A threat to
the US and our values
By Paul Lin 林保華
Wednesday, Apr 08, 2009, Page 8
Memorials and discussions have been held lately to mark the 30th anniversary of
the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) on Friday. The Chinese government did all it
could do to stop the US Congress passing a resolution offering support for the
TRA and democracy in Taiwan. China’s United Front strategy did cause some
problems, but in the end a resolution was passed that included the word
“cornerstone” in describing the importance of the TRA to US-Taiwan relations.
While looking at the TRA, we should not ignore the six assurances to Taiwan that
former US president Ronald Reagan made a part of his cross-strait policy. The
six assurances state that the US will not be a mediator between Taiwan and
China; will not force negotiations; will not set a date for ending arms sales to
Taiwan; will not hold prior consultations with China on arms sales to Taiwan;
will not revise the TRA; and will not alter its stance on Taiwan’s sovereignty.
Reagan’s six assurances should be seen as reminders to each US president that
neglecting them will be disastrous not only for Taiwan, but also for the US and
the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, the US has made too many concessions on China’s hegemonic actions
in the post-Reagan era, leading to the current state of relations between
Taiwan, China and the US. Concessions to China imply a corresponding weakening
of support for Taiwanese democracy. Regardless of what problems there may be in
Taiwan’s policy toward the US, Taiwan remains a democracy, and regardless of
what China does to curry favor with the US, it remains a dictatorship. Without
this basic understanding, all policies will be biased.
Another unfortunate thing is that there are differences in policy between the
State Department and the Pentagon, and at times this is as unfortunate as
China’s declarations that the economy can be decoupled from political issues. It
is impossible to examine China’s policy toward the US and detect any separation
of military, economic and political issues.
In terms of the economy, there has been talk of Chinese “bottom fishing” in the
US, which refers to acquiring companies and real estate at low prices. These
actions would not be acquisitions based on market rules but politically
motivated hostile takeovers. At the same time, China has blocked the attempts of
companies like Coca-Cola to engage in regular friendly acquisitions in China.
China has also been challenging the position of the US currency and wants a new
currency to replace the dollar as the primary international currency.
In terms of military affairs, Chinese vessels harassed the US surveillance ship
USNS Impeccable in international waters in the South China Sea. China’s Ministry
of Foreign Affairs has already declared that the US is distorting the facts on
the incident, a response bound to appeal to nationalistic youth.
In political terms, Chinese leaders were quick to make use of US Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to China to convince the public that the US
is begging China for help. China is also trying to get US President Barack Obama
to visit Beijing as soon as possible to further cement the image of the US
kowtowing to China. If Obama waits until the US economy is back on its feet,
Beijing will not be able to “squeeze” as much out of the US.
Because China has more to ask of the US than the US has to ask of China, China
uses a more passive policy toward the US. However, as soon as a fundamental
change in the balance of power between the US and China occurs, China will adopt
a more aggressive policy. China is using the economic crisis to attempt to
establish a new international order that is headed by itself. Beijing is not
trying to bring itself in line with the international community; it wants the
world to bring itself in line with China.
In the face of this challenge, the US should more actively assist Taiwan in its
defense instead of supporting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who uses “peace” to
disguise surrender to China.
If cross-strait peace is the highest value of them all, the US should have
stopped supporting Taiwan in the 1950s. So why would Washington allow Taiwan to
lose its democracy after having just achieved it? Will things in Taiwan have to
get as bad as Tibet for the US to stand up and say something?
As Obama reviews US strategy, he should undertake a comprehensive review of the
cross-strait policies adopted by the US after Reagan and put an end to the
threat to universal values posed by China.
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
A
breakthrough in human rights
By Peter Huang 黃文雄
Wednesday, Apr 08, 2009, Page 8
On March 31, the legislature debated and ratified two international conventions.
Such an event would be big news in more enlightened countries, but only one of
Taiwan’s Chinese-language newspapers reported on it, and that report was rather
short. In writing this article, I want to compensate for this puzzling omission.
The two conventions that the legislature approved are the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, which, together with the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, are the three most important global human rights agreements.
These UN conventions are regarded as parent laws on which the human rights
practices of UN member states are largely based. As such, they are of great
importance and have been signed by more than 150 countries to date. For each
signatory state, putting international treaties and conventions into effect is
in general a three-stage process. First, the treaty is signed by the country’s
representative, then it is ratified by the legislature and signed into law by
its head of state, and finally it is deposited into the custody of the UN
Secretariat. Although Taiwan signed these two conventions in 1967, the rest of
the process ran up against various obstacles and was not completed until now, 42
years later.
The first obstacle was the attitude of Taiwan’s former authoritarian government,
which had deep misgivings about completing the ratification process. As with a
number of other human rights-related conventions, the ink on the covenants was
hardly dry before they got locked away in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
filing cabinet.
After Taiwan withdrew from the UN in 1971, the conventions were forgotten by the
government and the public. Not until the 1990s were they unearthed by some civic
groups, which started to push for their ratification. Although previous
governments were asked to proceed with the ratification process, no results were
seen in more than a decade, over which time there were three general elections.
Now the two human rights conventions have finally been approved by the
legislature. There are several reasons to celebrate.
First, the ratification is a breakthrough from the previous situation, in which
two successive administrations called for the conventions to be ratified but the
legislature had reservations on three major clauses. Legislators also sought to
modify the text regarding self-determination that features in both covenants to
the effect that peoples should be able to “declare” this right rather than
actually exercise it.
It should be noted that China’s legislature did not make such changes in wording
when it ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights. Now Taiwan’s lawmakers have ratified the conventions without reservation
— undeniably a sign of progress.
Second, and more importantly, the legislature did not just approve the
conventions, but also passed a law on their implementation, clearly ruling that
they will have legal effect domestically whether they are deposited with the UN
or not. The enforcement law gives priority to providing funds for
implementation, and gives all levels of government two years in which to review
their laws, regulations and practices and to amend or reform those that do not
comply with the covenants. This sets a precedent for Taiwan’s ratification of
and accession to other international conventions.
Third, the implementation law calls for the forming of a national human rights
reporting system to regularly monitor the implementation of covenants. When this
system gets off the ground, Taiwanese civic groups will be able to produce a
counter-report, or shadow report, as do their counterparts in mature
democracies, with which they can monitor the government’s performance.
Fourth, government policy should be implemented continuously and cumulatively.
Work on the two conventions, which was initiated by the previous administration,
is now being carried through by the current one. While the previous government
instituted a trial implementation report on human rights, the reporting process
will now be formal. This is a good example of how things should be done.
However, while celebrating these hard-won advances, there are some points that
need further thought. In the authoritarian era, the government’s decision to
sign international conventions had a great deal to do with international public
relations for what it called “Free China.”
After Taiwan pulled out of the UN, however, the government found itself even
more isolated from the international human rights framework. In such
circumstances, the government was less informed about human rights matters than
civic groups. Even the most basic work of compiling two volumes of international
human rights law was achieved by the efforts of NGOs.
The new law on implementing the conventions assigns responsibility for reviewing
and amending existing laws and practices to “government bodies at all levels.”
It is not hard to predict how efficiently, or otherwise, they will carry out
this task. The solution would be to establish a national human rights
commission, such as the UN has been advocating for many years. Even China is
working on setting one up.
Taiwan’s former administration submitted draft proposals to establish such a
commission, but they were blocked in the legislature. In the coming week, the
Taiwan People’s Alliance will hold a meeting to discuss an alternative draft for
a human rights commission that has been drawn up by civic groups. Our present
government, for its part, should also consider setting up an institution
dedicated to human rights issues.
Human rights NGOs are working out how to monitor implementation of the two
conventions. Would it be too much to ask the media to do what they are supposed
to and report on this issue?
Peter Huang is chairman of Amnesty
International Taiwan and a consultant to the Taiwan Association for Human
Rights.