MOFA to stay out of bird association’s change of name

By Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008, Page 1

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday that the Chinese Bird Association was a non-governmental organization (NGO) and therefore the ministry could not interfere in the group’s decision to change its name by replacing the word “Taiwan” with “Chinese.”

MOFA spokesman Henry Chen’s (陳銘政) remarks came in response to a report in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that the Wild Bird Federation Taiwan was forced to change its name to the Chinese Wild Bird Federation in mid-March because of pressure from Beijing.

“The name change was an internal decision of the association. The ministry has no role in the process,” said Chen, adding that MOFA does not interfere with NGOs’ decisions.

He said the federation was called the Chinese Wild Bird Federation when it was established in 1988, but changed its name to the Wild Bird Federation Taiwan in 2000.

The ministry also rebutted a Liberty Times’ report yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) proposed “diplomatic truce” policy had alienated Taiwan’s supporters in Africa. The paper quoted an anonymous source as saying many African countries were reluctant to form closer working ties with Taipei because of Ma’s proposal.

The Taiwan-African Summit, held for the first time last year in Taipei, would also be canceled, the newspaper said.

Chen said cost was the primary reason the Taiwan-African friendship meeting was called off, adding that the proposal to scale down the Taiwan-African group was made under the previous administration.

“After weighing the pros and cons, the Department of African Affairs decided it would be a huge expense to form such group and the group was unnecessary because there already were several pro-Taiwan lawmakers and individuals from the private sector in Africa,” he said. “It would also expose some pro-Taiwan Africans to unwelcome publicity.”

“It had nothing to do with the diplomatic truce,” he said.

He said the landscape of Taiwan’s influence in Africa has changed dramatically since the idea was first pitched. Malawi cut ties with Taipei in January after 45 years.

When asked if another summit would be held this year, Chen said, “the idea was under discussion.”

Presidential Office skirts missile report
　

TOUGH TALKING: A KMT legislator said Taiwan should go ahead with plans to develop long-range missiles and that the president has yet to present a clear defense strategy
　

By Ko Shu-Ling
STAFF REPORTER, WITH AP
Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008, Page 3

The Presidential Office yesterday skirted speculation that the military has stopped developing offensive long-range missiles, but emphasized that Taiwan would not start a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

The remarks came after a report by the Chinese-language China Times yesterday said the military had test-fired an advanced Hsiung Feng missile with a range of 800km in January, but had now halted work on it in line with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) attempts to improve relations with China.

The Hsiung Feng IIE surface-to-surface cruise missile is a program that was started during the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.

RELIABLE SOURCES

The China Times report quoted “reliable sources” in the armed forces as saying that the military had planned to develop a model with a range of 1,000km, which would put Shanghai within its range.

However, they decided to halt the plans, taking into consideration improved cross-strait relations and a shift in military strategy to a more defensive stance.

Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) yesterday said the media should ask the Ministry of National Defense (MND) why it had decided to cease development of the missiles.

“The president’s defense policy is clear,” Wang said. “We will not take the initiative to attack, nor will we attack any non-military facilities.”

When asked whether the halt in development work was a gesture of goodwill toward Beijing, Wang said it would only help the country’s long-term development if cross-strait relations were to improve.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Shuai Hua-ming (帥化民) yesterday said Taiwan should go ahead with plans to develop the missiles.

“Because the mainland keeps developing missiles with higher precision and longer ranges, we must keep up our weapons programs intact,” Shuai, an influential retired army general, said.

Taiwan reportedly test-fired a Hsiung Feng IIE missile with a range of 600km in October 2004, but the military has never displayed or deployed it.

Shuai said Ma has yet to present a clear, plausible defense strategy even as he pursues a vaguely defined peace treaty with China.

BUDGET

Last week, the military proposed a defense budget for next year of NT$395.3 billion (US$12.5 billion), a decline of NT$53.9 billion (US$1.7 billion) from the previous year.

In response to the China Times report, the MND yesterday released a press statement, saying only that developing domestic-made weapons is in line with policy to protect the homeland.

The MND also said it “would not use weapons to attack civilian targets.”

Meanwhile, Wang yesterday dismissed speculation that Ma and the MND were inconsistent on the number of weapons the country is seeking to buy from the US.

While the MND has said that the US Congress is to review an eight-item purchase plan, Ma said on Saturday that all signs indicated that the White House would soon ask Congress to complete legal procedures for seven items that Taiwan has requested from Washington.

Wang said Ma and the MND only “talked about the same thing from different angles.”

Wang said the seven items Ma mentioned referred to the weapons the US Congress would agree to sell, while the eight items were what Taiwan would like to purchase from the US.

Global media doesn’t get Taiwan

Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008, Page 8

Despite the sizeable turnout at the demonstrations against mismanagement by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government on Saturday in Taipei, many of the world’s most important newspapers failed to cover the event. Those that did relied for the most part on wire agencies rather than on-site reporters — the result of many years of budget and staff cutbacks at news organizations, which now only maintain reporters in major cities or dispatch them to “important” events.

What worries us, however, is not that leading newspapers do not perceive Taiwan as important enough to have journalists posted here, especially when “important” often implies massive violence as in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. What makes us pause is the oftentimes erroneous reporting about Taiwan — willful or accidental — that is being fed to the global community and how uncritically wire copy is treated by news outlets, which allows bias or outright misrepresentation to pass as news.

Leaving behind eight long years of skewed reporting on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who for some news agencies was the agent provocateur par excellence, who never failed to “anger” and “provoke” Beijing, or “alienate” Washington with his “extremism” and “separatism,” the post-Chen era promised to bring with it a sea change in reporting on Taiwan and its new president, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

At long last, the elected leader of Taiwan was “charismatic” and “Harvard-educated,” the epitome of “pragmatism” who was seeking to make “peace” with long-time “rival” China. During the presidential election, many agencies threw their supposed journalistic neutrality out the window and unashamedly supported Ma and the KMT by trumpeting the promises of an immediate fix to the economy that the previous government under Chen had “mismanaged.”

What happened after this surge of optimism, however, was that with the Democratic Progressive Party shaken to its core by twin electoral defeats, scandal and financial troubles, global news agencies continued to pound it and call it a “troublemaker.”

It is no surprise, therefore, that some news agencies’ coverage of the rally on Saturday misrepresented the event, with at least two different agencies reporting that tens of thousands of “separatists” were protesting against Ma’s efforts to improve relations with China. Not only was this characterization wrong, but it was dangerous, as it implied that Taiwanese — or at least the “separatists” — are against peace, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Aside from the perhaps impatient discontent with the KMT administration’s handling of the economy and the failure of Ma to live up to his promises, what the tens of thousands of Taiwanese who rallied on Saturday were protesting was the speed at which he has sought rapprochement with Beijing and the long series of concessions he has made to achieve this, with no apparent sign of reciprocity on China’s part.

It was this — fear that the nation’s sovereignty is being compromised — that the “separatists” opposed. None of those who took to the street, however, would argue that defending Taiwan’s sovereignty cannot be accompanied by improved relations with Beijing. In fact, achieving the former is contingent on the latter, and anyone who says otherwise would be laughed out of town and rightly dubbed an extremist.

Sadly, without such precision and nuance, the rest of the world, which has very little time to devote to issues in far-away Taiwan, will be left with the impression that Taiwanese “separatists” are extremists who oppose peace and who are thus unworthy of their time or help.

Can Ma’s KMT secure Taiwan’s hereafter?
　

By Lee Min-Yung 李敏勇
Tuesday, Sep 02, 2008, Page 8

It seems that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is incapable of performing his elected duties properly.

Ma’s lack of performance led to Saturday’s demonstration against him and his administration.

The main themes of the demonstration — protecting sovereignty, demanding a full stomach, asking for transparency — were a reflection of the Taiwanese public’s feeling that Ma’s election slogan “care for Taiwan, boost the economy, demand integrity” has turned out to be nothing but an empty one.

After 100 days in office, public dissatisfaction with the Ma administration is running high.

Taking to the streets to protest is part of everyday life in a democracy, but the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has tried to label Saturday’s demonstration a protest attempting to protect former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

This is simply an attempt to taint the public’s right to protest.

After Chen stepped down, and maybe even as early as after Ma’s election on March 20, KMT hardliners who wanted to see the full restoration of the old KMT regime displayed an attitude of revenge and hatred, openly implying that they want to see Chen sent to prison for alleged financial irregularities while he was president.

Chen’s complaint that he and his family are being persecuted probably reflects an idea that really does exist in the minds of many of those who were unhappy that the KMT lost power in 2000.

Ma is not a very capable person, but once the KMT pinned its hopes for regaining power on his incapable head, no one could hold a candle to Ma.

His achievements as mayor of Taipei were mediocre at best, but his popularity remained sky high for the single reason that the KMT wanted his superstar status to help bring the party back to the halls of power.

KMT hardliners talked about a second transfer of power when all they really meant was that they wanted to “wrest power back from the hands of the Democratic Progressive Party,” ostensibly sounding as if they respected the rules of the democratic game.

Now that the KMT is back in power, we’ll have to wait for the next presidential election to see how serious they were, and how serious those KMT voters were who said that “if Ma doesn’t do well, we’ll simply not vote for him again next time around.”

The KMT’s “colonial system and China ideology” will not allow the party to truly face a democratic system built on the idea that governing power should alternate between different parties.

It has co-opted the people under its colonial rule by sharing some of the benefits in order to consolidate “the KMT’s China” and attack national reconstruction and the formation of a new community based on the idea of an independent Taiwan.

Even without Chen’s admitted overseas transfers of huge amounts of money, the KMT would still try to divide and demonize the DPP.

But the situation begs the following questions: Will this “KMT China” be a normal and secure country capable of building a sense of community and belonging? Why does the KMT have the same problems as Chen? Why do pro-China KMT financial experts say that, “after the presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, NT$6 trillion (US$190 billion) flowed out of Taiwan?” How about the issues of US green cards and dual nationality?

Chen’s financial scandal is surely a completely different matter.

Lee Min-yung is a poet.