China (ROC) passports.

Lin, who said he had rejected many invitations to visit China because he refused to apply for a Taiwan compatriot travel document, said: “It is heart wrenching to see [Taiwan’s] vice president visit China using a Taiwan compatriot travel document.”

Even Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) officials who attended cross-strait negotiations with their counterparts at China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) in the late 1980s and early 1990s refused to accept Taiwan compatriot travel documents, Lin said.

Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠), deputy chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Research and Planning Committee, said Siew’s possible interaction with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at the Boao Forum might create an impression in the international community that Taiwan backs China at a time when Beijing is under heavy fire for its military crackdown on Tibet.

The KMT has said that Siew is scheduled to have a private meeting with Hu this afternoon.

“When the daily world news is focused on China’s suppression of Tibet and more and more national leaders are responding positively to a call to boycott the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony, what would the world think if Taiwan’s new leaders appear to be uncritical of the Tibet issue and choose to hold talks with Hu? Liu asked.

Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), deputy director of the DPP’s Department of International Affairs, called Siew’s presence at the Boao Forum “risky diplomacy,” which would run counter to the longed-for goal that the DPP and the KMT would reach a consensus on cross-strait issues to defend the country’s interests.

“If the Siew and Hu meeting does not produce a positive outcome, the talks will be regarded as a failure in cross-strait relations. But if they jointly advocate Siew’s cross-strait common market proposal and CEPA [Closer Economic Partnership Agreement], that will certainly raise controversy back in Taiwan,” Lai said.

Lai was referring to the idea advocated by Siew that Taiwan should establish a cross-strait common market and sign a CEPA with China.

At a separate setting yesterday, deputy DPP caucus whip Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) told a press conference that the party chose not to press Siew too much on the issue “because the DPP is a party of virtue and kindness” and it was willing to give Siew an opportunity to defend Taiwan at an international event.

Kuan expressed hope that Siew would play the role of a ROC vice president-elect who would not jeopardize Taiwan’s interests on the world stage.

“As an ROC vice president-elect with legal status and obligations, Siew should strive to disseminate messages that will benefit Taiwan at the Boao Forum and not let the international community misunderstand the true relationship between Taiwan and China,” she said.

Asked later yesterday by reporters for comments on Siew using a Taiwan compatriot travel document to visit China, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Director Liu Teh-hsun (劉德勳) said it was unnecessary to scrutinize Siew’s decision.

Liu said that at the 1993 talks between SEF and ARATS officials, it was decided that officials from both sides would not be subjugated into using the permit, “based on the principle of convenience and mutual respect.”

Liu refrained from commenting on the obvious differential treatment that Siew received compared to other foreign dignitaries, saying he did not know the details of the arrangement.

Why separatists unnerve Beijing
　

By Richard Halloran
Saturday, Apr 12, 2008, Page 8

The editor of a Chinese trade magazine sipped her tea one afternoon several years ago in a Shanghai tea shop and said: “I think Taiwan should be part of China, but I don’t think it’s worth fighting over.” She went on: “But if we give up Taiwan, then Tibet will try to break away and we will have separatists among the Uighurs in western China and among the Mongols in Inner Mongolia and the Koreans in Manchuria.”

She lamented: “If we let them all go, what will happen to my country?”

That editor’s anxiety reflected a deep fear among educated Chinese who are keenly aware of the expansions and contractions of China throughout history. It underlies Chinese leaders’ deep fears brought about by the recent uprising of Tibetans in Tibet and other regions.

In turn, that explains the ruthless and often brutal Chinese suppression of dissent. It is more than just the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party being afraid of the challenge to their authority and legitimacy.

Those seeking to cast off Chinese rule have divergent objectives. Some Tibetans want autonomy within China to practice their Buddhist religion and preserve their culture. Others want independence. In Taiwan, many people seek independence, many others want the nebulous “status quo” to continue, and a small number want to join China.

Chinese leaders, however, lump all dissenters as separatists or “splittists.”

The executive director of the political activist group Human Rights in China, Sharon Rom, said this month: “Too often the cultural and religious expressions of Mongols, Tibetans, Uighurs and other minorities are labeled by Chinese authorities as separatism or terrorism. In this system, it is not surprising that tensions boil over.”

Of the 1.3 billion people in China, less than 10 percent belong to one or another of 54 to 56 minorities, depending on who’s counting.

They range from the Zhuang, who number 15.5 million in southern China, to a small clan of 2,300 Lhoba in southeastern Tibet. The vast majority are Han Chinese, who take their name from the Han dynasty that ruled a unified China from 202BC to 220AD.

Although small in number, several minorities are closely watched by the authorities in Beijing because of their strategic locations on the borders of China. Tibet sits astride the Himalayan mountain passes into Nepal and India. During a time of Chinese contraction around 750AD, Tibet conquered Nepal and large parts of what is now western China.

The Uighurs, along with a smattering of Kazakhs, Kirgiz, Tajiks, Uzbeks and other Turkic people who are Muslims, live in western China next to the nations of Central Asia.

Some want to set up independent nations; others want to join with Central Asian nations of the same ethnic groups that became independent after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Of the 24 million people in Inner Mongolia, which borders on Mongolia and Russia, only 10 percent are Mongols.

Shortly after it came to power in 1949, the communist government in Beijing flooded that autonomous region with Han Chinese immigrants. That is the same tactic to which Tibetans object today.

In Mongolia, with a population of 2.8 million, there is little sentiment for reunion with Inner Mongolia.

A Mongolian official explained: “There are more Han Chinese in Inner Mongolia than there are Mongols [sic] in both Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. If we were united, the Han Chinese would take over our country.”

Koreans, who number 2 million north of the Yalu River in what was once Manchuria, have been immigrating into northeastern China for several centuries.

Mostly recently that was encouraged by Japan when the Japanese occupied both Korea and Manchuria before World War II.

Because starvation is widespread in North Korea today, North Koreans are fleeing into China to survive — when they can get past the Chinese border guards.

Some of those Koreans contend that their region should be incorporated into North Korea; that sentiment may grow if North and South Korea, divided after World War II, are reunited. In the opposite direction, academics at the Chinese Academy of Social Science have recently claimed that North Korea, known in ancient times as Kogoryo, belongs to China.

A footnote: Informed South Koreans say that Mongol soldiers, when they ruled Eurasia from Busan to the Danube in the 13th century, once camped at the site in Seoul on which now sits the headquarters of the armed forces of the US in South Korea.

Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.