Taiwan Thinktank's Chen fears repeat of KMT errors
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Apr 28, 2008, Page 3
　

The first wave of Cabinet appointments has received mixed reviews. While some have been highly critical of the “old faces,” others have praised their expertise on financial matters.

Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志), who served as former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) economic adviser, shared his concerns during an interview with the Taipei Times.

“I sincerely hope my old friends do not make the same mistakes they did when the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] was in power [before],” Chen said.

One of these mistakes was to create a bubble economy, which, he said, still haunts the country.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the KMT administration allowed new banks to be established, public and private financial institutions to lend excessive amounts of money and mapped out far-fetched infrastructure projects, he said.

Too many houses were built during that period, he said. On average, only 80,000 homes were needed each year. A 2001 survey found that 1.24 million newly constructed homes were empty, he said.

Moreover, financial institutions lent more than NT$4 trillion (US$131.85 billion) more than usual during that period. The money financial institutions lent accounted for 27 percent of GDP, leaving the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration with NT$1.8 trillion in bad performing loans, he said.

To win votes, the KMT administration also cut taxes. While tax revenues contributed to 18 percent of GDP in the 1980s, Chen said, the figure dropped to 13 percent in 2000. With less tax income, the government had to borrow more and ended up deeper in debt, he said.

Politicians like to talk about tax cuts because they have public appeal, he said. But when taxes are cut, the government must find money from somewhere else, he said, which often leads to an increase in other taxes.

While Lee called Paul Chiu (邱正雄) the “best finance minister ever,” Chen dismissed this as “political language” from a supervisor to his underling, which should not be taken too seriously.

Lee commended many of his subordinates, including Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元), Chen said. The former KMT legislator was later convicted of corruption. Former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) had loaned him US$1 million for election campaigns. Wu skipped bail, left the country and has not been seen since.

Chiu described the DPP administration’s botched “second-stage financial reform” as being correct in its aims, adding that the procedure must be fair, open and that negotiations must abide by market mechanisms.

Chen said he agreed that negotiations must follow market mechanisms and that the DPP administration had made two mistakes in that regard.

First, the DPP administration did not offer a clear account on whether smaller banks would be allowed to exist.

Second, it offered too clear an account of how many state banks it wanted to keep and when it wanted to meet the target.

The DPP administration began promoting the “second-stage financial reform” in October 2004. The scheme sought to consolidate the nation’s overcrowded banking sector. It was aborted during the term of former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) in 2006 because of mounting public criticism.

The reform plan had four goals: Halving the number of state banks to six by the end of 2006; reducing the number of financial groups to seven by the end of last year; having at least one local bank taken over by a foreign competitor; and having at least three local lenders with a market share exceeding 10 percent.

Only two targets have been met: State banks have been reduced to half their number and Standard Chartered Bank has acquired Hsinchu International Bank.

Commenting on Ma’s “633” economic policy and the “i-Taiwan 12 projects,” Chen said they required a complete overhaul.

Construction projects, Chen said — especially ill-planned ones — should not be used to boost economic growth or tackle unemployment. The nation’s economic growth rate was not too bad, reaching 5.7 percent last year, while unemployment was quite impressive, at about 3 percent, he said.

The “633” policy refers to 6 percent economic growth rate, US$30,000 per-capita income by 2016 and less than 3 percent unemployment.

Chen dismissed Ma’s promise to increase the national income to keep up with the rise in property value as wishful thinking, because under a bubble economy, he said, it would be almost impossible to increase the national income to the level of inflation.

Some have expressed concern over Ma being overly friendly with big business, but Chen said this was not a major problem, as big business is after all a major sector of the economy.

However, it is important that the Ma administration pay equal attention to medium and small enterprises as well as disadvantaged groups. What is more important is that the KMT administration make sure that its legislators and local chiefs do not make the same mistake of colluding with big businesses for personal gain.

Incoming minister of economic affairs Yin Chi-ming (尹啟銘) has said the new administration would seek to ease regulations in the next two years and adjust local economies within four years.

Chen said that those who blamed the nation’s “sluggish economy” on the DPP administration’s cross-strait economy policy were either “ignorant” or had a specific political agenda.

No country ever set a ceiling on China-bound investment as high as 40 percent, Chen said, adding that while other countries’ exports to China accounted for about 20 percent of their overall exports, Taiwan’s was 40 percent.

Official statistics show that Taiwan’s investment in China accounts for 2 percent of its GDP, much higher than that of Japan or the US, he said.

“If my old friends think that the country’s ‘sluggish economy’ results from the DPP administration’s cross-strait economic policy, they are making a very big mistake,” he said.

“I don’t know whether it is electoral language or ignorance of reality, [but] it is wrong to think that the country’s economy will be better if we pin all our hopes on China,” he said.

Australian monarchists prepare for tough battle

THE OBSERVER, SYDNEY
Monday, Apr 28, 2008, Page 5

In the elegant surroundings of the New South Wales parliament in Sydney last week, some 140 Australian monarchists lunched on roast beef at a celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday.

After pudding was served, former minister for foreign affairs Alexander Downer urged the audience to fight plans to make Australia a republic and replace Elizabeth II with an Australian head of state.

“It’s very important that people who believe in the stability and the continuity of our Constitution have the courage to stand up and support it,” he said. “I say courage very advisedly because, I warn you, people who support the present arrangement will be ridiculed.”

Amid the stirring of republican sentiment in Australia, led by the new Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a small but vociferous group of monarchists is equally determined to stick with the status quo.

“A republic is not inevitable, and we are resolved to do all in our power to stop such a thing happening,” said David Flint, a member of the group Australians for Constitutional Monarchy (ACM).

Rudd, an avowed republican, has long been clear about his intentions and the topic re-emerged at last weekend’s 2020 summit in Canberra when 1,000 of Australia’s ‘brightest and best’ took part in a two-day brainstorming session about the country’s future.

According to the government-led group, nearly all supported constitutional change. Monarchists have pointed out they were not invited and that those who did attend the conference were already committed republicans.

“It’s been bloody bedlam since that 2020 rubbish,” said Philip Gibson, an 80-year-old volunteer with the ACM. “I love this country and I don’t want it changing. They want us to become a republic, but they can’t even tell us what kind of republic that would be. There’s 104 republics in the world from America to Zimbabwe — which ones are they going to model us on?”

A recent poll said that 70 percent of Australians want the country to cut its constitutional links with Britain.

While one half of all Australians now record one parent born overseas, the proportion of these born in the UK has declined steadily and now stands at only 14 percent. Africa, India, Indonesia, Singapore and China are the fastest-growing sources of immigrants for the country.

Monarchist supporters, however, say that another recent poll indicated only 45 percent of Australians are in favor of constitutional change and that many people remain undecided or do not care about the issue.

Flint said that many of the new immigrants like the fact that Australia has strong links with Britain.

Philip Benwell, a 59-year-old former merchant banker, is head of the Australian Monarchist League, which numbers about 3,000 members. Like the ACM, Benwell said he and other activists would robustly defend the country’s constitutional status.

“What is the point of overturning something that works perfectly well?” he asked. “We’ve never had a major constitutional crisis, no civil unrest, no assassinations. Republics, as we’ve seen in other countries, lead to tension.”

He said the estimated A$2 billion (US$1.87 billion) that it would cost Australia to rewrite its Constitution would be better spent on healthcare and education.

The plan put forward at the summit is to hold a referendum on the issue during the next election due in 2010, followed by a vote.

Downer has said that having two votes will be confusing for Australians.

Rudd has said a split from the British monarchy is “inevitable,” but that it is not yet a government priority

Monarchists say they will use the intervening period to make sure their message gets across.

“Our mottos are going to be: if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it, and if you don’t know, vote no,” Flint said.

China’s well-organized campaign
　

By Richard Halloran
Monday, Apr 28, 2008, Page 8

The Chinese video addressed “all you bashers” who criticized China’s crackdown on Tibetan protesters and their sympathizers, asserting “Tibet WAS, IS and ALWAYS WILL BE a part of China.” The producers said that the disturbances in Tibet were not riots but outbursts of terror.

There followed scene after scene with belligerent commentary laced with sarcasm and personal attacks, peppered with a sprinkling of foul words not fit for a family newspaper, including liberal use of the “F” word.

The Chinese government, while often objecting to critical reports as being “interference in the internal affairs of China,” rarely hesitates to hurl invective at other nations.

In this case, the Chinese have outdone themselves, especially in blasting foreign media coverage of dissent in Tibet and demonstrations along the Olympic torch relay making its way to Beijing.

The angry campaign seems well coordinated. The official Beijing Olympic Web site overlooks most of the protests. The Xinhua news agency and the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper, are defensive but calm while reporting events.

It is in the Internet blogs that the heat really gets turned up. In particular, one called “anti-CNN.com” claims that it was set up by “volunteers” not connected with the government “to expose the lies and distortions in the Western media.” Whoever runs the blog contends: “We are not against the Western people, but against the prejudice from the Western society.”

None of the Chinese outlets explains how they, or ordinary Chinese, know about what is broadcast or said by the foreign TV and press when relatively few Chinese see foreign media reports. It suggests that Chinese embassies abroad are vacuuming up everything negative that is reported about China as their rebuttals are aimed at reports in English, German, French and Spanish.

CNN is China’s No. 1 target, highlighted by the blog named “anti-CNN.” The network has been labeled “a famous liar with most advanced technology,” “Chinese Negative News” or the “Cheating News Network.”

In particular, Chinese lawyers and government officials pointed to opinions expressed by a CNN commentator, Jack Cafferty, who said in a broadcast: “I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”

China does not have a constitutional First Amendment that permits such judgments to be aired.

Fourteen lawyers filed suit in a Beijing court against CNN this week, asserting they had suffered mental distress. The Chinese government has demanded a “sincere apology.”

Entries on blogs have urged the government to throw CNN correspondents out of the country and to ban network broadcasts inside China, where it has only limited access to the foreign community.

CNN is not alone. Fox News is named for “a cunning animal.” Agence France-Presse, the large wire service based in Paris, “lies.” The BBC and a German newspaper are described in offensive terms that ought not to be repeated here.

As might be expected, the Dalai Lama is often attacked personally. But others are also objects of ire, including the US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who has sponsored resolutions critical of China, and US Assistant Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, the State Department’s coordinator of Tibetan affairs, who was termed “ignorant” and a teller of “a bare-faced lies.”

It will be interesting to see how Beijing deals with the foreign media as the Olympics approach. The Beijing Olympic committee says it expects 21,600 accredited journalists, of whom 16,000 will be broadcasters. Another 10,000 non-accredited journalists are also expected.

The president of the Beijing organizing committee, Liu Qi (劉淇), said in the preface of a 264-page media guide: “The freedom of foreign journalists in their news coverage will also be ensured.”

Since journalists can be a rambunctious lot and CCP is, if nothing else, obsessed with control, this could make for an explosive mix.

There were hints this week that some Chinese were beginning to worry that their rants might have gone too far. The People’s Daily called on Chinese to act like gentlemen with “a graceful bearing and an open mind.”

Said a Chinese in a blog posting: “Instead of reasonably and calmly discussing the position and why it may not be correct, I have seen many Chinese people resort to childish name-calling and angry rhetoric.”

“These rude Chinese,” the blog writer concluded, “are making China look bad.”

Richard Halloran is a writer base in Hawaii.

Researchers find world’s oldest living tree

Monday, Apr 28, 2008,Page 14

The world’s oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce. It was discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University researchers announced earlier this month.

The researchers discovered the tree in 2004 on Fulu Mountain in Dalarna. They were carrying out a census of tree species when they came across it.

The researchers said it dates back about 9,550 years. That means it started growing around 7,542BC.

“It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions,” said Leif Kullmann, a professor at the university.

The discovery of the ancient tree has led to “a big change in our way of thinking,” he added.

Scientists had previously believed the world’s oldest trees were 4,000 to 5,000 year-old pine trees found in North America.

The tree’s age was calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami.

(STAFF WRITER, WITH AFP)