Beijing to force out foreign students
　

OLYMPIC LEAVE: After incurring the ire of the business community with tighter visa rules, Beijing now plans to have all foreign students gone for July and August

DPA, BEIJING, WITH STAFF WRITER
Friday, Apr 18, 2008, Page 1

China plans to order most foreign students to leave Beijing before the Olympic Games in August, strictly regulate the issuing of business and tourist visas, and deport refugees, sources said yesterday.

“Even if you have to continue your studies in September, you need to leave Beijing in July and August,” a spokeswoman for Beijing University said.

The university is one of China’s most prestigious colleges and enrolls hundreds of foreign students annually on Chinese-language and other courses.

The spokeswoman from Beijing University’s international cooperation department said the two-month gap applies to all universities in Beijing and was ordered by “higher authorities” because of the Olympics.

She said all short-term summer courses for foreigners had been canceled this year.

One Western education official estimated that at least 10,000 students could be affected by the order if it applied to the whole country, though some universities outside Beijing said they were unaware of the rule.

The head of the German academic exchange, the DAAD, said a ban on foreign students during the Olympics was not mentioned in recent meetings with officials.

An administrator of dormitories for foreigners at Tongji University in Shanghai said her department had received no notice banning students during the Olympics.

But a woman who assists foreign students in China said at least two universities outside Beijing, Anhui Normal University and Heilongjiang University, had stopped recruiting foreign students for courses running beyond July.

She said she believed any students with visas until the end of this year would be allowed to stay in Beijing, but she added that most student visas would expire in June before the universities’ normal summer vacation.

A foreign ministry official said he was unaware of any ban on students but the normal education of foreign students “will be guaranteed.”

The official China Daily said about 190,000 foreign students from 188 nations attended courses in China last year.

Asked for comment last night, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Liu Teh-hsun (劉德勳) said he was unaware of the developments, but that the council would monitor the situation.

China has already severely restricted the issuing of short-term and multi-entry business visas, prompting complaints from business groups and diplomats.

Some Beijing-based businesses said they may be unable to fill vacancies until after the Olympics because of the new restrictions.

“You can be sure that all countries affected will raise the issue with the Chinese side very intensively,” one informed source said of the restrictions on business visas.

“It clearly has to do with the Olympics,” the source said.

China appears to have acted partly in response to recent reports that police uncovered at least two terrorist plots targeting the Olympics, the source said, adding that other nations had taken similar security measures in the past.

China’s Foreign Ministry yesterday defended the move and said visas were issued “according to law.”

“I believe it will have no influence on normal business activities in China,” ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (姜瑜) said.

But Joerg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, yesterday criticized China for limiting business visas issued in Hong Kong.

Wuttke called the restrictions “truly annoying” and charged that the new visa rules were unclear and had never been published.

The new measures, which an informed source said were temporary, require non-permanent Hong Kong residents to apply for visas in their home countries.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also said it was concerned about the deportation of vulnerable refugees from China before the Olympics.

In a statement posted on its Web site, UNHCR highlighted the case of a 17-year-old unaccompanied refugee who was returned to his country of origin after being taken from his home in Beijing on April 3.

UNHCR spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis said that some of the deportations among the 180 refugees recorded by UNHCR in China “may well constitute a violation” of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

With a KMT victory, theft is property

Friday, Apr 18, 2008, Page 8

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has not even assumed office following president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) victory last month, and yet the wheels of the former party-industry cabal that have been rusting for the last eight years have already started to creak into motion.

Evidence of this was seen on Tuesday when Taipei City’s Urban Planning Commission decided to reclassify the land housing the former KMT-affiliated Institute of Policy Research and Development from “administrative” to “residential” use.

The move will enable the Yuan Lih Construction Corp ­— which bought the land from the KMT for NT$4.3 billion (US$133 million) in 2005 — to make as much as a NT$15 billion profit on the deal.

The 2005 sale was controversial for a number of reasons. First, there was the conflict of interest because Ma was KMT chairman at the time as well as Taipei mayor. The commission that decides on land zone issues is also part of the city’s Public Works Committee.

Second, the parcel of land also happened to be part of the KMT’s portfolio of stolen assets, or the land and property that it acquired during the party-state era that critics say should be returned to the state. Selling these properties for profit is hardly, as KMT Legislator Chang Chia-chun (張嘉郡) put it recently, showing “goodwill” when dealing with such a controversial problem.

Construction companies aren’t in the habit of buying land that they cannot build on, so either Yuan Lih’s executives are psychic or they must have received assurances of the so-called “independent” commission’s decision.

Faced with accusations of impropriety, the party and city government’s responses were unsatisfactory, to say the least. The KMT defended the decision by saying that the final go-ahead has to be given by the Ministry of the Interior, but with a new KMT government being installed next month, the outcome of any ministry review seems a foregone conclusion.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), meanwhile, lauded the committee for its independence. But one only has to look at the formation of the National Communications Commission (NCC) to understand the pan-blue camp’s idea of what constitutes an independent organization.

Maybe this is why the commission waited three years before approving the rezoning. Doing so while Ma was mayor might have compromised his Teflon veneer.

The process followed in this case may have been entirely legal, but something about the whole affair just doesn’t sit right. Conveniently, the Control Yuan, the government body charged with investigating corruption among public servants, has been inactive since late 2004 — when the pan-blue camp began a boycott of the president’s nominees.

Many will be outraged by what has happened this week and see it as a sign of things to come, but with the Democratic Progressive Party neutered in the legislature and no sign of effective administrative oversight on the horizon, there is little that can be done.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) warned in a March 3 television interview that those frustrated by a lack of representation in the pan-blue legislature may have to take to the streets to have their voices heard should the KMT win the presidency.

If many more cases like this come to light once the KMT enters the Presidential Office, then Chen’s words may prove to be prescient.

‘Burma’ vs ‘Myanmar’

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet).

In a recent article I wrote to the editor (Letters, April 14, page 8) I was dismayed to find that the Taipei Times took the liberty of changing the name “Burma” to “Myanmar.”

Indeed, what is in a name? A name ensured a tragic end to the famous young lovers Romeo and Juliet in their quest for love.

A difference in opinion over the name of “Macedonia” guaranteed ongoing disputes between Macedonia and Greece.

A “minority”-like name promised a lifetime of discrimination for thousands of Blacks, Irish and Jews throughout the US and Europe up until the early 20th century (and even today in certain areas).

Enforced name changes saw the humiliation and cultural genocide of Aborigines everywhere, and the “wrong” names linked to a certain caste or class guaranteed a lifetime of suffering in much of South Asia.

In the case of Taiwan, the name that is selected for the country impacts on its right to participate in international organizations and its very right to existence as an independent, sovereign state.

The recent name change of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to today’s National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall certainly saw plenty of controversy.

The official name of Burma today is the “Union of Myanmar.” This was passed in 1989 by the current Burmese junta, a political act intended to justify its rule and its xenophobic, anti-West attitude.

Though many of its allies recognize this name change, some of the world’s more prominent states such as the US and the UK continue to use the name “Burma.” Even today, the US embassy on University Road in Rangoon/Yangon proudly refers to itself as the Embassy of the United States, Union of Burma.

Many non-governmental organizations and pressure groups, as well as human rights and democracy activists, also choose to recognize “Burma” and not “Myanmar.”

This is an important issue, as referring to the state as Burma guaranteed the recognition of the sovereignty and independence of the Burmese state, but not of its repressive, backward and shameful military junta.

Just as the term “Chinese Taipei” is derogatory to the 23 million people of Taiwan, and just as vice president-elect Vincent Siew’s (蕭萬長) attendance at the recent Boao Forum in his capacity as a civilian chairman of the Cross-Straits Common Market Foundation was a very conscious but misguided choice, the Taipei Times’ changing of “Burma” to “Myanmar” is a disappointing, misguided and political action, which I believe is unwarranted and beyond the scope of its “reservations to edit, change, or condense” for the benefit of the paper.

For a paper dedicated to progressive, democratic ideals, I truly hope the Taipei Times will at least respect the rights of its readers when publishing their letters.

Roger Lee Huang
Taipei