CAA says delayed PRC flight encountered storm
　

TRANSCRIPTS: Communication between the Shanghai Airlines flight and the control tower at Songshan Airport showed that the pilot turned back to avoid bad weather
　

By Shelley Shan
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 2

The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday released more details concerning a cross-strait flight that landed in Taipei 24 hours late after returning to Shanghai to avoid bad weather.

The CAA disclosed communication transcripts between Shanghai Airlines flight FM80Y and the control tower in Taipei, in which it was clear that inclement weather prevented the flight from landing in Taipei.

The Shanghai Airlines flight was scheduled to arrive at Taipei Songshan Airport on Saturday morning.

After the pilot announced that the plane would soon land in Taipei, he turned back to Shanghai Pudong International Airport because of bad weather.

The passengers spent the night at Pudong airport, reboarding on Sunday. When they finally arrived in Taipei, passengers protested the decision to return to Shanghai on Saturday by refusing to embark for 30 minutes.

Wei Sheng-chih (魏勝之), director of Taipei International Airport Office, said yesterday the CAA was responsible for determining whether the pilot’s claims of bad weather could be substantiated.

“As to why tourists were stranded at Shanghai for a day, it may have something to do with Shanghai Airlines’ deployment of airplanes, flight attendants and pilots,” Wei said. “We cannot speak for them on those matters.”

The transcripts showed that the pilot contacted the Taipei Area Control Center before the aircraft approached Sulem, the flight control exchange point for cross-strait flights, at 10:28am on Saturday, asking for permission to deviate slightly from its course and fly east to avoid a thunderstorm.

The center consulted the military’s air operation center and agreed to the pilot’s request at 10:30am.

At 10:49am, the Shanghai Area Control Center asked the Taipei Area Control Center to instruct the pilot to fly westward.

The pilot said “the weather was really bad” and that he could soon get back on course if he continued eastward.

In the meantime, the aircraft was flying southward toward the Taiwan Strait, which no civilian flights are allowed to enter.

At 10:51am, the pilot requested permission to return to Pudong. Seven minutes later, the flight was again put under the control of the Shanghai Area Control Center.

Wang Kun-chou (王崑州), chief of the CAA’s Air Navigation and Weather Services, yesterday presented satellite charts for between 9am and 11am on Saturday, showing that there was a solid stationary front about 60km to 70km wide in the flight’s path.

Wang said the super cell storm system had a cloud height of 13,700m, while the flight was flying at an altitude of 10,300m. The flight could not have avoided the thunderstorm had it continued on its path.

“Considering the weather, we would advise against taking that risk,” Wang said. “But a pilot can determine if he is able to fly through a storm.”

Sheri Chen (陳華影), deputy director of the Taipei Area Control Center, said the pilot had not requested to land at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport instead of Songshan.

Chen said other flights flew through the storm at about the same time, but the planes were different models and slight differences in timing may have meant different weather conditions.

“Based on the transcripts, the pilot sounded normal and was trying to solve the issue of landing,” Chen said.

Work visa rules for Chinese not under way, council says
　

NO PERMIT PLANS: A Council of Labor Affairs official rebutted a report that the government was preparing to open the job market to Chinese

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 2

“Whether Taiwan opens its job market to Chinese workers will depend on the development of the domestic job market and how cross-strait relations unfold.”— Chen Yi-min, Council of Labor Affairs official

The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) rebutted reports yesterday that it had been working on regulations that would allow Chinese citizens to apply for work permits.

Chen Yi-min (陳益民), director-general of the CLA’s Employment and Vocational Training Administration, said his office had not been drafting regulations to allow Chinese to receive work permits because the government had not opened the job market to Chinese workers.

He made the remarks in response to a report in yesterday’s Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) that said the CLA was making preparations for Chinese workers to enter the job market by drawing up regulations, “paving the way for Chinese-funded companies operating in Taiwan to hire Chinese white-collar professionals to work in Taiwan.”

Discounting the report, Chen said that the administration had no plans to open the job market to Chinese workers. He also said it was difficult to draw a line between white-collar and blue-collar workers.

“Whether Taiwan opens its job market to Chinese workers will depend on the development of the domestic job market and how cross-strait relations unfold,” he said.

Chen also said that professionals from China, including property developers and real estate operators, were allowed to come to Taiwan for short periods under Article 10 of the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).

“No Chinese professionals or workers are allowed ... to come to Taiwan for long-term employment,” he said.

DPP accuses Ma of reshuffling TFD to please China
　

By Rich Chang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 3

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said that the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy's (TFD) financial support for Tibetan and Chinese democracy activists met the organization's objectives, and that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should not change things to please China.

“The foundation was established with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy around the world. Ma cannot reshuffle the organization and change its objectives because of the China factor,” DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) told a press conference.

He said that if Ma were to do so, he would jeopardize Taiwan's reputation, telling the world that Taiwan is a country that supports authoritarian China.

He added that it was just another example of Ma ingratiating himself with China.

Cheng made the remarks in response to a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News on Sunday that Ma was planning a personnel reshuffle at the foundation because he was unhappy with it providing financial support to Tibetan and Chinese democracy activists.

The story quoted an unnamed senior government official as saying that Ma was unhappy with some of the foundation's activities and was especially displeased with a number of the organization's executive directors.

The official said leading policymakers in the government were nervous about providing financial support to Chinese democracy activists, Tibetan independence organizations and Cuban democracy activists.

The official also accused the TFD of asking the US-based human rights watchdog group Freedom House to criticize the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.

Taiwan's ranking on press freedom dropped 11 places in a Freedom House report released earlier this year.

Cheng said that as Freedom House is one of the most credible watchdogs on human rights and democracy, how could the foundation ask such an organization to criticize the government?

Several international organizations have expressed concern about Taiwan's democracy and freedom because the Ma government has restricted the public's right to protest and free speech, not just Freedom House, he said.

Cheng said Ma should review his policies, not accuse the foundation and its international critics.

The foundation was founded in 2003 under the then-Democratic Progressive Party administration with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy around the world.

Chen Chu willing to visit China again, report says
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 3

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday she would visit China again if she had the opportunity.

“[I] will go if I have the chance, but I have no idea when that may be,” Chen was quoted as saying during an interview published in Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" yesterday.

Chen has drawn criticism from a number of independence groups for her trip to Shanghai and Beijing late last month to promote the upcoming World Games in Kaohsiung.

The Taiwan Southern Society, the Taiwan Society Hakka and other groups have threatened to boycott her re-election bid next year as a result of the trip.

But Chen defended herself during the interview, saying that interactions between countries should all be “natural” and “normalized” since Taiwan is a member of the “global village.”

“We [city government officials] have set foot in many nations around the world. We will never exclude China,” she was quoted as saying.

She said it would be impossible for her to change her political stance after a three-day visit.

Chen was quoted as saying that the Chinese government would never be able to hear different voices and mainstream public opinions in Taiwan if China only interacts with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

Chen said Beijing should spend more time understanding the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) viewpoints.

“Whether you like it or not, it [the DPP] still represents the opinion of about 40 percent of the people [in Taiwan],” she was quoted as saying.

Separately, Kaohsiung City Government yesterday held a drill at a hotel to simulate the transfer of patients who were found to have fever during the games.

Chen said the city had set up standard operating procedures by having hotel staff report such cases to the Centers for Disease Control and the A(H1N1) Command Center of the games, dispatching ambulances to take the patients to designated hospitals for screening and to have doctors determine whether they need to be quarantined.

Chen said the city government had designated 10 regional hospitals, which can accommodate as many as 100 quarantined patients, as the city government prepares for the games.

So much for virtue in diplomacy

Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 8

Warnings of eroding democracy since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office become harder to ignore when people like former political prisoner Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) add their voice to the chorus. Over the past year, the political system has been undermined by a government that meddles in the judiciary, sidelines the legislature and ignores objections to pro-China policies.

For Ma, dealing with China is like looking into Nietzsche’s abyss — except China’s abyss looked back at Ma long and hard from the very start. No country can engage China without its democracy being tarnished by the experience, particularly if that engagement is political in nature.

Ma, who will become Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman at the end of next month, is turning into a diluted version of his Chinese Communist Party counterparts — brooking little dissent while amassing executive and legislative power.

It’s one thing for democracy to lose its luster at home; it’s another when Taiwan rubs elbows with regional bullies and reinforces their regimes.

The effects of Beijing’s “no questions asked” trade policy on countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, where trade is detached from human rights and environmental considerations, are well noted. Another country where Chinese economic activity has bolstered despots — if less theatrically — is Myanmar.

Taiwan is following suit with an announcement by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) that it signed a memorandum of understanding last week with the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry to forge closer economic ties.

In its annual report, Amnesty International wrote that the human rights situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, with thousands of prisoners of conscience in jail and more than 100 people killed in a crackdown last year. As a result of these abuses and many others, sanctions have been imposed on the military junta from around the civilized world.

The UN Security Council has attempted to issue resolutions criticizing Myanmar, but each has been vetoed by China, whose growing trade relationship with the generals has not only resulted in serious deforestation in the north, but also acts as a lifeline when the junta weathers international opprobrium.

Back in 2003, when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power, Taiwanese businesspeople operating in Myanmar complained that Taipei wasn’t doing enough to foster better relations. Taipei did support trade with Myanmar, as it happens, but its reluctance to develop closer relations with the regime was in part a result of its atrocious human rights record. The junta’s behavior since then has only deteriorated.

Ironically, in 2007 Myanmar’s foreign ministry expressed opposition to Taiwanese efforts to join the UN, saying that it saw Taiwan as an “integral part of China.” Apparently, neither oppression nor insults have deterred the Ma government in its mission to increase trade there, with TAITRA making no secret of the fact that it sees the country as “an ideal place to open labor-intensive production lines because workers are paid only US$30 to US$50 a month on average.”

In completely ignoring human rights, TAITRA has pulled off a convincing impersonation of a Chinese government agency: an opportunistic body that shows utter disregard for the cost of its actions on ordinary people in other lands.

The “Republic of China” government, it seems, is hell-bent on returning to the bad old days of exporting misery to the citizens of pariah states.

A constructivist take on the Strait
　

By Yu Tsung-chi 余宗基
Tuesday, Jun 16, 2009, Page 8

‘Now is about the right time to think differently and theoretically about cross-strait interaction, because “bad” theory often means “bad” policy: If you can’t think or speak in the right way then your intentions are unclear; if your intentions are unclear then the right action cannot be taken; and if the right action cannot be taken then the intentions will never be realized.’

In the 2007 article “Why We Fight over Foreign Policy” in the Hoover Institution journal Policy Review, Henry Nau writes: “Why do we disagree so stridently about foreign policy? An easy answer is because leaders lie about events aboard.”

But Nau reminds us that we should not exclude another possibility: “What if we disagree not because leaders are wicked and lie but because they, like we, see the world differently and assemble and emphasize different facts that lead to different conclusions?”

In Taiwan’s political arena, there are diametrically opposite perspectives on how the island should deal with cross-strait politics and economics.

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration spares no effort arguing that China’s formidable rise — with its powerful trade and economy, political clout and military might — means that the best way to ensure Taiwan’s prosperity and security is to reassure and engage China.

For Taiwanese who follow this line of thinking, China is suddenly moving from posing a military threat to being a provider of economic salvation.

Thus, the concept of China’s “peaceful rise,” or “peaceful development,” seeks to assure China’s neighbors that Beijing poses no threat but is in fact a source of opportunity. This has created a bandwagoning effect instead of exerting a balancing impact in Taiwan.

Opponents dismiss reliance on China’s economic salvation as equivalent to “asking a tiger for its skin” because its “attractive economic power” could easily morph into a political liability for Taiwan if trading powers are used coercively.

That is to say, China’s goodwill gestures toward Taiwan are a wolf in sheep’s clothing. This point is vindicated by Beijing seeking to lure and constrain Taiwan with ever-tighter economic integration measures even as it refuses to compromise on missile deployment.

Meanwhile, in the article “Open letter to Taiwan’s president” in the Taipei Times (May 21, page 8), a group of prestigious international scholars wrote: “Transparency and true dialogue have been lacking in the process. Decisions and agreements [on cross-strait policy] are arrived at in secrecy and then simply announced to the public. The Legislative Yuan seems to have been sidelined, having little input in the form or content of the agreements, such as the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).”

The massive demonstrations that were held in Taipei and Kaohsiung on May 17 delivered a message of deep concern about Taipei’s closed-door dealings with Beijing. The lack of transparency in cross-strait policymaking has raised the specters of leaders “lying” and “selling out Taiwan.”

To untie this Gordian knot, Taiwan needs a new, brainstorming approach that can reach a consensus on rapprochement with China.

On June 6, former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) publicly said: “The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should behave like a responsible opposition party and have a more open attitude toward cross-strait exchanges.”

Now is about the right time to think differently and theoretically about cross-strait interaction, because “bad” theory often means “bad” policy: If you can’t think or speak in the right way then your intentions are unclear; if your intentions are unclear then the right action cannot be taken; and if the right action cannot be taken then the intentions will never be realized.

Constructivism, a popular approach in international relations, provides powerful insights into cross-strait detente.

Constructivists see cooperation as a process of social interaction in which shared understandings of reality are produced and interests redefined — possibly leading to the development of a collective identity that ameliorates a security dilemma.

If we are able to understand patterns of interaction in the region amid China’s rise then we can better understand how to deal with China, perhaps forming a constructivist perspective with which we can better explain how Taiwan can reassure and engage China.

In his recent book The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds, David M. Lampton writes that “a senior Australian defense official puts it in this way: ‘There are four types of countries in the region [in terms of dealing with China] beyond those that blow with the wind like Laos and Thailand. There are those who tend to resist — Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. There are those who seemingly welcome China’s rise — Malaysia. There are those who are fearful — Indonesia. And there are those like us who work both sides and for whom being forced to choose [between the US and China] is a disaster.’”

Such categorizations show a continuum of evaluations — from China as a threat to a source of opportunity. Taiwan can find its place among these options and develop its own by taking into account the strategic calculations involved in each case.

Two features of Australia’s evolving relationship with China deserve elaboration. The first is security — Canberra worries about China’s increasing military might in the region and hopes to avoid entanglement over Taiwan. The second concerns economic gain: China is now Australia’s biggest buyer of uranium and precious metals.

Singapore’s strategy, on the other hand, involves strengthening defense ties with Washington at the same time as reaping security and economic benefits from a growing relationship with Beijing.

Jakarta worries that the US has become distracted by its domestic and international morass and has switched to a “balance of threat” mode — a bandwagon approach, in effect — in dealing with Beijing.

As Lampton writes: “If the US is going to leave you to Chinese mercies, then make friends with China.”

In turn, Indonesia’s advances to Beijing increased Washington’s ardor, resulting in the jump-starting of more exchange programs and assistance to Jakarta.

Hanoi’s strategy is to keep an equal distance from Washington and Beijing while strengthening economic links with other ASEAN member states.

By doing so, Vietnam seeks safety in a collective network and avoids over-reliance on China.

In a nutshell, the emerging trend among China’s neighbors is to seek to minimize political friction and enhance economic cooperation with Beijing while taking into account the ultimate balancing role of the US. In short, they want to have their cake and eat it too.

These aspects of adaptability to the domestic and international environments must be kept in mind when determining Taiwanese policy on China.

When Global Views magazine surveyed Ma’s approval rating on the first anniversary of his inauguration and on cross-strait issues, it found that Taiwanese welcomed rapprochement with China.

The survey found that 55.3 percent of respondents considered Ma’s cross-strait policy to be more beneficial for Taiwan than that of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), while 53.4 percent of respondents said Ma’s cross-strait policy had been successful thus far.

But how we can better explain and formulate a security policy toward China using a constructivist approach?

The answer lies in the social interactions and cultural norms that shape common identities, while the interests of the state can facilitate intersubjective (or shared) understandings conducive to the improving of cross-strait relations.

For instance, Beijing and Taipei are now on a conciliatory path because of shared understandings — such as the “one China, different interpretations” policy, the premise that cross-strait peace requires China to desist with its military threats and Taiwan not pushing toward independence.

These premises, reinforced by direct flights, tourism, cultural exchanges and increasing economic interdependence, further weave the fabric of cooperation and help transform national attitudes, preferences and the definition of interests so that mutual trust and accommodation become more likely to seep into the security realm.

That is, both sides seem to be experiencing change through rapprochement at this very moment, and each is now less likely to consider itself the antithesis of the other or perceive the other to be a threat to its identity — the source of the security dilemma in the Taiwan Strait.

Of course, this logic of social interaction does not imply that the currently peaceful cross-strait relationship will proceed without conflict.

There must also be some agreement on the status quo between Taiwan and China, a sense of collective identity, a desire to avoid war and an expectation that both sides will act with restraint when conflicts arise.

Beijing should understand that its attempt to bring Taiwan into the “one China” framework through greater economic integration will be effective only if its military threat dissipates.

But if China sought to dominate Taiwan, even without precipitating military conflict, it would complicate relations with almost everyone else in the immediate region, not to mention the US and Australia.

Taipei should also consider that “a broad-based dialogue as close as possible to a consensus is essential before Taiwan’s cross-strait negotiations can advance to more difficult issues,” as American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young said during an American Chamber of Commerce luncheon on June 5.

“Even as we welcome Taiwan’s increased engagement with the People’s Republic of China, however, we must not lose sight of the qualities that underpin Taiwan’s unique success: the vibrant democracy, civil society and open economy,” he said.

Yu Tsung-chi is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council of the United States.