Israeli ground forces edge into Gaza City

AGENCIES, GAZA STRIP
Monday, Jan 12, 2009, Page 1

Israeli forces edged into the Gaza Strip’s most populous area yesterday, killing at least 27 Palestinians in an offensive stepped up in defiance of international calls for a ceasefire.

Medical officials said about half of the Palestinian dead in the latest fighting in the Hamas-ruled territory were civilians.

“Israel is getting close to achieving the goals it set for itself,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told his Cabinet in Jerusalem, giving no timeframe for an end to the 16-day-long war.

“But patience, determination and effort are still needed to realize these goals in a manner that will change the security situation in the south,” Olmert said, referring to Hamas rocket attacks that continue to hit Israeli towns.

Two of Israel’s top defense officials said Hamas had been badly hurt by the offensive, but that the group would fight on.

Military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that the group’s ability to fight had been damaged by the devastating assault. He said Hamas was suffering from ammunition shortages and has been hard hit by the deaths of senior militants.

But Yadlin said the group “is not expected to raise a white flag.”

Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin said many Gazans are furious with Hamas for “bringing a disaster on Gaza.”

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said his ruling Islamist group would not consider a ceasefire until Israel ended its air, sea and ground assault and lifted a Gaza blockade. A Hamas delegation held talks in Cairo on an Egyptian truce plan.

Backed by helicopter gunships, Israeli troops and tanks pushed into eastern and southern parts of the city of Gaza, confronting Hamas militants who fired anti-armor missiles and mortar bombs.

The Palestinian death toll since Israel’s offensive began on Dec. 17 stands at 869, many of them civilians, Gaza medical officials said. Thirteen Israelis — three civilians hit by rocket fire and 10 soldiers — have been killed, official Israeli figures showed.

In Washington, US president-elect Barack Obama said in broadcast remarks he would begin the search for Middle East peace immediately on becoming president on Jan. 20 and the Gaza conflict had only underscored his determination to become involved as early as possible.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to stop using white phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip, saying the chemical could severely burn people and set structures and fields on fire.

The group said white phosphorus was apparently being used to create smoke screens, describing this as “a permissible use in principle under international law.”

But it also noted media photos of air-bursting white phosphorus projectiles, which it said can spread burning wafers over an area between 125m and 250m in diameter, depending on the altitude of the explosion.

Israel said it only uses weapons permitted by international law.

Ma ignoring risks of overreliance on China: analysts
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Jan 12, 2009, Page 3

With the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration aggressively deregulating cross-strait policies, Taiwan must heed the potential negative impact of overreliance on the Chinese market, analysts said yesterday.

The IMF first forecast China’s GDP growth at 11 percent for this year, but has cut it to 8.5 percent. Last month, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the figure could fall to 5 percent.

As 80 percent to 90 percent of Taiwan’s foreign investment goes to China, many are worried that China’s slowing growth, falling exports and rising unemployment could hit the nation hard.

National Taipei University economics professor Wang To-far (王塗發) said a negative impact was inevitable because of the country’s overreliance on China’s economy.

“China’s situation is similar to that of a Buddha made of mud trying to cross a river — meaning it has enough problems saving itself,” he said. “Without 8 percent growth, China cannot create enough jobs. When unemployment becomes a problem, social unrest will follow.”

The Ma administration did not seem to realize the severity of the problem, Wang said, but believed cross-strait deregulation could salvage the domestic economy.

Taiwan’s economy is export-based, Wang said. During the 1960s and 1970s, the US bought 40 percent to 50 percent of the country’s exports, he said, but this dwindled after 2000. Now the US buys 20 percent of Taiwan’s exports, while China buys 40 percent to 50 percent.

As China’s GDP growth has slowed, exports to China have dropped by 50 percent, Wang said.

“In the early days, when our economy depended on the US, many worried we should not put all our eggs in one basket, because when the US sneezed, we would catch a bad cold,” he said. “Now, the situation has reversed and is even worse.”

Wang said economic and political uncertainty were bigger problems in China than in the US.

Economics cannot be separated from politics, Wang said, adding that most of China’s economic policies were part of political maneuvers to ultimately incorporate Taiwan into China.

Because of pressure from China, other countries have balked at signing free trade agreements and other economic accords with Taiwan, Wang said.

Although it was too early to tell when China’s economic power would catch up with that of the US and Japan, overreliance on China posed a great risk to the nation both economically and politically, Wang said.

“It is like exposing your neck and allowing somebody to wring it,” he said. “China’s strategy is clear. They let Taiwanese merchants pressure their government to push Beijing’s political agenda.”

National Taiwan University economics professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) agreed that economy and politics go hand in hand.

“A precondition for a sovereign state is economic independence,” he said. “When a country has little or even no economic freedom, political problems will follow. It is like when a person is financially dependent, that person does not have the right of free choice.”

Lin said the Ma administration attached too much importance to what globalization, and China in particular, would give the domestic economy.

“China represents many opportunities, but the country’s overreliance on China is turning such an opportunity into a crisis,” Lin said.

A responsible government must consider the potential advantages and disadvantages of any policy, Lin said, but the Ma administration seems to be ignoring the risks posed by overreliance on China.

Part of the government’s strategy to beat the economic slowdown is to increase domestic consumption and public spending, in part by issuing consumer vouchers.

But Lin doubted the effectiveness of these policies. The country’s borrowing money to revitalize its economy only showed it lacked competitiveness and the capacity to act effectively in an economic crisis.

Professor Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at National Chengchi University said China’s slowing growth and the global economic downturn had eclipsed the benefits of cross-strait liberalization.

While China’s economic clout grows, Tung said he expected Washington and Tokyo to pay more attention to Beijing’s opinions on various issues. However, he did not think the US and Japan would abandon Taiwan because they have strategic interests here.

As long as Taiwan has a clear strategic objective, Tung said the government did not necessarily need to set political preconditions for cross-strait economic exchanges.

For example, Tung said, Washington hoped to see China’s economic liberalization lead to social and political reform.

In addition, the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration set three political preconditions for opening up cross-strait transportation links, Tung said, but these did not work as bargaining chips.

Universities face fight for survival
　

By Ben Wu 吳濟聰
Monday, Jan 12, 2009, Page 8

PROFESSOR PRUDENCE CHOU (周祝瑛) recently published an article about the need to improve the skills of our university students in tough economic times (“The power of questions for students in limbo,” Jan. 1, page 8). In her article, Chou said university teachers are required to do research and are pressured to obtain doctorates.

This means, Chou said, that students who need remedial teaching and career counseling from universities are let through the system because their teachers do not have enough time for them.

The result, Chou said, is that many students are unable to identify their strengths and career goals during their four years at university.

Although the government promised to improve retirement packages for teachers at private universities some time ago, some professors at prestigious private universities have opted to teach at public universities, while even more professors from private universities are getting ready to do the same.

However, the majority of people are unaware that aside from those universities that are considered “low-quality universities,” a lot of universities that are heavily involved in Taiwan’s Teaching Excellence Programs (教學卓越計畫) are also plagued by the same problems.

Both private universities and our government have an equal responsibility in improving education in Taiwan. Shouldn’t a government that emphasizes education help private universities in achieving their goals of improving education? Aren’t the problems private universities are facing serious?

Private universities are facing serious problems — problems that cannot be solved overnight. In the past, teachers at private universities could spend the majority of their time teaching. Even with the discrepancies in salary and retirement packages between private and public universities, this fact was one factor that helped them attract teachers.

However, the uniform appraisal and promotion systems that have been implemented in recent years have had a heavy impact on these schools. The standards for the appraisal and promotion systems are supposed to be a combination of factors such as teaching, service and academia.

In reality, however, academic performance is the primary criteria of these systems. This means that teachers at private universities must devote more time on research and spend less on teaching and career counseling.

Such a situation makes many teachers ask themselves why they should stay at private universities with relatively lower salaries and retirement packages when they are performing almost the same duties as they would at public universities.

Because of a large drop in the birthrate and the limitations placed on the competitiveness of private universities by the uniform appraisal and promotion systems, teachers there worry that if they do not take the opportunity to leave private institutions now, they will be left with nothing in the event that their universities close down.

Therefore, over time, teachers at private universities began emphasizing academic performance in preparation for going to teach at public universities. This affects teaching at private universities because teachers are not as devoted to teaching as they were before.

There is a large gap between tuition fees at private universities in Taiwan and China. Secondly, China already has too many university students and those who do choose to come to Taiwan to study would choose universities that have better reputations, otherwise they would have no chance of finding jobs after returning to China.

Private universities with better finances have come up with ways to lower the gaps in salaries and retirement packages for teachers. Universities that have not been able to make adjustments to their systems are losing their teachers and face other pressures from problems related to salaries, retirement packages and a drop in the number of students. If these universities are unable to obtain financial assistance, they will have to either shut down or lay off employees, with tuition fees being controlled by the Ministry of Education. Employees with a competitive advantage will leave these universities before they lose their jobs, which will only exacerbate the problems.

The first way in which these problems can be resolved is to make our universities more liberal and diverse. The uniform appraisal and promotion systems have to be discontinued, universities must be allowed to find their own competitive advantages and not be forced to emphasize research only. Also, the government should allow foreign universities to invest in or acquire private universities.

The second way in which these problems can be resolved is to discontinue the fee control policies at private universities. Universities are no longer oligopolies and students have a wide range of choices in terms of where they seek higher education. Well-known universities such as Harvard charge extraordinarily high fees, however, because these universities have their own competitive advantages and students are not put off by their higher fees. Private universities in Taiwan should be allowed to develop their own competitive advantages.

If the government keeps ignoring this problem, we could very well witness a wave of private universities closing their doors in the next few years.

Ben Wu is an assistant professor in the Department of Information Management at Fujen Catholic University.