Pentagon warns on conceding to China
　

GOAL: A Pentagon report says that while Beijing speaks of peaceful unification, its continuous military upgrade shows that it is not willing to renounce the use of force
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Friday, Mar 27, 2009, Page 1

A new Pentagon report on Chinese military power suggests that Beijing may be trying to frighten Taiwan into making repeated concessions.

It says that despite apparently improved cross-strait relations under President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), "there have been no signs that Beijing's military dispositions opposite Taiwan have changed."

The 60-page annual report to Congress on China's military also makes clear that the US "is maintaining the capacity to defend against Beijing's use of force or coercion against Taiwan."

"Beijing appears prepared to defer the use of force as long as it believes the trend of cross-strait relations continues toward unification and the costs of a conflict outweigh the benefits," it says.

"In the near term, Beijing's objective appears to be focused on preventing Taiwan from moving toward de jure independence through a strategy that integrates political, economic, cultural, legal, diplomatic and coercive military instruments of power," it says.

"Although Beijing professes a desire for peaceful unification that would allow Taiwan to retain a high degree of autonomy, the PLA's [People's Liberation Army's] deployment of short range ballistic missiles, enhanced amphibious warfare capabilities and modern, advanced long-range anti-air systems across the strait from Taiwan underscores that Beijing remains unwilling to renounce the use of force," the report adds.

As part of an "executive summary" the report concludes that the PLA is pursuing comprehensive transformation from a mass army designed for protracted wars of attrition on its territory to one capable of fighting and winning short-duration, high-intensity conflicts along its periphery against high-tech adversaries.

"These same capabilities," the report says," could in the future be used to pressure Taiwan toward a settlement of the cross-strait dispute on Beijing's terms while simultaneously attempting to deter, delay or deny any possible US support for the island in case of conflict."

Some Pentagon analysts hold that China would first pursue a measured approach characterized by signaling its readiness to use force, followed by deliberate buildup of force to optimize the speed of engagement over strategic deception.

Others contend that it is more likely that Beijing would sacrifice preparations in favor of surprise to force a rapid military or political resolution before other countries could respond.

"Beijing might use a variety of disruptive, punitive or lethal military actions in a limited campaign against Taiwan, likely in conjunction with overt and clandestine economic and political activities," the report says.

"Such a campaign could include computer network or limited kinetic attacks against Taiwan's political, military and economic infrastructure to induce fear on Taiwan and degrade the populace's confidence in the Taiwan leadership. Similarly, PLA special operations forces that have infiltrated Taiwan could conduct attacks against infrastructure or leadership targets," it says.

The report says that limited short range missile strikes and precision strikes against air-defense systems, including air bases, radar sites, missiles, space assets and communications facilities, could support a campaign to degrade Taiwan's defenses, neutralize Taiwan's military and political leadership, and possibly break the Taiwan people's will to fight.

The report, going into surprising detail, predicts that the PLA is capable of accomplishing various amphibious operations short of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.

"With few overt military preparations beyond routine training, China could launch an invasion of small Taiwan-held island such as the Pratas [Dongsha Islands] or Itu Aba [Taiping Island in the Spratlys]," it says.

"This invasion would demonstrate military capability and political resolve while achieving tangible territorial gain and simultaneously showing some measure of restraint. However, this kind of operation includes significant, if not prohibitive, political risk because it could galvanize the Taiwan populace and generate international opposition," it says.

The report states as fact: "A PLA invasion of a medium-sized, defended offshore island such as Mazu [Matsu] or Jinmen [Kinmen] is within China's capabilities."

But it concludes: "An attempt to invade Taiwan would strain China's untested armed forces and invite international intervention. These stresses, combined with China's combat force attrition and the complexity of urban warfare and counterinsurgency [assuming a successful landing and breakout] make amphibious invasion of Taiwan a significant political and military risk."

In Taipei yesterday, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) urged Beijing to dismantle missiles targeting Taiwan.

Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said it was the responsibility of both sides to improve cross-strait relations. Only with the destruction of the missiles aimed at Taiwan could peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the region be restored and a win-win situation be created, he said.

The Ma administration will make efforts to maintain the "status quo" of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, he said, under the basis of "three noes": no discussion of unification with Beijing during Ma's presidency, no pursuit or support of de jure Taiwan independence and no use of military force to resolve the Taiwan issue.

Meanwhile, China said yesterday that the Pentagon report marked a misrepresentation of facts and urged the US to halt the annual publication.

"This is a gross distortion of the facts and China resolutely opposes it," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) told journalists in Beijing. "This report issued by the US side continues to play up the fallacy of China's military threat."

He asked the US to stop issuing the annual report to "avoid further damage to the two sides' military relations."

The Chinese foreign ministry reaction came shortly after it also reacted harshly to a resolution by US lawmakers pledging continued strong support of Taiwan.

"The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and has made solemn representations with the US side," Qin said in a statement that was posted overnight on the Chinese foreign ministry's Web site.

The US Congress passed a resolution on Tuesday vowing "unwavering commitment" to Taiwan's security and calling the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act a "cornerstone" of US policy.

Australia probes report military spied on minister

AGENCIES, CANBERRA
Friday, Mar 27, 2009, Page 1

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told military officials yesterday to explain if they secretly spied on the defense minister because of his close friendship with a Chinese-born businesswoman.

The Age newspaper said Australian Defense Minister Joel Fitzgibbon was covertly investigated over his ties to Helen Liu, 48, a wealthy Chinese-Australian who has past financial links with Beijing.

Rudd said he had spoken to military chiefs, who launched an investigation into the accuracy of the report, which could embarrass the government at a time of political sensitivity about Chinese investment in Australia.

“I’m advised that neither the secretary of the defense department nor the chief of defense force staff have received any such reports,” Rudd told reporters in Washington after visiting the Pentagon.

In the course of the secret probe, an official from the Defense Signals Directorate hacked into Fitzgibbon’s office computer and found Liu’s banking details, the Age said. Fitzgibbon rents a home from her family in Canberra.

The allegations come after a series of clashes between Fitzgibbon and the military brass, the most recent involving a bungle over pay for soldiers in the elite Special Air Service (SAS).

Fitzgibbon has moved to slash waste in the multibillion-dollar defense budget since becoming minister in late 2007. Last month he chided officials over a mistake which meant some SAS troops had their pay docked.

He also accused defense officials of providing him with “nuanced information” to cover up mistakes and protect personnel.

Fitzgibbon conceded his reform drive had put some elements within the defense force offside.

“I am driving the biggest reform project in the history of the defense organization and I know that’s really hard for some elements of that organization,” he said.

The minister also denied there was anything untoward in his friendship with Liu.

“No one has ever raised any concern between that relationship and if anyone has concerns about that relationship they should have come forward and shared them with me,” he said.

The department’s top public servant, Secretary of Defense Nick Warner, said neither he nor military commander Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston knew anything about the allegations until they read about them in the newspapers.

He said he had no information suggesting there was any substance to the allegations but they were so serious they needed to be investigated.

“I have directed that the Defense Security Authority urgently investigate these matters,” he said. “I expect to see the initial results of this investigation soon.”

Fitzgibbon’s father Eric, a retired federal politician, said the alleged actions were “a slanderous attack” and it appeared someone was out for revenge against his son.

“It’s ridiculous to suggest that there’s anything wrong in the relationship between the Fitzgibbon family and the Liu family,” he told ABC television.

The report comes at a sensitive time for Australian-Chinese relations, with Canberra’s foreign investment watchdog scrutinizing applications by state-owned Chinese firms to buy into Australian resource companies.

Several lawmakers have called for the applications to be blocked, running national ads on TV.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking China expert, was criticized by newspapers last weekend for lunching in secret with China’s fifth most powerful ruling party member, propaganda chief Li Changchun (李長春), at his Canberra home.

Liu has been a financial supporter of the ruling Labor Party in New South Wales state for a decade, with two of her former property development firms donating about A$90,000 (US$63,000).

Taiwan’s system breeds contempt
　

By Cao Changqing 曹長青
Friday, Mar 27, 2009, Page 8

Over the past week or so, the news about Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), the Toronto-based diplomat who was exposed as having posted derogatory remarks about Taiwan on the Internet, has been a major topic. The reason the Kuo affair has caused such an uproar is that it is not an isolated incident. It is a reflection of things gone wrong in Taiwan — its people, its culture and its system.

First, the people problem. Based on what I have observed during several visits to Taiwan, there are plenty more people like Kuo. They only differ in how publicly or privately, blatantly or tactfully, they express themselves. You don’t have to look hard to find the same kind of “superior Mainlander” attitude of looking down on ethnic Taiwanese. It is commonplace.

A Taipei City councilor of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) once told me that Kaohsiung is full of gangsters and betel nut chewers. I still remember as if it were yesterday the arrogant disdain he showed for southerners.

In a speech she gave in New York, former president of the China Television System and famed actress Chiang Hsia (江霞) described how, in decades past, children were forbidden to speak Hoklo at school and were punished by having to wear a label around their necks if they did. The young Chiang practiced hard-to-pronounce and unfamiliar northern consonants until she mastered a genuine-sounding Beijing accent. Thanks to that, and her good looks, she finally got a foothold in acting circles that were dominated by Mainlanders. Mainlanders thought they were paying her a compliment when they told her “You don’t sound Taiwanese.”

Just take a look at the editorials that appear in the pro-China United Daily News and China Times. They are laden with “superior Mainlander” attitudes. In pro-KMT newspapers you will see plenty of references to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) as “the revered President Chiang” (蔣公) while his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) gets the respectful title of “Mr Ching-kuo.” Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), a Taiwanese Hakka who aligned himself with the KMT and is now its chairman, is rewarded for his loyalty with the title “the revered Chairman Wu” (伯公). Have you ever seen those papers honor pro-independence leaders with such titles?

As for the sons and daughters of KMT higher-ups, the papers treat them like princes and princesses. It is a different story, though, when it comes to the son and daughter of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

The media only stop short of calling the KMT elite kings, queens and royal ministers. As far as they are concerned, they are the masters of Taiwan and they don’t feel any need to conceal their colonialist attitudes.

Wasn’t it President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) himself who said during his election campaign that it would be Taiwan’s “good fortune” if its people elected a non-Taiwanese president, and who patronized an Aboriginal woman by saying “I see you as a human being?” From Kuo to Ma, it is the same “superior ­Mainlander” attitude. Can it be just a coincidence?

Why are there so many people like Kuo in Taiwan? Because there is something wrong with Taiwan’s culture. When the KMT fled to Taiwan, it took on a prejudiced colonial attitude and discriminated against ethnic Taiwanese. For example, when I talk to Taiwanese people about Chinese history, they often know all the important facts and dates by heart. They can even recite precisely what provinces a train will pass through on the way from Harbin to Guangzhou. It is another matter, however, when the conversation turns to Taiwan’s history and geography. If the question is how high Yushan is, how big Sun Moon Lake is or who built a pagoda beside the lake to honor his mother, my Taiwanese friends often know less than I do. Why? Because the main purpose of a school education under the KMT was to make the students Chinese at heart.

It is this kind of colonial culture that has poisoned the minds of Kuo and his ilk. That is why they call Taiwanese people “rednecks” and “Japanese pirates.” The poison runs in their veins and they pass it on to the next generation. No surprise, then, to read on the Internet that Kuo’s daughter, who works in Shanghai, spoke of Taiwanese people in the same terms as her father, calling them “Japanese pirates.” It is Taiwan’s poisoned culture and education that have turned out generations of people like Kuo.

Why is there a market for this kind of poison? Because of the dictatorial power structure propping it up. The ruling elite set up the colonial education system and that system in turn serves to uphold colonial rule. Apart from KMT members, only those Taiwanese who are loyal to the party and state ideology can enter the ruling stratum. Until 1996, the Senior Examination for the Civil Service had quotas for candidates from the 35 provinces of the Republic of China (in proportion to the population of each province), so that ethnic Taiwanese, who are 80 percent of Taiwan’s population, could only take up a small fraction of senior civil service posts.

This ridiculously unjust system ensured that “superior Mainlanders” would stay in control of the top levels of government. The splendid results of this system are still true today, as “superior Mainlanders” retain a monopoly on power in Taiwan’s judiciary, media and civil service.

Therefore, while Taiwan’s problems are spread across its people, culture and system, it is the system that needs to be changed first. Taiwan’s power structure is still by no means a normal, democratic one. Only when all the Kuo-like “superior Mainlanders” have been voted out of the legislature will we see new laws enacted that eliminate communal prejudice and enmity from the system.

As long as Taiwan keeps the system that protects the KMT’s hold on power, the colonial mentality will prevail — and until that is overcome, people’s behavior will not change. Until Taiwan’s system, culture and people are transformed, we will see many more incidents like the Kuo case.

Cao Changqing is a writer based in the US. TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG