KMT chairman Wu to meet Hu
　

INVITATION: KMT Deputy Secretary-General Chang Jung-kung declined to specify details of what will be discussed but said the agenda includes `vision’ and ‘direction’
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, May 19, 2008, Page 2

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) will discuss “macro-level” issues during their planned meeting, which is likely to take place on May 27 or May 28, a KMT official said yesterday.

KMT Deputy Secretary-General Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) told reporters that the meeting, which will mark the first official meeting between the leaders of the ruling parties of both Taiwan and China, will be organized through the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) communication platform.

Chang declined to specify details of the topics Wu and Hu will touch upon, but said that Wu hoped to communicate both the platform of president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and mainstream public opinion in Taiwan toward the Chinese side during the trip.

When asked if Wu and Hu will talk about direct charter flights and increasing the number of Chinese tourists to Taiwan, Chang said they will talk about “vision” and “direction,” adding that “it is natural for them to talk about issues people care about.”

Wu accepted Hu’s invitation on Saturday to visit China to initiate a new round of KMT-CCP negotiations following tomorrow’s transition of power.

KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yi (吳敦義) said the chairman felt Hu was sincere in wanting to improve cross-strait relations and accepted the invitation to seek increased exchanges.

Such exchanges, he said, would help Ma carry out his campaign platform.

Wu Poh-hsiung, who will be the first ruling party chairman to visit China, will arrive in Nanjing on next Monday, meet Hu in Beijing and visit Taiwanese business groups in Shanghai before returning to Taiwan on May 31.

Wu Poh-hsiung, along with 16 high-ranking party officials, will pay homage to Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) at Sun’s tomb in Nanjing.

“This is a very important stop, where we will report to [former KMT] chairman Mr. Sun Yat-sen that the KMT has come into power in Taiwan again,” Chang said.

Chang said Wu Poh-hsiung will not pay a visit to the earthquake-hit area during his trip to avoid hindering disaster relief work in Sichuan.

Among the 16 party officials who will participate in the trip are KMT Vice Chairman John Kuan (關中), Wu Den-yi, Vice Legislative Speaker Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世).

Chen leaves mixed legacy
　

MISSED CHANCES?: Some analysts said his cross-strait policy made the international community clear on where Taiwan stands, but others said that it hurt economically
　

By Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, May 19, 2008, Page 3
　

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which came to power in 2000 after half a century of dominance by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), will leave a mixed legacy, analysts said yesterday.

During its two terms in office, the DPP remained a minority government. It failed to win an absolutely majority of seats in legislative elections in 2001, 2004 and last year.

The high turnover of premiers — six in eight years — and Cabinet officials characterized its eight years in office.

Critics often said the frequent changes made it difficult to sustain consistent policies and provide adequate oversight.

The completion of the Hsuehshan Tunnel (雪山隧道), the Taiwan High Speed Rail and the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit System — all long-stalled projects during the KMT government — were often cited in response.

“Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp [THSRC] wouldn’t have finished the project without the government’s staunch support,” said Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明), a political commentator, referring to government help for the once capital-starved THSRC in the face of strong opposition.

But Chen Fang-ming said the case also exposed its incompetence because “it didn’t come up with any measures to compensate for the impact it would have on other modes of transportation.”

Also central to criticism against the DPP government has been the “lackluster” economy.

But the Executive Yuan said Taiwan achieved steady economic growth over the last eight years and its consumer price index (CPI) registered relatively slow growth despite surging prices of international raw materials and crude oil.

“Taiwan’s economic growth averaged 4.1 percent between 2000 and 2007, and reached 5.23 percent in the last four years, outperforming South Korea’s 4.7 percent. The CPI had an average growth rate of only 0.89 percent between 2000 and 2007,” it said.

Tu Jenn-hwa (杜震華), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, however, offered a different interpretation.

The figures showed Taiwan was doing “just fine” in comparison with other countries, but it was still “below par,” considering its previous performance, Tu said.

“The global economy experienced its fastest growth over the past 30 years between 2005 and 2007. Hong Kong and Singapore boosted their rates to between 7 and 8 percent. Apparently Taiwan didn’t seize the chance, or the rate could easily have been 6 percent,” Tu said.

Tu said Taiwan lost out on economic growth because of its “conservative” cross-strait policy.

The Swiss-based International Institute for Management and Development ranked Taiwan 13th for global competitiveness in its 2008 report released on Wednesday, after the country had declined for two consecutive years to 18th place last year.

Of all the sub-factors included in the survey, Taiwan’s worst performance was in receiving Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), with the ranking sliding to 44th, two notches below last year.

“The DPP government should be credited with its efforts in enhancing the nation’s competitiveness, but Taiwan could have done better without its ‘conservative’ cross-strait policy, as it halted the inflow of FDI into the country,” Tu said.

Taiwan Strategy Research Association secretary-general Wang Kung-yi (王崑義) characterized the situation over the past eight years as “hot economy, but cold politics” as well as “warm people-to-people relations, but cold official ties.”

Cross-strait political engagements have sunk to a low not seen since 1999, when then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) declared cross-strait ties as “special state-to-state relations.”

Despite this, the government opened up limited tourism to Chinese visitors on a trial basis. It also considered the “2005 Macau model” — negotiations in Macau between Beijing and Taipei that lifted the ban on direct flights for the Lunar New Year — an achievement in cross-strait relations.

Taipei and Beijing implemented the first non-stop charter flights between the countries during the Lunar New Year Holiday in 2005, mostly to facilitate the return of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.

An increase in the scope of the flights was agreed to in June 2006 to include four types of cargo charter flights, but the negotiations on regular cargo and chartered passenger flights as well as the opening up of Taiwan to tourists directly from China later came to a standstill.

Wu Tung-yeh (吳東野), an associate research fellow at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations, said a major cause of cross-strait deadlock was “rash and confrontational” approach Chen Shui-bian took when dealing with sovereignty-related issues.

Chen Shui-bian highlighted sensitive subjects to ingratiate himself with pro-independence voters, but that damaged trust between Taiwan and China and hurt relations with its allies, especially the US, Wu said.

Chairman of the Taiwan New Century Foundation Chen Lung-chu (陳隆志), on the other hand, praised the DPP government’s efforts in this regard, saying the party made it clear to the international community that Taiwanese consider Taiwan a sovereign and independent country.

“An important problem when considering Taiwan’s sovereignty is, as [an international law expert] James Crawford said, ‘Taiwan is not a state because it still has not unequivocally asserted its separation from China and is not recognized as a state distinct from China,” Chen Lung-chu said. “But when the DPP government applied for UN membership under the name Taiwan, we made history. It was a very big step forward for the country.”

Lin Cheng-yi (林正義), a researcher of European and US studies at Academia Sinica, said that Chen Shui-bian’s handling of sovereignty-related issues forced the US to face problems that were bound to crop up on the road to democratization.

The US response to Chen Shui-bian’s pro-independence moves was to make its position on cross-strait issues more clear, Lin said.

The administration was also criticized for allegedly taking a cavalier attitude towards people’s livelihoods.

Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), secretary-general of the League of Taiwan Social Welfare, said: “The DPP flunked the test on how a party should realize its ideas when its becomes a ruling party.”

“When the DPP was in opposition, one of its dreams was to establish a welfare state based on social equality and justice, but over the past eight years it failed to narrow the gap between welfare for the public and welfare for teachers, civil servants and military personnel,” Wang said.

Wang said the DPP government made “farmers” a special group that received preferential treatment for its own political purpose.

“The monthly welfare pension for elderly farmers was raised from NT$3,000 in 2003 to NT$4,000 in 2004, NT$5,000 in 2006 and NT$6,000 last year, all because of elections,” Wang said.

The former lawmaker also blasted the DPP government for listing the National Pension System — to be launched in October — as one of its achievements, saying the government actually dragged its feet on the plan during its first seven years in the office.

“As the National Pension System is a social insurance-based program, the government knew that the public wouldn’t be willing to pay premiums,” Wang said.

Tu also criticized the DPP government for failing to alleviate income inequality by means of advancing tax reform, or giving disadvantaged people a helping hand.

It was “unbelievable” that Taiwan’s Gini coefficient, an indicator of the inequality of wealth distribution between 0 and 1, had risen from 0.27 in early 1980s to 0.35, Tu said.

From the perspective of culture, Chen Fang-ming, also the director of the Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University, lashed out at the administration’s focus on ethnic Taiwanese.

“When the government didn’t take the historical memories belonging to Mainlanders, Hakka and Aboriginals seriously and respect their cultural memories, how could these groups sympathize with its ethnic Taiwanese-centered localization?” he said.

For the DPP government, the 228 Incident of 1947, in which the KMT troops suppressed a Taiwanese uprising that left tens of thousands dead, missing or imprisoned, seemed to be all the country’s history is about, Chen Fang-ming said.

“Over the past eight years, the 228 issue was brought up by the DPP government again and again, but the history about how mainland Chinese fled to Taiwan, how the Mainlanders see the history of the Massacre of Nanjing and how they fit in the society in Taiwan never came to its attention,” he said. “Aboriginal people have totally different historical memory than that of the ethnic Taiwanese ... but they were all ignored by the DPP government.”

Academics, colleagues assess eight years
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, May 19, 2008, Page 3

“It is a pity that he lost the trust of the people and his party lost touch with its supporters. He advocated localization, but he didn’t do anything substantive to achieve that goal. The poor showing in the south, a traditional stronghold of the DPP, showed how disappointed its supporters were.”－Chao Yung-mau, political science professor at National Taiwan Un

The Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) era ends tomorrow at 9am. While it may require the passage of time to objectively assess his two terms in office, most agree that it was an eventful and historically important eight years.

Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), both born in Taiwan, won the election in 2000. Despite being reputed to hold a hard-line stance on Taiwan’s independence, Chen tried to adopt a “new middle way” in the beginning of his term and offered to resume cross-strait talks under the 1992 spirit of bilateral communication. But Beijing’s rejection of his offer compelled Chen to revert to his old strategy.

Pressured by Beijing and opposition at home, Chen was forced to fight for political survival. And once he took this road, there was no turning back.

Stephen Yates, president of DC Asia Advisory, a Washington-based consulting firm, said Chen would go down in history as the first president to govern Taiwan with a divided government.

“It is a pity that he lost the trust of the people and his party lost touch with its supporters. He advocated localization, but he didn’t do anything substantive to achieve that goal. The poor showing in the south, a traditional stronghold of the DPP, showed how disappointed its supporters were.”

Chao Yung-mau, political science professor at National Taiwan University
“No one imagined in 2000 just how divided it was and would remain throughout Chen’s time in office,” Yates said.

Opposition vigorously challenged the legitimacy of Chen’s election victories and engaged in highly partisan cross-strait diplomacy, undermining his stature and influence as president.

Yates suggested that while Chen may have brought many difficulties on himself, “it is also true that the structural and partisan obstacles he faced would have challenged the most gifted politician.”

Political analyst Antonio Chiang (江春男), former Taipei Times editor-in-chief and former National Security Council deputy secretary-general, said that Chen’s biggest achievements were strengthening Taiwan-centered consciousness, national identity and values such as democracy, freedom and human rights.

Democracy took a new form under Chen’s presidency, expanding from political democracy to community democracy, “environmental democracy” and direct democracy, Chiang said.

The status of ethnic groups such as Hakkas and Aboriginals also improved and multi-culturalism was respected, he said.

Despite political differences, cross-strait relations were peaceful and exchanges were vibrant, he said.

According to the annual report released on April 30 by the US-based Freedom House, Taiwan’s media environment is the freest in East Asia and No. 32 worldwide.

The report, which rated 195 countries and territories, attributed Taiwan’s good performance to a commitment to judicial independence, economic freedom and a highly competitive media market.

In addition to strengthening Taiwan-centered consciousness, Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠), a former close aide to Chen, said that Chen deserved credit for institutionalizing referendums and nationalizing the armed forces, which was previously used as the military arm of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Liu, former deputy chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Research and Planning Committee, also commended Chen’s efforts in developing personal relationships with the leaders of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.

But the DPP administration waited too long to tackle the issue of transitional justice, Chiang said.

Transitional justice refers to a range of approaches that states undertake to deal with legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuse as the nation moves from a period of violent conflict or oppression toward democracy, the rule of law and respect for individual and collective rights.

The DPP administration not only did too little, but also did it poorly in terms of strategy, Chiang said.

Lu, a political prisoner during the KMT era, agreed. In an interview with the Taipei Times on Saturday, she said the issue of transitional justice was one area the DPP administration didn’t tackle effectively.

As a result, many questions concerning the “Formosa Incident” and “228 Massacre” remain unanswered, the vice president said.

Chiang said the DPP administration was more reformed-minded and motivated during Chen’s first term because they wanted to win re-election.

But reforms lost momentum during the second term and its energy was lost on its struggle for survival, he said.

At times the administration has appeared tired — even lost — especially in the later stages when Chen faced harsh criticism over corruption charges implicating his family and close aides, he said.

Power made people corrupt and arrogant, Chiang said, adding that this was typical of second-term presidencies. Corruption was not as bad as it was during the KMT era, but the Chen administration lost touch with the people, he said.

Echoing Chiang’s view, Liu said that corruption was the Chen administration’s biggest failure and that the DPP paid a high price for it.

Chao Yung-mau (趙永茂), a political science professor at National Taiwan University, said one of Chen’s problems was that he recruited too many young advisors who were young and inexperienced, but loyal to him.

“Chen seemed to spend more effort consolidating his power and winning elections than governing,” Chao said.

“Some of them could not resist temptations, some were not capable and some did not have expertise, but they were loyal,” he said.

Those who developed close relationships with big businesses, groups or individuals with a particular agenda in mind were prone to corruption, he said.

“It’s dangerous for the leader of a nation to pay more attention to winning an election than to materializing his ideals and recruiting professional talent to assist him,” he said. “It sows the seed of failure.”

In his bid to win elections, Chao said Chen had to make compromises, including many reform initiatives. Compounding the problem was the administration’s negligence of medium and lower-income wage earners, who constituted the administration’s support base. The economic growth rate may have been impressive, but a large portion came from the high-tech industry. But 70 percent to 80 percent of his support base were in traditional or service industries and they were suffering, he said.

In short, Chen did not see the golden opportunity to put his ideals into practice and push for reforms, he said.

“It is a pity that he lost the trust of the people and his party lost touch with its supporters,” Chao said. “He advocated localization, but he didn’t do anything substantive to achieve that goal. The poor showing in the south, a traditional stronghold of the DPP, showed how disappointed its supporters were.”

As a national leader, Chen had strengths and weaknesses.

Liu described Chen as a “workaholic whose life was all about politics.”

To some extent this made him a little dull, he said jokingly.

“He doesn’t take any time off, nor does he do any exercise, except when his doctor or aide recommends that he do it,” Liu said.

A close aide to Chen, who asked to remain anonymous, described the president as someone “practical, understanding and generous.”

If he has any shortcomings, the aide said, it is that he is overly tolerant of people in his administration who he should be stricter with.

Chiang said Chen was very hardworking. But he too often made decisions on his own, and oftentimes, there was no comprehensive debate before a policy was made.

“When the head of state does not respect professionalism and a government turns a deaf ear to criticism, it is doomed to fail,” he said.

Another problem, Chiang added, was that Chen was so good at electioneering that sometimes he did not know where to draw the line. It was too late when he realized that he had gotten himself into trouble, Chiang said.

The anonymous aide said Chen was under tremendous pressure to win re-election in 2004 and sometimes set policies to create immediate results or changed policy with elections in mind.

Liu said Chen was the kind of person who enjoyed “embracing the public.” But while Chen had the power to negotiate with the opposition, he did not do enough as a minority president because he thought he could use the power of the people to push his political agenda.

Liu summed up Chen’s approach as “to charge and then compromise.”

“On a scale from one to 10, he may charge to seven and then retreat to five if he comes under pressure, but at least he accomplishes something,” Liu said. “But because of this, he was branded as a troublemaker.”

Taiwan and maps

Once Taiwan swears in its next president, it will have a leader who wasn’t born here and has close family members holding citizenship in another country. While such details are amusing, it wouldn’t matter so much if his party didn’t originate from China.

Twenty years ago, I pinned up a world map from National Geographic magazine in my childhood bedroom. I left it up after going off to college. A couple of years ago, I was amused by how much the world had changed since the end of the Cold War. One thing that I hadn’t noticed before was that Taiwan is depicted with the same color as China and Taipei was not marked with the star designation as with other national capitals.

While such a presentation doesn’t reflect reality, I chalked it up to National Geographic not wanting to take sides in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-Chinese Communist Party civil war.

Of more recent note was this month’s issue of National Geographic magazine, which is entirely devoted to China. While I expected significant positive coverage of China because of the Beijing Olympics, the marginalization of Taiwan was blatant. As I went through this issue, I counted 10 maps of China where Taiwan was presented as just another part of China. The complimentary fold-out map in this issue also had this erroneous depiction. Yet part of National Geographic’s motto is “to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge.”

I understand that National Geographic wants to sell its TV programming in the Chinese market through its arrangement with News Corp, but the repetition of Chinese communist propaganda isn’t what I expect from an organization that aims to educate children and adults alike.

The big irony is that at the end of the issue, where pictures of the various “faces of China” are displayed, not a single person from Taiwan was present. National Geographic is not the first entity to sniff the rear ends of communists to get into the Chinese market. But to pass out blatant propaganda under the guise of education does nothing but devalue its brand name.

With the Taiwanese electorate giving both the legislative and executive branches to the KMT recently, is the Taiwan brand in jeopardy?

Carl Chiang
Richmond, California

Taiwan should gain WHO status
　

By W. Andy Knight
Monday, May 19, 2008, Page 8

'The outbreaks of SARS, avian flu and enterovirus 71 highlight just how damaging an unexpected ... transnational health threats can be in our globalized world. Since such diseases have no boundaries, the outbreaks also reveal the importance of ensuring that no gap or weak spot exists in our global village�塜 disease prevention network.'

There have been 64 cases of enterovirus 71 (hand, foot and mouth) infection in Taiwan this year, resulting in two deaths. This current outbreak is reminiscent of a similar one in 1998 that killed 78 Taiwanese. In China, 4,500 people have been infected by this virus and 22 of them have died, Chinese government announcements have said.

This situation is a chilling reminder of the need for prompt action to prevent the spread of such diseases. Transnational epidemiological outbreaks do not respect borders and therefore require the intervention of a global health system to stem their spread.

Since China has persistently and irrationally used its “one China” policy to block Taiwan’s bid to become a member of the WHO, when a global emergency response is required to arrest an epidemic in Taiwan, it is generally much too slow in coming. In the case of the 1998 outbreak, it took an appeal from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to nudge the WHO into action in Taiwan.

We all remember the big scare of early 2003 when, within a matter of a few months, a transboundary airborne disease that had struck Guangdong Province in November 2002 quickly spread to Hong Kong and then to Taiwan and other countries. It took more than two months after the SARS outbreak for the WHO to dispatch health experts to Taiwan simply because Taiwan, as a non-member of the WHO, did not have a direct channel for communicating data to the world health body about the outbreak.

Once SARS started to spread across the Pacific Ocean to North America, the WHO slapped unprecedented travel advisories on China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Toronto, Canada. Within weeks, airline traffic to affected areas dropped more than 50 percent and hotel occupancy in most Asian countries plummeted by more than half.

This epidemic took a major economic toll on East and South Asian economies, estimated at some US$18 billion in nominal GDP terms for 2003 — or about US$2 million per person infected by SARS.

Taiwan is also vulnerable to the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu. Of the 378 reported cases of avian flu globally, 80 percent were in six countries — China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Taiwan’s proximity to those countries, in addition to the frequency of airline travel between them and Taiwan, puts this country at great risk of an outbreak of this disease.

The outbreaks of SARS, avian flu and enterovirus 71 highlight just how damaging unexpected, and seemingly uncontrolled, transnational health threats can be in our globalized world. Since such diseases have no boundaries, the outbreaks also reveal the importance of ensuring that no gap or weak spot exists in our global village’s disease prevention network.

There is a weak spot in the global disease prevention network because Taiwan is not a member of the WHO. Taiwan, whose status as a de jure sovereign state has been in question since 1971, has been unable to attain WHO membership.

If there is a time to make the case for Taiwan’s membership in the global health regime, it is now. With the incoming Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government planning to significantly increase cross-strait direct charter flights between China and Taiwan, the calls for Taiwan to become a member of the WHO will become louder.

There is no reason why Taiwan should not be invited to become a full-fledged member of the WHO. But failing that, it ought to be considered, at the very least, for observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA).

There is precedent for the latter. Palestine is not yet a state, yet it is a WHA observer. Similarly, the Holy See, along with a number of non-governmental organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union are WHA observers. Even the Sovereign Military Order of Malta is an observer.

Taiwan has a modern healthcare system. It has eradicated a number of communicable diseases such as malaria, smallpox and polio. It shares its advanced medical knowledge and technology with several developing countries that have poor or non-existent medical institutions. It has provided medical humanitarian assistance to places like Haiti, Guatemala, Fiji, the Marshall Islands and Kenya.

Taiwan was also one of the first countries to provide emergency humanitarian aid to countries affected by the 2004 tsunami. Taiwan has also been at the forefront in helping to prevent the spread of avian flu by sending advanced medical experts in 2006 to Burkina Faso, Indonesia and Chad, and by donating 600,000 doses of Tamiflu in 2005 to places like Vietnam. It is also willing to provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of the recent cyclone in Myanmar.

These acts demonstrate that Taiwan is a good global citizen, especially when it comes to health-related issues. One can only imagine how much more this country could contribute if it were allowed to be a member of the global health regime.

Last March I was part of a Canadian team that observed Taiwan’s presidential elections. The smooth election process and democratic vibrancy exceedingly impressed our observer team. More than 250,000 Taiwanese living abroad flew into the country just to cast their vote. It became evident to us that Taiwan is a fully functioning independent state with a greater capacity to realize the obligations of WHO membership than many countries that are WHO members. For instance, Taiwan’s strong economy and vibrant democracy puts countries like Zimbabwe to shame. And Zimbabwe is a member of the WHO.

If the WHO is serious about universalizing its international health regulations, then it has to seriously consider Taiwan’s bid to become a member of its august body when its assembly meets today. In doing so, it would help to prevent a gap in its global disease prevention efforts and ensure that the 23 million people of Taiwan are able to actualize their fundamental human right to life and health.



W. Andy Knight is professor of international relations and director of the Peace and Post Conflict Studies program at the University of Alberta, Canada.