No candidates for Control, Examination yuans: DPP
　

NEW JOBS: DPP Secretary-General Wang Tuoh said that any party members who independently accepted an invitation to the KMT Cabinet would be punished
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, May 29, 2008, Page 3
　

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday decided not to nominate any candidates for the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan and vowed to punish any individual accepting a nomination from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

DPP Secretary-General Wang Tuoh (王拓) told reporters after the party’s Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday afternoon that the committee had resolved to suspend members who independently accept Ma’s nomination for either of the two government branches, but that they could reclaim their membership once they left the position, he said.

Wang said the decision was made to keep the Control Yuan and Examination Yuan free from political intervention and to maintain their independence. He urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to follow suit.

The KMT has said that it would not make any nominations, but stopped short of specifying whether it would allow individual members to recommend themselves or let others recommend them.

Wang said any DPP members who want to work in the KMT Cabinet must obtain the approval of the party or face disciplinary measures, with the most severe punishment being nullification of membership.

The committee also decided to hold its weekly meetings in different cities and invited members of local charters to attend.

The committee also approved a motion proposed by DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to form three task forces.

The Policy and Think Tank Task Force will be supervised by DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and headed by Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志). Former Presidential Office secretary-general Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) will supervise the Party Reform Task Force and Wang will serve as the convener. The Election and Strategy Task Force will be supervised by Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文), with former chairman of the Council of Agriculture Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) serving as the convener.

In related news, several high-ranking DPP officials assumed office yesterday.

Yao Jen-to (姚人多) and Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) are assistants to Tsai. Yao, Hsiao and Wang will provide their services free of charge. Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) and Hung Yao-fu (洪耀福) will serve as the party’s deputy secretaries-general.

Others include Lin Chen-wei (林成蔚), director of Department of International Affairs; Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), director of the Department of Youth Development, and Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), DPP spokesman and director of the Department of Culture and Communications.

Wang said he had asked Cheng to lose weight because a spokesman represents the image of the party.

Cheng will get NT$5,000 for each kilogram he loses and must lose 4kg within two months, Wang said, but Cheng will owe him the same amount if he fails to reach the goal.

Two positions still remain vacant: the head of the Department of Women’s Development and that of the Policy Research Committee.

China asks Japan forces to help with quake relief
　

MILITARY ASSISTANCE: Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura said the Chinese want the SDF to use its planes to transport tents and blankets

AGENCIES, TOKYO, BEIJING AND JIANGYOU, CHINA
Thursday, May 29, 2008, Page 5
　

China has asked Japan to send military assistance after a devastating earthquake this month that killed more than 67,000 people, Japan's foreign ministry said yesterday.

Tokyo is considering its response to the request, the top government spokesman said, adding that he did not believe such a mission would involve Japanese troops operating on the ground.

Japan’s military has not been deployed in China since the end of World War II.

“There was a request from the Chinese side to our embassy in Beijing yesterday. It asked for relief materials and transport, including from the Self-Defense Forces [SDF],” Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference on Tuesday.

“It is not entirely clear, but I think they want SDF tents and blankets to be transported to a Chinese airport by SDF planes,” Machimura said.

He said he had heard requests had been made to other countries.

Shortly after the May 12 quake, Japan sent rescue teams and a medical team to Sichuan Province.

Nearly 160,000 people were evacuated downstream from an unstable earthquake-created lake in Sichuan, while the government warned that rebuilding after the disaster would be “arduous.”

Some 158,000 people have been evacuated and dozens of villages emptied in case the newly formed Tangjiashan lake bursts before soldiers and engineers can drain it, the official China Daily said yesterday.

Troops used explosives to clear debris and helicopters to airlift heavy moving equipment to dig drainage channels from the lake, located about 3.2km above the devastated town of Beichuan.

Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) told a meeting of the State Council that handling the danger from the swelling lakes was the “most pressing task” in the disaster recovery effort, the newspaper said.

The government has allocated 200 million yuan (US$28.6 million) to deal with the swelling lakes, the Xinhua news agency said. Of 34 lakes created by the earthquake in the mountainous province, 28 were at risk of bursting, the agency said.

Meanwhile, the number of confirmed deaths from the quake climbed toward an expected toll of more than 80,000. The Cabinet said yesterday that 68,109 people were killed, with 19,851 still missing.

The National Development and Reform Commission warned that rebuilding after the quake would be difficult.

“Due to the immense magnitude of loss resulted from the quake, production recovery and reconstruction of the quake-hit region wilommission said in a statement, adding that major infrastructure had been “severely damaged.”

In other developments, torrential rains that killed 28 people in Guizhou Province were forecast to continue for the next three days.

Eighteen people have died in flooding since Sunday, Xinhua reported late on Tuesday. Twelve were missing.

Wen Jiabao's Facebook profile a big hit

AP, BEIJING
Thursday, May 29, 2008, Page 5

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) now has a Facebook page.

It’s not known who set up the profile on the popular social-networking Web site, but it’s clear the premier has some fans — with more than 13,000 “supporters” as of yesterday, more than US President George W. Bush has on his page.

The Chinese government doesn’t have the most approachable reputation, but Wen has been praised for his quick and sympathetic response to the May 12 earthquake in Sichuang Province.

“This is grandpa Wen Jiabao, hang on child, we will rescue you!” he shouted at one point to a student trapped in the rubble, state media reported.

Wen’s Facebook page, featuring his official government photo, was set up two days after the quake. It is full of supportive comments and photos of him walking through the rubble and comforting victims.

“I love you, oh my God,” Tina Wong of Hong Kong posted.

“A model premier for the world!” Sukant Chandan of London wrote.

“It’s so great 2 see u here!” Celeste Lee of China said.

Wen is one of many politicians with a Facebook page, including Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and every major US presidential hopeful.

The site has a section where users can “Browse All Politicians” and see them ranked by their number of “supporters.”

There was no way of knowing immediately who set up the Wen profile.

There are a handful of pages on Facebook for Mao Zedong (毛澤東), including one for “The Almighty Chairman Mao Zedong,” which only has 393 supporters.

The 66-year-old Wen’s ability to show up quickly at the site of a disaster — be it a coal mine explosion or snowstorm-blocked railway — and look sympathetic has made him the most popular figure among China’s often distant-seeming leadership.

Just hours after the 7.9-magnitude quake hit Sichuan, he was on the scene with a bullhorn. TV cameras followed him for days as he tried to comfort children and put on a hard hat to enter a collapsed building.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) followed Wen’s visit to the quake zone with one of his own, but he looked less comfortable and didn’t win the kind of warm support the premier did. He doesn’t have his own Facebook profile.

The United Front preys on division
　

By Paul Lin 林保華
Thursday, May 29, 2008, Page 8

'Not only is Taiwan rife with contradictions, it is also allowing China to take advantage of them thanks to the liberal characteristics of its democratic system and human weakness.'

Taiwan’s second transfer of power in the democratic era represents a deepening of democracy, but the implications will be severe if the new government cannot properly handle cross-strait relations.

If the government instead relies on China economically and curries favor with it in political terms, then this would allow the dictatorial Chinese system to eat away at and finally swallow the Taiwanese polity.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reaffirmed his stance of “no unification, no independence and no war” in his inaugural speech on May 20, calling upon the two sides to pursue reconciliation and peace in cross-strait and international contexts.

The most important part of this three-part slogan is “no unification.”

Refusing unification with China is the mainstream position of Taiwanese people, and Ma was elected partly thanks to his “no unification” stance. But let’s not forget that unification has always been Beijing’s goal. Taiwan’s security can hardly be safeguarded if China does not endorse Ma’s policy.

Ma has vowed to sign a peace agreement with China if it promises not to use force, though whether it can really be trusted not to do so is another matter entirely. Meanwhile, Beijing has made no commitment to unification without force.

China’s United Front work aims to assimilate targets into the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) viewpoint and ideals, and Taiwan is its most important target. Taiwanese politicians and the general public should at least be aware of and prepared for this to protect their sovereignty and safety when dealing with China.

As for the CCP’s exercise of United Front tactics, there is a brief exposition of such reasoning in an essay written by Mao Zedong (毛澤東) in 1940 entitled “On Policy” in the second volume of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong.

Mao wrote: “Our policy is to make use of contradictions, win over the many, oppose the few and crush our enemies one by one.”

Taiwan should therefore minimize its “contradictions” so that China cannot take advantage of them. Unfortunately, not only is Taiwan rife with contradictions, it is also allowing China to take advantage of them thanks to the liberal characteristics of its democratic system and human weakness.

The most serious contradiction is the gulf between the pan-blue and pan-green camps. Each camp also has internal contradictions.

After the pan-green camp’s defeat in the January legislative elections, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) extended an olive branch. Since Ma was elected president, the CCP has also been capitalizing on contradictions between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the new executive.

Perhaps the CCP’s most successful tactic has been to take advantage of former KMT chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) proposal that the CCP and the KMT join hands to oppose Taiwanese independence. For their part, the communists will continue to manipulate the Lien family until its usefulness is worn out.

Beijing’s invitation to KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) to visit China is its latest tactic, and has the following effects. It tells Taiwanese that the KMT and the CCP are “equal” but that the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan are not.

It elevates the status of the KMT as a party in the Chinese party-state mindset to demonstrate to Taiwan how Beijing can curtail Ma.

In cooperating with the KMT, the purpose of these measures is to corrode Taiwan’s sovereignty and diminish the status of the Taiwanese government.

In light of Lien and Wu’s power and the China connection, will Ma be able to rule independently and autonomously?

In examining Taiwan’s future domestic clashes, we cannot afford to ignore China’s United Front activities that exert influence behind the scenes.

How will the CCP go about winning the support of a majority of Taiwanese? It will offer benefits to those who team up with it in the fight against the minority.

The CCP is therefore likely to extend to Ma a certain number of favors in exchange for a greater benefit: unification.

But the CCP’s eventual goal is to defeat all its enemies, one by one, so anyone who benefits in the short term should not celebrate too soon.

Likewise, Taiwan’s politicians and businesspeople operating in China should be on their guard.

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taiwan.