Ma repeats ‘region-to-region’ comment
　

NO PRC?: Ma said Taiwan could not violate the Constitution by recognizing that there is “another country on the mainland” because China belongs to the Republic of China
By Loa Iok-sin
　

STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 3
　

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday reaffirmed his earlier statement that relations between Taiwan and China are not state-to-state, but rather “region-to-region.”

“The relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China is not a state-to-state relationship,” Ma told a forum on constitutional interpretation held in Taipei yesterday.

“Within the framework of our Constitution, I would define the Mainland as ‘Mainland region’ and Taiwan as ‘Taiwan region’ — this is what the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area [台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例] is all about,” he said.

Article 1 of the Act states that it was created to provide a legal basis for exchanges between the Taiwanese and the Chinese “before the unification of the country.”

The statute further defines “Taiwan area” as “Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, as well as all other regions under the rule of the government” and “Mainland area” as “territories of the Republic of China [ROC] outside the Taiwan area.”

Ma said another reason why he would not define the Taiwan-China relationship as state-to-state was because “according to our Constitution, we cannot recognize that there is another country on the mainland, which is part of the ROC.”

Ma said that his definition did not downgrade Taiwan’s sovereignty, as it was based completely on the Constitution and the statute.

“This view is apparently acceptable to everyone, since neither former president Lee Teng-hui [李登輝] nor the former Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] has tried to change the statute,” he said.

Yesterday was not the first time Ma has made such comments. In an interview with the Mexican newspaper El Sol de Mexico in September, Ma made a similar statement, drawing sharp criticism.

Ma’s comments marked a complete change from the path taken by both Lee and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). When he was in office, Lee said the relationship between Taiwan and China was a “special state-to-state” relationship, while Chen simply said it was “state-to-state.”

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) immediately lauded Ma’s definition of cross-strait relations as “logically accurate, legally appropriate” and a “clear interpretation of political reality.”

“This is exactly what the core spirit of the ROC Constitution is,” Wu said.

However, DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) criticized Ma’s remark as “just the opposite to the political reality.”

“How is the mainland part of the ROC’s territory? How is the People’s Republic of China [PRC] not a country?” Huang asked. “This is total nonsense.”

He rebutted Ma’s claim that the DPP clearly approved of the statute because it had not attempted to revise it when it was in power.

“We couldn’t really change the law because we were a minority in the legislature — but that doesn’t mean we accept it,” Huang said. “In fact, we tried everything we could in our administrative power to strengthen Taiwan’s sovereignty.”

Chow Mei-li (周美里), spokeswoman of the Taiwan Solidarity Union, also disagreed with Ma.

“The ROC recognized the PRC as soon as former president Lee abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion [動員戡亂時期臨時條款] and put an end to the Chinese Civil War,” Chow said in a telephone interview.

“What Ma said today would not only be rejected by China, but also unacceptable to all Taiwanese,” Chow said. “I’d like to remind him not to forget that he was elected by the people.”

ROC flag’s removal from NCKU forum sparks controversy
　

ON THE WEB: A video clip on YouTube showed a student protesting the flag’s removal from an event attended by a group of students from China
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 3

A decision by the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) Student Association to remove a Republic of China (ROC) flag during a recent forum attended by a group of students from China has sparked a campus controversy.

The association drew widespread criticism from within the school after an association staffer took away an ROC flag displayed at a school auditorium minutes before a speech by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator John Chiang (蔣孝嚴) on Dec. 10.

Chiang was scheduled to deliver a speech entitled “Humans Rights and Diplomacy” at the invitation of the association. A group of students from Tianjin University visiting the school also attended the occasion.

A video clip posted by an anonymous person on YouTube showed a Cheng Kung student protesting the removal and saying “the association should have had the guts to show the students from Tianjin University that we in Taiwan do have a national flag.”

The clip shows the moderator of the speech denying that the flag had been there. The moderator then asks the protester to respect the rights of other attendees.

Chiang tells the protester: “I don’t know if the flag was there, but we are in Taiwan ... Just let it go.”

The incident was brought up the next day at the university’s latest student rights forum.

Lin Hung-yi (林宏易), a student representative, questioned the need for the association to remove the flag.

Lin described the removal as a “political incident,” adding that there was “political ideology” behind the decision to take the flag away.

He said the association should have dealt with the matter with more caution and maturity.

In response to the criticism, Tsai Cheng-han (蔡承翰), deputy chief of the association’s international affairs department, said it was a “general rule” among international student organizations that national flags should not be displayed during exchanges with students from different countries.

He said the association’s removal of the flag was in line with the rule.

Another department staffer called the association’s removal of the flag “inappropriate,” but said the association had been trying to prevent the speech from becoming politicized.

When asked for comment, university secretary-general Lee Wei-hsien (李偉賢) said the school authorities did not know that the association would remove the flag.

Lee called the flag’s removal “unnecessary,” adding that the school would seek to prevent a repeat of the incident.

KMT counting eggs without a basket

Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 8

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held their fourth economic forum over the weekend in Shanghai. Since Council for Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman San Gee (單驥) is a political appointee, his participation in the forum was controversial. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) announcement that civil servants were allowed to visit China was an attempt to justify the KMT-CCP meetings after the fact.

The Regulations Governing Entry Permission to Mainland China for Government Employees and Persons with Special Status in the Taiwan Area (台灣地區公務員及特定身分人員進入大陸地區許可辦法) stipulate that political appointees can only visit China to take part in conferences organized by international bodies. The KMT-CCP forum hardly qualifies.

This is not the first time that a political appointee has broken the law to visit China. Financial Supervisory Commission Vice Chairwoman Lee Jih-chu’s (李紀珠) attendance at a cross-strait financial seminar last month was another example.

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is committed to promoting cross-strait exchanges, but it must draw up supplementary measures to make sure they are legal. The Mainland Affairs Council should have amended the law earlier. Since it did not, the KMT has only itself to blame for the criticism it has received.

The main obstacle for civil servants visiting China lies in the terms of the Regulations Governing Entry Permission to Mainland China for Government Employees and Persons with Special Status in the Taiwan Area. But since this regulation is an executive order, it can be amended by the Executive Yuan simply by public announcement. Even if it were necessary to amend the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which can only be done by the legislature, this would not be hard since the KMT holds a legislative majority.

Considering that cross-strait exchanges are a mainstay of current policy, one would expect the government to remove legal obstacles in an orderly way ahead of time. The current confusion highlights the fact that the administration is in a rush to put all its eggs in the China basket. But China may not be the safe haven from the global economic storm that the KMT government imagines.

Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), chairman of China’s People’s Political Consultative Conference says that China wants to sign a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement with Taiwan. The pact would be modeled on the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) Beijing signed with Hong Kong in 2003. Beijing wants to create a single Chinese market, using economic union to pave the way for political union.

The CEPA only brought transitory benefits to Hong Kong. Its costs have outweighed its benefits. Now that the financial tsunami has hit, the economic bubble has burst and Hong Kong’s ailing economy is more dependent on China than ever.

Taiwan’s leaders should open their eyes to the fact that China, too, is suffering from the global economic downturn, and many Taiwanese businesses with investments in China are pulling out. This is hardly the time to be rushing headlong into China.

Rather than putting their faith in a shaky Chinese market, the government should try to boost domestic demand and salvage the economy by investing in Taiwan.

Beijing’s bid to ‘internalize’ Taiwan
　

By J. Michael Cole 寇謐將
Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 8

One of the key components of Beijing’s policy on Taiwan and Tibet has been to internalize the problems and to fight efforts by so-called “separatists” to internationalize them. As the Chinese government accused in Question 38 of the 100 Questions about Tibet booklet it published in 1989, the Dalai Lama has aimed “to internationalize the Tibet Question” through his “New Proposal” of 1988 and meetings with leaders of other countries, efforts that continue to be met with the strongest of opposition by Beijing.

In Taiwan’s case, Beijing started paying close attention to Taipei’s attempts to internationalize the Taiwan Strait issue when Taipei began using its considerable economic clout under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to launch, as author David Lampton argues in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy, an “aggressive campaign” to expand its foreign relations. This sparked the checkbook diplomacy tussle between Taipei and Beijing in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and South America.

Speaking at a forum on cross-strait developments organized by the Brookings Institution and National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations on Dec. 4, University of Hong Kong professor Richard Weixing Hu (胡偉星), representing the view from China, said Beijing’s focus should increasingly be on de-internationalizing the Taiwan question and institutionalizing, or internalizing, it.

The rationale behind this approach makes perfect sense, as the more internal the Taiwan question becomes for China, the easier it will be for Beijing to placate efforts, in Taiwan and abroad, to sustain Taiwan as a sovereign entity or argue for its defense. A successful bid to sell the story of Taiwan as a domestic matter would also make it easier for Beijing to use force, just as Moscow has managed to evade international opprobrium by portraying Chechnya as a domestic problem.

Under the administrations of Lee and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Beijing’s efforts to deny Taiwan the international space it coveted were met with resistance and countermoves by Taipei. There are signs, however, that under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Beijing may find it easier to internalize the Taiwan question, with Taipei becoming more flexible on designations used for Taiwan in international bodies or in applications for membership in such organizations.

The latest instance of this decline was the change in the designation at the Asian Development Bank, from “Republic of China” to “Taipei, China.” Behind the scenes, Beijing has also continued to apply pressure on the private and semi-private sectors to refer to Taiwan as a “province of China.”

Beijing and Taipei’s apparent decision to circumvent the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species by treating the gift of a pair of pandas as a “domestic transfer” to expedite the process, though seemingly innocuous, would help reinforce the impression, both in the public eye and in legal documentation, that Taiwan is a domestic issue.

Equally worrying was the Ma administration’s removal of Republic of China flags from the Grand Formosa Hotel and in other parts of Taipei during last month’s visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), as were the ostensible directives to law-enforcement authorities to prevent demonstrators from displaying symbols of nationhood at venues frequented by the Chinese envoy.

While the Ma administration would like us to believe that its meek response to, or flexibility on, designations that denigrate Taiwan’s sovereign status is part of its “rational” approach to cross-strait talks, it plays right into Beijing’s internalization strategy, and though the Chinese leadership may give Taipei bits and pieces to maintain the illusion of equanimity and goodwill, there is no doubt that in the long run the plan is to systematically de-internationalize the Taiwan question. This approach is very much in line with Hu’s paradoxical claim on Dec. 4 that as Beijing de-internationalizes the Taiwan question it must also find ways to give Taipei more space.

If Taiwan is to survive as an independent sovereign entity, every effort must be made to ensure that it remains an international problem, even if, for the first time in decades, such efforts must be made without government help. In other words, we may be presented with a case of sub-state actors being called upon to save the state from itself.

This will mean reaching out to Taiwanese communities overseas, governmental and NGOs, academics and the media, to keep Taiwan alive in people’s consciousness. Given the state’s ability — and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proclivity — to influence or control the media, these empowered individuals will need to make the fullest use of digital broadcasting — Facebook, Web blogs, YouTube and others — as well as more traditional means such as conferences, public relations campaigns, eye-catching events, movies, music and literature, to reach out, fire up people’s imagination and “sell” Taiwan to the world.

Already, the Wild Strawberries Student Movement has demonstrated that through persistence and imagination, and thanks to new technologies, groups with little financial means and without the support of the state can transcend borders, defy the authorities and engender interest abroad.

If the Ma administration won’t do it, the people can. Taiwan must remain an international issue.

J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.

Blink and Taiwan will be sold out

Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 8

Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference member Hu Angang (胡鞍鋼) once said there is no need for China to take up arms against Taiwan, and that doing so would be the worst option. Hu said Taiwan’s economic dependence on China runs so deep that economic sanctions would bring Taiwan to its knees in seven days. In Hu’s words, Taiwan is like a diabetes patient in need of China’s insulin.

This 2006 statement is indirect evidence that China may launch economic sanctions against Taiwan at any time. At the time, cross-strait trade had reached a total of US$100 billion, and Taiwan’s trade surplus with China had reached US$66.13 billion. Today, these figures have repeatedly been exceeded. With the opening up of direct transportation links, dependence has reached a new level.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that direct transportation links spell the end of the “no haste, be patient” and “effective management” policies. It seems Taiwan really has become reliant on Chinese insulin.

Saying direct links are turning Taiwan into a diabetic may turn out to be more than mere satire because of government incompetence. Speeches by Ma and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) at the three links inaugural ceremony clearly show that the government is basing deregulation on the ideological viewpoint that anything that involves opening up to China is a good thing.

The lack of complementary measures to open Taiwan to the international community means that the practical effects can be easily determined. Due to factor-price equalization, Taiwan’s increasingly closer connection to low-wage, low-cost China is resulting in falling, rather than increased, incomes. Forging closer ties with an economy whose exports are suffering heavily from the global economic slowdown will lead to Taiwan being sucked dry rather than benefiting from these ties.

The government likes to talk about the “one day community” concept, as it will only take 80 minutes to fly from Taipei to Shanghai, less time than it takes the high speed rail to run from Taipei to Kaohsiung.

As tourist spots in China are cutting prices to gain competitiveness, and given the lower cost of living in China together with accompanying government policies, one wonders whether the Ma administration has made any preparations to help the domestic tourism industry strengthen its competitiveness or whether it will let companies fend for themselves and let the Chinese-controlled market decide the outcome.

Government data shows that cross-straight charter flights have increased Taiwanese tourism to China, while Chinese tourism to Taiwan remains unchanged. If this continues, domestic hotels, bus companies and tourist shops will suffer, aggravating domestic unemployment. It would be no exaggeration to say that the deregulation seems aimed at boosting the Chinese, not the Taiwanese, economy.

Liu’s statement that the benefits to Taiwanese agricultural product and fresh foods industries from direct cross-strait links will arrive “faster than if they were delivered by express delivery” distorts the facts and could be construed as deceiving farm and fishery workers.

The first sea transport carried textile and paper raw materials, and it will bring back malt, vegetables and corn starch. This is not a one-way street for selling Taiwanese oranges and grouper fish to China, and future price dumping of Chinese agricultural produce is all but certain. Taiwan’s agricultural sector will bear the brunt of these developments and within six months, Taiwanese farmers will feel the pinch.

The key to selling Taiwanese products in China is not speed but price. What preparations has the government made to help protect Taiwanese farmers?

On Monday Ma said the economic effect of direct cross-strait transportation links would be worth NT$3 billion (US$92.4 million). Where does this figure come from? No one believes his promises any more, and there were even rumors that the goods containers in the first shipments were only half full, although official reports said they were fully loaded.

The cross-strait agreements stipulate that the daily charter flights can only carry mail, not other goods, and there aren’t even any fifth freedom rights — the right of an airline of one country to land in a different country, pick up passengers, and carry them on to a third country.

The limited benefits can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and while they will not trickle down to the general public, the public will have to share the burden of any losses. Is the government really trying to benefit a few rich corporations at the cost of the poor?

Is the goal of the direct three links to create economic benefits for Taiwan or to bleed Taiwan dry? The government’s motives are questionable. It seems the patient’s situation is deteriorating and that it in the end will require the Chinese insulin. Ma must respond to the claim that Taiwan will fall in a mere seven days of economic warfare, without China even lifting a gun.

We can’t rely on students to monitor government
　

By Chen Yi-shen 陳儀深
Monday, Dec 22, 2008, Page 8

Before the March presidential election, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said he would not rule out boycotting the Beijing Olympics to protest China’s violent crackdown in Tibet. He was even more outspoken than his rival, the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Frank Hsieh (謝長廷). After the election, Ma said it was not appropriate for the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan, as he tries to ingratiate himself to China in any way. Examples of his saying one thing and doing another are too numerous to list.

Before the election, he advocated putting Taiwan first for the benefit of the public in an attempt to secure voter support. It is thus clear that Taiwanese consciousness and the concept of confronting China to protect Taiwan are mainstream values. In the current atmosphere of pessimism, this should be of comfort to pro-Taiwan forces.

But doesn’t Ma have to face another election? Some people argue that he plans to sell out Taiwan during this term. Although it might not be a complete impossibility, current developments show that this would not be an easy thing to do, so let’s leave this possibility aside for now. In addition, as Taiwanese tend to forget quickly, chances are that Ma could win the 2012 presidential election if he offers up yet another set of fair campaign promises.

These views oversimplify the problem. The public only seems to pay close attention to issues concerning national sovereignty, dignity and development during elections, which means that in ordinary times we have to rely on checks and balances between executive, legislative and judiciary powers and critical supervision from the opposition parties.

Now that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is in charge of the Cabinet, the legislature and both the Examination and Control yuans and the opposition parties are caught up in dealing with the judiciary, we have to rely on civil society and non-governmental organizations to supervise the government. This is the reason why the Wild Strawberry Student Movement is so precious and why expectations of it are so high

On Dec. 7, the Wild Strawberries organized demonstrations nationwide. As the students didn’t apply for permission, they had to stress their peaceful and rational approach, even if this made it more difficult for other civil groups to mobilize supporters. As a result, the phrase “fight until the death” in the songs sung during the protest appeared to be a bit out of place. In general, however, participants displayed their creativity in designing slogans, clothes, banners and campaign vehicles, and the turnout of thousands of demonstrators was an affirmation of their efforts.

I agree with Tang Chih-chieh (湯志傑), a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology of Academia Sinica, who said the movement was “spring training” not only for domestic student movements, but also for the future generation of Taiwanese leaders. The strategy of solely relying on substantial resources of political parties or such empty slogans as “Love Taiwan” will likely soon be phased out as the new generation demands the vision, creativity and tolerance required to lead Taiwan into the future.

However, the movement is only the beginning. The students will eventually go back to school. But the question remains whether non-governmental organizations, including pro-localization groups, have managed to restore themselves to good shape since May. We cannot rely only on young students to supervise the Ma government. The DPP and pro-localization groups must leave the question of supporting or opposing former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) behind and move on. The competition for the 2012 election has already begun.

Chen Yi-shen is an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica.