Despite mistakes, friends defend Chiou’s integrity
　

By Shih Hsiu-Chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, May 12, 2008, Page 3

Described by his many friends as a man who knows nothing but politics, former vice premier Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) made a painful decision last week when he offered to leave his “beloved” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and retire from politics for good to take responsibility following a diplomatic scandal.

“When I walk out of the Executive Yuan today, I will no longer be involved in politics. Everyone more or less knows how this makes me feel,” Chiou said when asked about his state of mind as he resigned on May 6.

Kaohsiung City Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), who steered Chiou into politics by encouraging him to campaign for the late dangwai democracy activist Kuo Yu-hsin (郭雨新) in 1975, said: “For Chiou, quitting politics and the DPP is the severest punishment.”

Chiou’s resignation came after a secretive deal involving two shady brokers and US$30 million in funds intended for the establishment of diplomatic relations with Papua New Guinea was botched, resulting in the disappearance of the funds from a Singapore bank account.

Chiou, in his former position as head of the National Security Council (NSC), was the instigator of the deal, which also led former vice minister of national defense Ko Cheng-heng (柯承亨) and former minister of foreign affairs James Huang (黃志芳) to resign in disgrace.

Some opposition lawmakers have alleged that the affair was in reality “a money laundering scheme in the guise of a diplomatic deal” set up by Chiou.

Those accusations were made on the basis of a sequence of mistakes such as Chiou’s failure to request background and reliability checks by security agencies on the two brokers, as well as Huang’s ministry bypassing regular procedures for the appropriation of funds.

“Having middlemen involved in efforts to develop diplomatic ties is unavoidable, but [officials] cannot act on trust alone,” former minister of foreign affairs Chen Chien-jen (程建人) said.

Loh I-cheng (陸以正), a retired diplomat, said he did not understand how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could have remitted the money to a joint account rather than open an escrow account with all payments contingent on the establishment of relations between the two countries.

“The ministry might just as well have had one of its officials participate in the joint account,” Loh said.

All the irregularities, added to the fact that the country’s highest intelligence agency managed to get fooled by two brokers — whose shady past was no secret — made the story difficult to believe for Chiou’s opponents.

However, Chiou’s DPP allies, who gave him the sobriquet Laba — a Hoklo term meaning “trumpet,” quickly came to his defense.

Chiou earned that nickname during the dangwai era, as what he thought and said about things was always accepted by groups, which underscored his influence in the DPP.

But as Chen Chu said, Chiou’s friends believe the scandal was the result of Chiou’s “mistaken judgment” on the two brokers as well as his arm’s length decision-making style, in which he only oversees things from a general perspective and lets his subordinates work out the details.

“The thing about Chiou Laba, is that he loves power, but he has never shown an interest in money since I have known him,” aid Chen Chun-lin (陳俊麟), vice chairman of the Executive Yuan’s Research, Development and Evaluation Commission.

Chen Chun-lin, a member of the DPP’s disbanded New Tide faction, of which Chiou was a founder, said: “Chiou Laba knows he is smart enough. He has confidence in his capabilities and he wants to hold political power so that he can get things done.”

Chiou’s talent for politics, added to the “philosophy of being second-in-command,” to which he has subscribed throughout his political life, made him the best choice for secretary-general.

Having served as the party’s secretary-general under former chairmen Shih Ming-teh (施明德), Hsu Hsin-liang (�?}) and Lin I-hsiung (林義雄) while the party was in opposition and then as secretary-general for the Cabinet, the Presidential Office and the NSC after the DPP came to power in 2000, Chiou was referred to as a “permanent secretary-general.”

However, Chiou’s shrewdness in politics stood in clear contrast to his incompetence in handling real-life affairs.

Chen Chun-lin said Chiou is like a “retarded child” when it comes to his life.

“[Chiou] eats instant noodles and microwave food when he is at home. He is a half-idiot when it comes to computers, knowing only how to surf the Internet. I believe he doesn’t even know how to send text messages and has no idea about ‘what a joint account is,’” Chen Chun-lin said.

He was refereeing to remarks Chiou made recently while seeking to clarify media reports that he had sent text messages to Ching and ordered Huang to remit the money to the joint account.

“Chiou Laba never pursues material comforts. He just has enough to get by. If he has anything of value, it would probably be his pen collection,” Chen Chun-lin said.

Chen Chun-lin said Chiou spends most of his spare time listening to “Beatles-era rock-and-roll” and watching “old movies,” activities Chiou has regaled in since his student years at National Taiwan University’s department of philosophy.

But when 13 teachers from the department lost their jobs for criticizing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime in early 1970s, Chiou switched his graduate-school major to politics.

KMT Legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) said the Papua New Guinea scandal was likely the result of the DPP government’s “continued mistrust of professional diplomats,” referring to diplomatic personnel educated and trained before the DPP came into power.

The fact that the country’s representative office in Singapore was totally excluded from participating in the PNG case, Chiang said, highlighted that distrust.

DPP Department of International Affairs Director Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) disagreed, saying that “Chiou would not have passed the PNG case to the ministry if such mistrust had existed.”

Hsiao said that “making inquiries about executive details is not Laba’s ways of doing things,” based on which she believed Huang’s ministry had received the appropriate authorizations by Chiou.

“Laba made some mistakes: He trusted [Ching and Wu] too easily. Only a few people were in the loop and he didn’t consult others. But, oftentimes, such behavior is crucial in handling confidential diplomacy,” Hsiao said.

“On a couple of occasions before, we weren’t able to pursue confidential diplomatic projects after news of our efforts had somehow leaked. It’s an unfortunate situation for Taiwan,” Hsiao said, recalling similar cases during her time in the presidential office.

The PNG case has heavily tarnished the image of the DPP, the government and the country, for which Chiou should take responsibility, Hsiao said. But Chiou’s “integrity” is not questioned by people who know him well, even though the whole matter has yet to be cleared up, she said.

The pitfalls of the unaccountable
　

By J. Michael Cole 寇謚將
Monday, May 12, 2008, Page 8

Special advisers are a proliferating breed, roaming the planet with their suitcases and delivering on issues as varied as nuclear disarmament in North Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oil deals in the Caspian. In many instances, these individuals — former officials, academics and sometimes cultural icons — bring specific qualifications or moral weight to the table, which the governments that dispatch them hope will increase their chances of obtaining what they want.

What all these track-II diplomats have in common, however, is that they are not elected, which means that they are often unaccountable and, in many instances, are paid sums of money well beyond the limits set for public servants.

In addition, far too often special advisers are drawn from a pool of politically connected individuals or appointed by politicians more as a reward for past deeds or allegiance than for their qualifications. In other words, the lack of supervision and regulation surrounding the appointment of special advisers invites corruption and means that under certain circumstances the narrow interests of a select group rather than those of the country are served.

Such arguments may have surfaced — and no one could have questioned their validity — as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) essentially blocked President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) budget for special advisers, leading the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government to abandon its reliance on such individuals in 2006.

Two years later, president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) victory in the March election was partly the result of his advocacy of a “cleaner” government, which seemed to dovetail with the KMT’s opposition to the DPP’s use of special advisers.

But in a reversal of position, the KMT is now proposing to resurrect the budget for special advisers, which shows yet again that the party’s opposition to DPP practices over the past eight years was more cynical political maneuvering than a concerted effort to better serve the people of Taiwan.

Furthermore, given the party’s history (and the jury is still out on whether it has reformed itself), there exists a very real possibility that in the coming months the budget set aside for such positions will grow and that the attributions of an already less-than-transparent system will become even more opaque.

For a party with a long tradition of kickbacks, special advisers only represent one among many means by which to line the pockets of supporters and cronies, or win new allegiances.

Even more worrying, perhaps, is that the appointment of special advisers under a KMT government would be the continuation of a practice, honed in the past eight years, of conducting diplomacy via unofficial channels, which translates into sets of decisions that, while they can potentially affect the entire nation, are made by unelected officials (former KMT chairman Lien Chan [連戰] comes to mind) in backroom deals that have more in common with black-market barter than state-to-state diplomacy.

Moreover, as the Ma administration has made some concessions to the opposition by bringing into its Cabinet non-KMT candidates, special advisers could provide the means to work outside the veneer of multiplicity by conducting real diplomacy via back channels, thus nullifying the ability of non-KMT Cabinet members to effect change and balance out a stacked executive and legislature.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with track-II diplomacy, as long as the special advisers who engage in it operate within well-established and enforced boundaries and do not constitute what amounts to a shadow government, such as the group of non-elected, largely unaccountable individuals who led the US into its catastrophic invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It will therefore be of capital importance for Taiwan that in the months and years to come, KMT-appointed special advisers are scrutinized and their actions closely monitored to ensure that they do not endanger the interests of the nation.

Under a democratic system, accountability is key and the KMT knows this. But there exists the real possibility that it, or some elements within it, will substitute the illusion of accountability with the real thing by appointing government officials who in reality are little more than a smokescreen for non-elected special advisers whose power will be difficult to monitor. Should this come about, how much those individuals are paid would be the least of our worries.

J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.

Beijing’s biggest enemy is itself
　

By Sushil Seth
Monday, May 12, 2008, Page 8

Is there a method to Beijing’s madness regarding the Olympics? Obviously there is. But if the objective is to make China look good, its ruling oligarchy is going the wrong way.

They found themselves wrong-footed when the Olympic torch relay became entangled with the Tibetan human-rights issue. All their heaving and weaving about the unrest in Tibet failed to convince audiences abroad that it was the work of the Dalai Lama clique involving some wayward monks.

All this talk of cultural genocide in Tibet, Beijing believes, is a canard fostered by the Dalai clique to defame China and split it from the “motherland,” a heinous crime by enemies of the country. It was an overkill, figuratively and literally speaking, by a regime used to this sort of talk.

Having been caught on the defensive, Beijing decided to go on the offensive.

It is sheer madness to elevate the Olympic torch relay into an issue of monumental importance to China as if the country’s future depended on it.

China had hoped to formally inaugurate its new status as a superpower through the Olympic extravaganza, choreographed in Beijing with other countries cast in a supporting role. It would be the international acknowledgement of China’s new power, with heads of states making a beeline to pay homage to the star of the 21st century.

But the pesky Tibetans have upset China’s carefully choreographed Olympic drama.

And any talks with the Dalai Lama’s representatives will be a diversionary tactic to drag on until the Olympics are over.

What is the method in this madness? First, it is enabling the regime to mobilize Chinese people behind the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on a highly-charged issue of national honor of hosting the Olympics — a sort of coming of age party for China as a great and respected power.

By promoting, projecting and upholding the national honor against hostile international elements (particularly in the West), the CCP and the nation become indistinguishable. In other words, the party is the nation and vice versa.

Any voice of dissent and moderation in China is thus silenced. And the regime finds itself suddenly enjoying a level of legitimacy. And, temporarily, people forget all its sins of omission and commission.

Such madness of rallying people against a highly charged symbol of national honor is dangerous. Adolf Hitler did it in 1936, enveloping Germany in an orgy of self-congratulation. And we know what eventually happened there when nationalism developed into chauvinism leading to World War II.

It is not suggested that China is necessarily going that way, but to stress the extreme danger of stoking nationalism that might easily get out of hand.

The danger is not from the Olympics, but from its misuse as the symbol of national honor and glory.

One sincerely hopes that China’s leaders are aware of the dangerous game they are playing with nationalism. For instance, such overtly visible use of its paramilitary blue tracksuits-wearing contingent to provide security for the Olympics flame simply aggravated the situation in London and Paris, leading to the charge that they were acting like “thugs.”

And in Australia, during the Olympic torch relay in Canberra, the Chinese embassy reportedly was involved in putting together a show of support by about 10,000 Chinese in Australia who descended on Canberra in buses from Sydney and Melbourne.

They went about intimidating, screaming and jostling anyone seen as a Tibetan supporter. A headline in the Australian newspaper described it as: “Chinese students bully torch crowds.”

A Sydney Morning Herald reporter said: “It was intimidating to look into the screaming faces of Chinese supporters who held flags out of passing car windows and screamed ‘One China’ to Tibetans.”

One Australian woman was quoted as saying that, “It’s pretty insulting that Australians in their own country need riot police to protect them from foreign nationals.”

And the irony of China supporters exercising their right of free speech and peaceful protest (even when it was not so peaceful) in Australia was not lost on observers and commentators, aware of the fate of the protesters in Tibet or, for that matter, the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre.

A cartoon in the Australian was biting in its double-edged irony. It shows a Free Tibet supporter forcefully telling a China supporter: “You’d be shot in China for demonstrating there.” The China supporter equally forcefully responds: “I’d be shot in China for not demonstrating here.”

Even more objectionable was the cavalier way in which the Chinese authorities sought to override Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s public declaration that China’s track-suited paramilitaries would not have any security role during the Canberra torch relay.

Rudd’s pledge to uphold Australian law in providing security for the torch was contested by China till the end.

The point of recapitulating the Olympic torch relay through Canberra is to highlight Beijing’s highhandedness and arrogance even when the international event involved, the Olympics, is simply a celebration of international sport.

Imagine China’s volatile reaction if it were an event involving some territorial issue, with Beijing regarding it as an infringement or violation of its sovereignty. And imagine further the sort of national mobilization Beijing might bring about with unpredictable consequences.

Sure, there is a method to China’s madness regarding the national hysteria over the torch, with the Western world seen as indulging the Dalai Lama’s “nefarious” activities. It has given the regime a certain level of legitimacy as the upholder of China’s national interests.But it is a dangerous game the CCP is playing. To maintain and sustain such legitimacy, it will be required to produce concrete results to satisfy enhanced national expectations all around.

And that is a Herculean job which even the CCP might not be able to deliver. In the meantime, the world waits with baited breath to see where China’s ultra nationalism will take it.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.