US will back Taiwan's bid for more space: Clinton
　

By Nadia Tsao
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Jan 24, 2009, Page 1

The administration of US President Barack Obama will continue to support Taiwan’s efforts to gain more international space, including becoming an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA), US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a recent statement.

The statement was made in response to an inquiry from senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Johnny Isakson of Georgia on Clinton’s stance on Taiwan’s WHA bid if she was confirmed as Washington’s top diplomat.

Taiwan was one of the WHO’s original members, but had to forfeit its membership in 1979 after the nation gave up its seat at the UN in 1971. Since 1997, Taiwan has made repeated attempts to re-enter the health body, but each time it has been rejected because of Beijing’s interference.

Since 2004, the US and Japan have publicly shown their support for Taiwan’s bid to become a WHA observer. It has been the subject of much speculation that Taiwan will finally get its wish this May as Beijing is expected to loosen its grip following the recent warming in cross-strait ties.

On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control announced the WHO had agreed to include Taiwan in the International Health Regulations 2005, a global health framework focused on disease surveillance and reporting and had asked the nation to recommend a “point of contact in Taipei.”

Sources close to the two senators said Clinton expressed her approval of both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) for capitalizing on the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) March presidential election victory to improve cross-strait ties on economic and security issues.

Clinton said under such circumstances and within the realm of the so-called “one China” policy, she believed it would be appropriate for Washington to support Taiwan’s efforts to gain more international space, such as the bid to become a WHA observer.

She also stressed that it was crucial that Beijing show the Taiwanese people that Ma’s pragmatic and non-confrontational approach toward China would glean positive results.

Taiwan’s continual alienation at the WHO would result in public health issues, she said, adding that “just like you, I believe the US should work with Taiwan to correct the situation.”

Congressional members said Clinton also answered favorably questions from Louisiana Senator David Vitter and South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint on strengthening communications with high ranking Taiwanese officials and whether she would maintain the commitment to Taiwan’s security as stated in the Taiwan Relations Act by continuing to sell arms.

US-based Taiwan experts add names to open letter
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER, WASHINGTON
Saturday, Jan 24, 2009, Page 3

Two important Taiwan experts based in Washington have added their names to the open letter published in the Taipei Times earlier this week expressing concern about what they see as an erosion of justice in Taiwan.

The new signatories are former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver and George Washington University academic Michael Yahuda.

In the original letter a group of international academics and writers urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to order an independent inquiry into the way police squashed protests during the visit of Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

The letter said: “The establishment of a scrupulously neutral commission is essential if there is to be a fair and objective conclusion on the disturbances that occurred during the Chen Yunlin visit.”

Freedom House, Amnesty International and US professor Jerome Cohen have also strongly recommended an independent inquiry.

At the same time, the group has expressed concern about the legal proceedings in the case of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and political pressure from KMT members of the Legislative Yuan that preceded a switch from a three-judge panel that had released the former president on his own cognizance to a court that subsequently detained him again.

The letter said there had been a “widespread pattern of leaks to the media regarding ongoing cases — leaks, which because of their content and nature can only have come from the prosecutors’ offices.”

It mentioned a recent skit in which some prosecutors involved in Chen’s case poked fun at the former president.

“This pattern of behavior displays a distinct bias in the judicial system and a disregard for fair and impartial processes,” it said.

It concluded by again urging Ma “to ensure that your government and its judiciary and parliamentary institutions safeguard the full democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.”

In an article published this week in its Taiwan Communique, the Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs said the last few months had seen a further erosion of human rights and democracy in Taiwan.

It said the downward slide started in mid-October with the arrest and detention of former and present officials of the Democratic Progressive Party administration and worsened with aggressive police behavior during the Chen Yunlin visit in early November.

“Both developments were reminiscent of Taiwan’s police state under the Kuomintang’s [KMT] martial law, which lasted from 1947 until 1987,” the article said.

It quoted Cohen, who was Ma’s law professor at Harvard, as saying that the recent court proceedings against Chen Shui-bian “mocked the promise” of fairness.

“At what point does the presumption of innocence become meaningless and the pre-conviction detention morph into punishment for a crime not finally proved?” Cohen asked.

Ma’s election much more than a rotation of power
　

Worried that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would seize total control of all media outlets after becoming the most powerful political party in the country, former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng started broadcasting shows on Happy Radio on Jan. 1. The Taipei Times spoke with him about his plans to change politics

Saturday, Jan 24, 2009, Page 3
　

Taipei Times: You were an economics professor before, and have become a professor again after serving in various government positions — so why would you be interested in producing radio shows?

Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟): I got the chance to meet the owner of Happy Radio, Huang (黃), through [Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Tainan City Councilor] Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), and was told that he was considering leasing out his station to KMT lawmakers. I thought it was an obvious move by the KMT to gain control of the media after gaining control of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, and I quickly told Huang that I would rent the station instead.

So, after returning from the US, I talked with Huang. At first he wanted to rent his radio station for NT$6.5 million [US$198,000] a month, which was way above what we could afford. After some more talks, he agreed to give us five hours a day for NT$2 million.

TT: Where will the money come from? With the recession, how do you plan to run the station?

Chen: Yes, the economy is bad, but when we first made our plan in September, the recession wasn’t as bad.

But we’ve already made up our mind — we knew full well that this would not be a profitable investment and we calculated that we could afford more than NT$30 million a month in costs. We expect a loss of NT$3 million to NT$4 million a year for the first two years.

After we had the plan, we started talking to some of our friends. We had a goal of obtaining NT$50 million, and we’ve already received NT$25 million. It wasn’t easy to get this much money in just a month-and-a-half.

Other than the NT$2 million a month in rent, we have to pay for salaries, equipment and other stuff. Right now, we have NT$700,000 from commercials, but the burden is still quite heavy.

Thus we can’t really afford to hire too many people, but we have a lot of volunteers.

TT: What will be the objective of your radio programs?

Chen: We should understand what is on the minds of those who did not vote for [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on March 22, and stay connected with these people.

I am one of those people, I’ve been frustrated since March and wanted to do something for Taiwan, but I didn’t know how. In elections in the past, [DPP] candidates would invite us Mainlanders to endorse them, but the campaign headquarters did not get in touch with me before the [presidential] election this time. We had to ask to be on the stage ourselves, and we got just five minutes. That didn’t feel good and I believe voters had some thoughts on that as well.

There is probably a need for a new motivation for the people to get rid of this feeling of being pushed back, and we actually appreciate the contribution they made a lot.

There was a Mr Chen who brought NT$50,000 to us for donation. Why did he do that?

I’d received a letter from another Mr Chen who was a retired post office employee who enclosed NT$2,000 in his letter. He said that he wasn’t a public servant, and did not benefit from the 18 percent public-servant special interest rate, so he could only afford NT$2,000, and asked us to “forgive” him.

I read the letter to the public and stressed that this is the kind of support — regardless of the amount — that gives us encouragement. His brother heard [it on the radio] and brought NT$50,000 today. I think there are a lot of people like him in society. They know that we’re not rich so they support us. Hence, we know that we’ll lose some money, but we won’t lose everything.

TT: Are you [taking the donations from the public to] show the neutrality of the station?

Chen: Yes, we’re impartial, but we’re impartial in terms of not getting involved in factions within a party, not being impartial between the green and the blue political camps. Some people advised us not to call ourselves the luse douzhen [綠色鬥陣, “the Green Front”], because the name was too partisan and could prevent us from making more money. But I said this was what we are: I don’t like to be ambiguous.

TT: How do you feel about the recent setbacks and challenges to certain democratic values and systems and the seeming return to 20 years ago when Taiwan first began its democratic reform?

Chen: If you look at it from a certain angle, you see this is an understandable, if not natural development. When I was an activist for democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s — that is, under the governments of [former presidents] Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) and Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) — the KMT was actually willing to transform from an authoritarian government.

I’m not sure if they really wanted to change, were forced to do so because of changes in the environment, or both. You know, the KMT government was under tremendous international pressure — the US broke diplomatic ties with us, the Kaohsiung Incident case — these all created tremendous pressure on the Chiangs and the KMT.

So I think they intentionally turned a blind eye to the democratic movement, the founding of an opposition party and the retirement of old deputies in the National Assembly.

If the KMT had wanted to keep tight control of everything, the democratic movement wouldn’t have achieved as much.

But at the moment, after becoming a new democracy, we should call what Ma’s government is doing a “restoration.” The political environment is good for them — Ma was popularly elected and won power from the DPP, so his government is more “justified” than the old Chiang regimes … On the other hand, China’s attitude towards Taiwan — compared with the old days — is less tense. All these outside factors could make Ma feel that he has nothing to worry about.

Facing a president like Ma, I think the DPP should redefine Ma’s government. Don’t think of Ma’s ascent to power as a rotation of power, like in other democratic countries. The DPP should think of it as a reversal of democratization, as [US political scientist Samuel] Huntington said. This reverse wave may very well turn a new democracy into an authoritarian country. Huntington has predicted it, and that’s what Taiwan is like right now.

The wrong course

Dear Johnny,

On Dec. 10, right after awarding the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy’s (TFD) Asia Human Rights and Democracy Award, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) publicly instructed his Cabinet to sign the two UN Human Rights Conventions as soon as possible.

This was about as intelligent as Ma saying that the defeat of the 2004 referendums justified delaying arms purchases or that the defeat of last year’s referendums justified not applying for UN membership or, for that matter, UN membership under the name “Taiwan” when all of the referendums were boycotted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), thus insuring that the senseless 50 percent threshold could never be reached.

Regarding the conventions, signing and ratifying them would lead absolutely nowhere in terms of integrating international human rights bills into Taiwanese law, because they would never be deposited at the UN. The UN would never accept them as Taiwan is not a UN member. It would simply be good for a show, which Ma is definitely very good at staging (maybe the only thing).

Ma also ordered Cabinet members to orchestrate a response to the letters published in local papers by 22 scholars and Taiwan experts and to the letters of various international human rights and press rights organizations, all of which warned the public and the international community that we are indeed dancing to the strain of a Taiwan on the edge with regard to political freedom, justice and protection of human rights and a free press.

In these responses, the various authors (including the minister of justice), go on about how dearly they regard our democracy, impartial justice system, fair prosecuting methods, free press, etc, and how violent behavior by police during the visit of Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) did not constitute brutality and that more police were injured than demonstrators.

All this after Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) spoke publicly on you-know-which cases on Sisy Chen’s (陳文茜) TV talk show (the minister should have been sacked for this), videos showing police brutality, “deep green” reporters being interrogated about their relation to the Formosan Association for Public Affairs and other groups, a pro-Taiwan bookstore being ransacked, prosecutors appealing for former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) detention under KMT influence, press freedom suffering another blow with the KMT’s attempt to control the Public Television Service board and a host of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials still being sought for questioning.

Oh, and what about KMT lawmakers trying to pass a third appeal to save their comrades from being ousted for vote-buying?

Ma should take seriously his old Harvard professor’s advice: Show leadership and create an independent inquiry on both police brutality and prosecutorial methods used for DPP officials.

If he takes human rights seriously, why doesn’t he do what he did with the cross-strait agreements and take a leaf from the DPP’s book? He could pass the human rights bill — drafted by the DPP with the assistance and supervision of the International Commission of Jurists — that is lying around at the legislature after being blocked by KMT and People First Party lawmakers. That would help keep Taiwan democratic.

A Concerned Canadian

Johnny replies: Maybe it all boils down to this: Ma never studied leadership at Harvard.

How Obama matters to Taiwan

Saturday, Jan 24, 2009, Page 8

If there were one thing the election of US President Barack Obama might do for American society, it would be to corrode the utility of the expression “token black.”

Obama’s ethnic background has turned out to be a boon for the local and global reputation of the US political system, but his rise to the presidency at no time could afford to crudely trade on his black identity, because most voters would not have tolerated it. This man became US president because of his intelligence, hard work, attractive policies, teamwork and communicative talent.

Obama gives hope to people who support a fair deal for minorities, but his triumph in overcoming the formidable talents of Democratic challenger Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain also validates the importance of individual merit and ambition over labels and labeling.

It is a classic American story, and it is a long way from over.

It may be impossible for Obama to meet most of the expectations that are being placed on his shoulders, not least by a black American community that remains mired in disadvantage. But expectations are a manifestation of hope, and Obama has engendered a continent’s worth of it, if not a globe’s worth.

The US has helped to generate a phase of horrible economic uncertainty, yet Obama has the opportunity not just to be a good president at a time of increasing deprivation, but also a president that ushers in a new era of international respectability and, in balance, benevolent influence.

For Taiwan, Obama’s rise to the top has brought no shortage of apprehension. While Obama’s principles are quite flawless, the record of his party on relations with Taiwan has been all too inconsistent.

But there are two factors working in his favor: The likely line-up of Washington staffers with Taiwan and China responsibilities may not be as effusively pro-China as had been feared; and it is hard to imagine that things will get any worse than under the last years of former US president George W. Bush’s administration.

For Taiwanese, the overriding question is this: What will Obama do with a Chinese state that is becoming increasingly assertive and arrogant and that is no less willing to rationalize systematic crimes against its own people?

If there is such a thing as a unitary Taiwanese voice, then perhaps this is what it would say to President Obama:

I honor and share your ideals, I wish to strengthen relations with an America that cultivates democracy and freedom and I have my own interests but they are not hostile to those of ordinary Americans. I reject despotism and the cynicism that flows from ossified structures of political patronage — and I ask humbly but urgently that you consider my international and military predicament with sympathy and act on it with resolve as necessary.

I wish China no ill, but the current Chinese government bears ill will for Taiwanese and scorns American values. My present government does not respect the fears of people who see little promise in a Chinese government that crushes human rights and exploits the poor even as it claims to champion both.

I am Taiwanese, and my identity is no less fundamental to my dignity and my future than that of a man who transcended hundreds of years of persecution of people of his kind to lead the most powerful and inspirational nation in the world.