KMT cannot be a substitute for government, DPP says
　

‘NO BLANK CHECK’: The DPP said that the participation of government officials at a forum in Shanghai may have broken the law. The KMT said they went as private citizens

By Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008, Page 1

“China’s economy depends on Taiwan, not the other way around.”— Huang Kun-huei, Taiwan Solidarity Union chairman

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of replacing the government in cross-strait negotiations and said it was bringing back the old “party-state.”

DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) told a press conference in Taipei that Taiwan-China talks should proceed within a government-to-government framework, rather than party to party.

“The unscrupulous KMT has ignored the harm it has done to the sovereignty of the government system … forcing the country to accept deals it has reached secretly with its Chinese counterparts,” he said.

The lawmaker said five government officials attended last weekend’s fourth joint Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum in Shanghai with KMT officials, violating the law, adding that the judiciary should investigate whether they had committed treason.

Lai said Taiwanese companies should be wary of the “economic benefits” offered by China.

Citing the case of Beijing allowing Taiwanese businesses to join public bids for major construction projects in China, Lai said Taiwanese enterprises had higher costs than their Chinese counterparts, which would make it very difficult to win bids for projects.

Lai said that although China had promised to buy US$2 billion in flat panels from Taiwanese companies, this accounted for less than 10 percent of annual sales and could hardly be referred to as a benefit.

If Chinese companies exported those panels to the international market after assembling them, Lai said, those products would compete with products made by local companies. He questioned whether Taiwanese companies would profit from such trade.

In a separate setting, Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said the KMT did not represent the voice of all Taiwanese and could not replace the role of the government in talks with China.

“Taiwanese did not give the KMT a blank check to do whatever it likes when dealing with cross-strait relations,” Huang said.

The financing of Taiwanese investors in China is meant to help the Chinese economy — its growth and employment — Huang said.

A US report showed Taiwan’s direct investment in China in 2005 was US$280 billion, Huang said.

“China’s economy depends on Taiwan, not the other way around,” Huang said, adding that people should not lose sight of that reality.

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said that all the decisions made at the forum could only serve as suggestions to the government. Lin said the five government officials who attended the forum did so as individuals rather than as representatives of the government.

Also yesterday, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) said the conclusions reached and the suggestions made at the forum would only provide “direction for policymakers.”

“Solid negotiations on concrete matters and issues across the Taiwan Strait will still have to rely on the SEF and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait,” Chiang said.

Meanwhile, SEF Deputy Chairman Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉) said that it would be unrealistic to have high expectations regarding the agreements made at the forum.

Kao said Chinese authorities promised some time ago they would provide 50 billion yuan (US$7.29 billion) in loans from two Chinese state funds to Taiwanese businesses to facilitate operations in China.

However, none of the businesses was able to secure loans because the threshold set by the authorities was too high, he said.

CLA slammed over unpaid leave
　

HARD TIMES: During a meeting yesterday union representatives said the Council of Labor Affairs should be directly subsidizing workers rather than their employers

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008, Page 3

Union representatives, legislators and academics voiced their anger at the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday at the legislature’s public hearing to discuss several issues surrounding the recently soaring number of people on unpaid leave.

The legislature’s Health, Environment and Labor Committee public hearing yesterday gathered more than 100 professors, legislators, government officials and union representatives of various industries from across the country. CLA minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) was not present.

Wang’s absence angered union representatives, who said they felt she was not listening to their needs.

“What does [Wang] have to do that is more important than this? The most important thing to do now is to be here and listen to everyone’s voices,” shouted Simon Chang (張緒中), president of the Chunghwa Telecom Workers’ Union. “Taiwan needs to focus not on regulations, but attitudes.”

The CLA has been under fire because of its wavering policies regarding unpaid leave. Last week, legislators slammed the council for allowing companies to tell full-time workers to take unpaid leave to cutting pay in proportion to the number of hours cut, even if the monthly salary dips below the minimum wage of NT$17,280 per month. The council then reversed the decision a day later by saying that businesses would not be allowed to pay full-time workers below the minimum wage.

Wang said on Friday that the council had been mulling whether and how to subsidize employees or businesses in order to ensure that workers who are on unpaid leave are not laid off because the company could not afford to pay even the minimum wage. The council was supposed to unveil the details of its plan after talks with union representatives yesterday, but the meeting failed to reach any consensus.

During the meeting, union representatives spoke out about the subsidy saying that the council should directly subsidize workers, not businesses.

“Did businesses help workers? No! All they did was exploit and threaten workers,” said Ren Mu-shan (任睦杉), president of the National Trade Union Confederation, in reference to the Executive Yuan’s previous slogan, “Government helps banks, banks help businesses, businesses help workers.”

Ren said it did not make sense to subsidize businesses instead of workers on unpaid leave, because it is the workers who the council should be protecting.

The council should immediately stop the hiring of foreign laborers and decrease existing quotas for businesses hiring foreign workers to protect Taiwanese nationals from losing their jobs, he said.

“When [the foreign workers’] contracts are up, there should be no renewals,” he said.

Chiou Jiun-yan (邱駿彥), a graduate professor at the Chinese Culture University’s Department of Law, attended the meeting.

“During periods of unpaid leave, the insured amount of labor insurance should be calculated based on the worker’s original salary, which was detailed in the employment contract signed by the employer and the employee, and not based on the amount of salary paid out to the worker,” he said.

“It is important to understand that during unpaid leave, the worker has not changed anything in his or her employment contract … but only temporarily given up his or her right to the full salary amount,” he said.

CLA deputy chairman Pan Shih-wei (潘世偉) responded to the union representatives by saying the council would be happy to listen to concerns to help council officials make decisions about policies regarding unpaid leave.

On the issue of foreign labor, Pan said the council would hold a meeting soon to discuss whether or not adjustments would be made to existing quotas.

Guilty until proven innocent

You guys on a daily basis keep pushing the “innocent until proven guilty” thing regarding former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). You even have academics reminding your readers that it’s a basic human right. Correct?

Astonishingly, your same paper on a daily basis keeps pushing the “Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) selling out Taiwan’s sovereignty” thing based on your assumptions that closer ties with China lead to unification with China under China’s terms. Now isn’t this branding the KMT “guilty until proven innocent?”

You guys are the biggest joke. You seem to argue that if a person loves Taiwan, then he or she must consider the actions of anyone in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as innocent until proven guilty, as this is a human right.

Yet a person must also consider anyone who is in the KMT or supports President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) actions as guilty until proven innocent, amazingly denying them the same human rights enjoyed by DPP supporters.

This attitude is why the DPP is no longer in power.

Trace Gomez
Taipei
　

An oppressive silence

A few days ago, in the UN General Assembly, France put forward an unprecedented declaration condemning human rights violations based on homophobia, or the hatred of and prejudice against gays and lesbians. This unprecedented French declaration states that homophobia is an evil that runs counter to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is an evil akin to racism, anti-Semitism and apartheid.

Although Taiwan has unjustly been excluded from the UN, I believe that Taiwan should do its best to follow international norms and laws, especially in regard to civil and human rights. I believe that Taiwan should implement a strong Gender Equality Law. Not only should discrimination based on gender be forbidden, people should also not be victims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Women, gays and lesbians should never experience the pain and fear of harassment in the workforce or other places in society.

It is also my hope that the Taiwanese legislature and courts will allow gay marriages, or at least the protection and sanction provided by “civil unions.”

The more human rights are protected in Taiwan, the stronger its society will become.

Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is hatred born of fear and ignorance. One should never forget that the Nazi ideology called for the extermination of people belonging to “inferior races,” as well as Jews and homosexuals. People belonging to these groups were deemed by the Nazis as “unfit to live.”

To quote Elie Wiesel’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10, 1986: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders become irrelevant, Wherever men and women are persecuted ... that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe.

“There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention ... Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere ... There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done ... We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would be to betray them.”

MICHAEL SCANLON
East Hartford, Connecticut

The key reasons why talks with N Korea failed
　

All the players involved in the Six Party Talks who want Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program had weaknesses that led to a breakdown in negotiations

By Richard Halloran
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2008, Page 9

‘Obama has been cagey about North Korea’s nuclear weapons, perhaps to avoid responsibility before he moves into the White House.’

The negotiations intended to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arms have all but collapsed and the finger-pointing to affix blame is under way.

At the same time, the conventional wisdom says the issue has been passed to US president-elect Barack Obama to resolve after he takes office on Jan. 20. Nowhere is it carved in stone, however, that he need do so. Walking away is a realistic option.

Cutting through the diplomatic verbiage enveloping what is known as the Six Party Talks, there’s enough fault to go around:

• North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear program, has tested a weapon, and has indicated that it plans to test again. Pyongyang’s purpose has been to string out the negotiations to see what it could get in oil and other economic bribes.

• China, praised for hosting the talks, has done little to press North Korea. Rather, Beijing has allowed the talks to muddle along while claiming that China has little influence over North Korea. That contention from a rising power is increasingly hard to believe.

• The US has negotiated as if North Korea were governed by rational people susceptible to Western logic. Instead, the North Koreans have scorned US pledges of diplomatic recognition, economic benefits and a peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the Korean War of 1950 to 1953.

• South Korea, no matter what government is in power, has been lukewarm toward the talks because (a) a large majority believes that their North Korean cousins will not use nuclear weapons against them and (b) reunification would mean the South would inherit the North’s weapons.

• Japan, although anxious about North Korean belligerence, nuclear weapons and missiles, has been hampered by weak governments and an obsession with North Korean abductions of Japanese snatched from their homeland.

• Russia, a patron of North Korea in the days of the Soviet Union, has been trying to reestablish itself as an Asian power by cleaning up its rusting navy, promoting arms sales and fostering trade and economic aid. So far, however, that has not translated into political influence.

US President George W. Bush held out hope last week that the Six Party Talks could be revived. While flying from Iraq to Afghanistan, he told reporters: “A success of this administration is to put a framework in place that has China, the United States, and South Korea and Russia and Japan all at the table, all saying the same thing.”

The president asserted that the process of the negotiations had been reversed.

“It used to be, we will give you what you ask for and hope that you respond,” he said. “Now it is, here’s what you must do if you want our help,” adding that North Korea leader Kim Jong-il “is trying to test the process.”

Bush acknowledged, however, that the Six Party Talks are over for his administration and would be passed to Obama.

“The key,” the president said, “is to be firm and patient with a structure that will enable the next President or the next President after that to be able to solve the problem diplomatically.”

Obama has been cagey about North Korea’s nuclear weapons, perhaps to avoid responsibility before he moves into the White House. He says on his Web site, www.change.gov, that “the gravest danger to the American people is the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes.”

Obama says his administration “will pursue tough, direct diplomacy without preconditions with all nations, friend and foe.” He pledges he “will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea.” No direct mention of resuming the talks.

Considering everything with which the new president must cope, such as the economy, energy, immigration, the environment, Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, Russia, relations with the European Community and NATO, Israel and the Middle East, Canada and Mexico, and finding a new dog for his daughters, setting aside the North Korean issue might be tempting.

He could tell the North Koreans quietly that they appear not to be interested in negotiating in good faith. If they change their minds, let him know. Meantime, a threat to US forces, allies, and friends would be met with a forceful response in time, place, and method of American choosing.

Richard Halloran is a writer based in Hawaii.