Let the ‘status quo’ alone, Hadley tells Taiwan, PRC
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER , WASHINGTON
Friday, Jan 09, 2009, Page 1

US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley warned China and Taiwan to “respect the status quo” and avoid any unilateral actions that could affect the other side.

Answering questions following a major farewell speech in Washington on Wednesday, Hadley addressed the China-Taiwan issue in more extensive terms than he has done before in public.

He said the framework of US President George W. Bush’s policies with respect to China and Taiwan had been based on keeping the “status quo” in place while “at the same time making very clear to China that we would carry out our obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to make sure that Taiwan had the capacity to provide for its own defense.”

“Bush has tried to have a course that basically respects the ‘one China’ policy ... and the three communiques, which are the bulwark of our policy with respect to China, but also to make very clear that both sides, China and Taiwan, need to respect the status quo and there needs to be no unilateral actions by either side,” he said.

“The President stood very firm with respect to those principles ... And I think that helped get through a difficult patch in the relations between China and Taiwan, and [has] helped encourage what is really a very hopeful turn in relations between China and Taiwan,” Hadley said.

As chief White House adviser on security issues, Hadley appeared to be going out of his way to stress — in a way that he has not done before — that under Bush the US was ready to make sure that Taiwan was able to defend itself in the case of an attack by China.

It is significant because much of the speech, which dealt with hotspots around the world, was directed at the incoming administration of president-elect Barack Obama.

“When President Bush approached Asia, he approached it not by starting first with our relations with China, but starting first with our relations with our traditional allies. A central feature of his Asia policy was to strengthen those alliances and to try and deal with a pretty long list of unresolved issues and irritants in those relationships,” Hadley said.

“So I think it is also very important for the new administration to think in the same way about how they are going to approach the issue of Asia more generally and to see our relations with China in that broader context,” he said.

“We have built a stronger relationship with China based on cooperation where we agree and candor where we disagree. Tensions over Taiwan have eased considerably. And we continue to press China on human rights and religious freedom,” Hadley said.

“The Asia-Pacific is a region of increasing importance to America’s security and economic well-being. President Bush has strengthened the institutional relationships that will allow the new president the better to advance our interests there,” he said.

Asked about studies by the think tank Freedom House that show free societies around the world are in retreat, Hadley said: “The advance of freedom is hard work and a long-term project. And I think it’s had its ups and downs. It may have declined over the last three years.”

Chinese activist sentenced to six years in jail

AP, BEIJING
Friday, Jan 09, 2009, Page 1

A 65-year-old democracy activist who tried to set up an opposition party in China has been sentenced to six years in jail, a human rights group said yesterday.

A court in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, sentenced Wang Rongqing (王榮清) on Wednesday on charges of subverting state power for organizing the banned China Democracy Party, Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.

Wang was detained in June, two months before the Olympic Games, the group said. Wang’s brother, Wang Rongyao (王榮躍), confirmed the sentence. The Hangzhou Intermediate People’s Court could not be immediately be reached for comment.

Wang has been repeatedly harassed and detained by police during his years of activism, which started in the late 1970s as China’s hardline Maoist era came to a close and some started calling for democracy. He was detained for two months in 1999.

“He was not in good physical condition and he stood in court with the assistance of the police, but he was in good spirits,” said Zou Wei, a friend and fellow dissident of Wang who was in court on Wednesday.

Founded by dissidents in mid-1998, the China Democracy Party was quashed just six months later by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which allows no challenge to its political monopoly. Dozens of activists were arrested and sentenced to up to 13 years in prison, most on charges of subverting state power.

China allows a small number of officially recognized alternative parties, although they serve as advisers to rather than competitors to the ruling CCP.

More than 100 co-signers of a Chinese petition calling for democracy and an end to the dominance of the CCP have been harassed or summoned for questioning by police, Chinese Human Rights Defenders said yesterday.

The group said the signers were pressured by police because of their support for Charter 08, an unusually open call for civil rights and political reforms released early last month.

The rights group also said efforts have been made to stifle information about the charter on the Internet. Searches for Charter 08 on the three main search engines in China — Baidu, Google.cn and Yahoo — turn up blank pages.

Is the US just a little too optimistic?

Friday, Jan 09, 2009, Page 8

If the Presidential Office is to be believed, everyone inside “the Beltway” — US political speak for Washington — is over the moon about the progress in relations between Taiwan and China since the change of government last May.

Over the last few weeks, a steady succession of US establishment figures and academics — most notably former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton — have landed in Taipei to file through the Presidential Office turnstiles and slap President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on the back while commending him for the recent cross-strait detente. Ma, meanwhile, has taken every opportunity to detail how happy the world is with his management of relations with China.

The reason, no doubt, for the US’ glee is that the warming of cross-strait relations means it is less likely that war will break out in the Taiwan Strait, in which case US soldiers would likely have to put their lives on the line to defend Taiwan.

In fact, the only dissenting voice of late has come from Pentagon officials, who have expressed worries that Taiwan’s headlong tilt toward China could eventually see advanced US weapons technology falling into the “wrong hands.”

At home, another dissenting voice — and one that seems to be having trouble making itself heard — is that of the growing number of Taiwanese alarmed at the pace and scope of the cross-strait rapprochement.

So far, because Ma was elected with a large majority less than 12 months ago, these dissenting voices have been written off as disappointed opposition supporters.

But these, and many more people who voted for Ma’s moderate pre-election promises, did so in the belief that the Presidential Office — not the KMT — would be in charge of cross-strait policy.

And while Ma touted the idea of a peace agreement with China during his election campaign, it is safe to assume that voters believed any agreement would not touch on political relations, as Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) seemed to suggest in a recent Xinhua article and which now seems increasingly likely.

Any such move would be deeply distressing to the majority in Taiwan, which has time and again shown support for maintaining the current cross-strait state of affairs.

Another consideration for those praising the new atmosphere in the Strait is that the closer democratic Taiwan gets to authoritarian Beijing, the bigger the threat China poses to the nation’s democratic system and the rights of Taiwanese to determine their future.

Washington must understand that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Although the Taiwan Relations Act — the guiding principle on US-Taiwan relations — states that the future of Taiwan should be settled by peaceful means, any “peace deal” between Taipei and Beijing, despite Beijing’s best guarantees, would inevitably result in a deterioration in human rights, the rule of law and democracy in the same manner witnessed in Hong Kong since 1997.

While the US is quite right in wanting a peaceful settlement to the Taiwan issue, it is hard to believe that the country that for so long served as Taiwan’s protector is prepared to turn its back on one of Asia’s freest societies as it is slowly swallowed by its giant, authoritarian neighbor.

Hu’s speech just more of the same
　

By Paul Lin 林保華
Friday, Jan 09, 2009, Page 8

On Dec. 31, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) gave a speech in Beijing to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan.” The basic spirit of the speech was the same as 30 years ago and was aimed at getting Taiwan to surrender to China.

What was the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” about? The younger generation today does not understand why China issued such a statement and, considering the closed political environment and restricted information flow at the time, not even the older generation have a good grasp of it.

After 1949, China’s Taiwan policy was that Taiwan must be liberated. As a result, there was some military conflict between the two sides. The most serious incident was the 823 Artillery Bombardment that occurred on Aug. 23, 1958, and was instigated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

On Jan. 1, 1979, China issued the “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan,” which represented a major Chinese policy change toward a softer attempt at getting Taiwan to willingly surrender. The ferocious CCP suddenly made emotional appeals to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The CCP, which had boasted about how it annihilated 8 million KMT troops and settled the score with “the remaining dregs of the KMT” during the Cultural Revolution before making two foreigners, Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, its spiritual fathers, suddenly turned around and said the KMT and the CCP were all “descendants of the Yellow Emperor” and that “unification” must be achieved to appease “the ancestors.”

The CCP, which forced the KMT to flee to Taiwan and “dealt with” the families of KMT members who remained in China, suddenly said that “Taiwan’s separation from the motherland for nearly 30 years has been artificial and runs against our national interests and aspirations.”

This seemed to imply that the KMT or a third party had caused this “artificial” separation and that China had nothing to do with the matter. I therefore find it sickening to hear China talk about things like the Taiwanese public’s “yearning for their homeland and old friends.”

They are shameless!

In order to understand the total turnaround in the CCP’s attitude, we must understand the historical background. In September 1976, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) died and in August the following year, China announced the end of the Cultural Revolution.

In the CCP’s own words, the Cultural Revolution was “10 years of turmoil” that represented a crisis in terms of belief, trust and confidence, while the economy moved to the verge of collapse.

Unable to “liberate” Taiwan by military means, China had to change its strategy to one of “tricking” Taiwan. This two-pronged strategy has since been used frequently by China.

To trick everyone, China said in its “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” that “the Chinese government has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to stop the bombardment of Kinmen and other islands starting today” and it declared that this represented an end to military confrontation between China and Taiwan.

This was a way for China to save face, because US intervention in the 823 Artillery Bombardment caused China to shrink back, which ended the dream of “liberating” Taiwan.

Mao’s idea of bombarding Kinmen every second day was fresh at first, but soon lost any innovative value. In addition, to appease the US, China launched a war on Vietnam to punish it for strengthening ties with the Soviet Union. It also supported the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. There was a possibility that the Soviet Union would come to the assistance of Vietnam and so China pulled out of the cross-strait bombardment.

Lets move on to the international situation. In 1972, Mao invited then-US president Richard Nixon to China because the struggle between China and the Soviet Union for leadership of the international communist movement had developed into minor military scuffles. Mao worried that the Soviet Union would use nuclear weapons, and he therefore changed policy from opposing imperialism, revisionism and reactionaries to one of trying to co-opt the US imperialists and the KMT reactionaries to counter Soviet revisionism.

However, US imperialism and the reactionary KMT were two different things. The CCP and the US established diplomatic relations on Jan. 1, 1979, which led to the US ending diplomatic relations with Taiwan — a heavy blow to the KMT.

At the same time, the CCP chose to issue its “Message to Compatriots in Taiwan” to curry favor with the KMT in a perfect example of how the CCP uses a ruthless two-pronged approach.

On Sept. 30, 1981, Chinese head of state Ye Jianying (葉劍英) proposed his nine principles, for the first time officially calling for peaceful unification with Taiwan.

But since then, China has often issued military threats against Taiwan and now has more than 1,000 missiles aimed at the nation. It seems that the end of cross-strait military confrontation that China talks about refers only to replacing cannons with missiles.

Hu is at his lying best again, using more despotic rhetoric than ever before. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), however, sees it as “new thinking,” as if he were willing to convince the people of Taiwan into surrendering.

Ma’s behavior is more shameless than that of former dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and former presidents Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Paul Lin is a political commentator based in Taiwan.