Cross-strait tax relief proposal triggers stalemate
　

By Rich Chang and Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTERS
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 1
　

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday it opposed a proposal to allow Taiwanese businesses or individuals based in China to avoid paying taxes in Taiwan on income earned in China.

The legislature was scheduled to review an amendment to Article 25 of the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) yesterday that would give the Executive Yuan the right to issue orders on cross-strait business taxation.

The KMT wants the bill passed to eliminate dual taxation on the cross-strait shipping sector.

But the session was deadlocked over the issue yesterday morning after legislators failed to reach a consensus on the amendment. DPP legislators occupied the speaker’s podium in a bid to prevent the KMT from calling a vote on the bill.

DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) threatened to “fight to the death” to block the bill.

At a press conference later in the day, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) criticized the DPP for paralyzing the plenary session: “We were supposed to deal with a number of bills today ... all bills should have been dealt with by democratic principles.”

Lin said the KMT might convene extraordinary sessions this summer to pass more bills.

“KMT legislators are more than happy to sacrifice our personal time if the legislature is unable to pass bills aimed at improving people’s livelihoods,” Lin said.

DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said the government wanted to ensure that Taiwanese and Chinese businesses were not taxed in both Taiwan and China, but it was going about it the wrong way. The government should amend the Business Tax Act (營業稅法) and the Income Tax Act (所得稅法), not the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, to give the Executive Yuan the right to issue orders on cross-strait tax, Cheng said.

He said the Constitution stipulates that changes to tax laws have to be regulated by law, and it would be unconstitutional if the government changed tax rules through administrative orders.

Cheng said Taipei and Beijing inked an agreement in April promising that Chinese and Taiwanese shipping companies would not be subject to dual taxation. The government wanted to expand the shipping pact to cover all businesses and was doing so in an underhanded manner, he said.

The government should not deprive the legislature of the right to approve laws by expanding its use of administrative orders, he said.

Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Chang Hwa-kuan (張花冠) accused the government of preparing to allow Chinese capital to be invested in Budai Harbor (布袋港), Chiayi County.

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Deputy Chairman Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中) visited the harbor with KMT Legislator Wong Chung-chun (翁重鈞), who represents Chiayi County. Chang said they discussed Chinese capital investment in Budai Harbor.

Cheng Wen-tsang said the party opposed allowing Chinese investment in airports, harbors and other infrastructure that has strategic significance because this would jeopardize national security.

He said Chinese investment in Taiwan’s airports and harbors was politically motivated.

Japan bans all trade with N Korea over weapons tests

AFP AND AP , TOKYO AND SEOUL
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 1

Japan yesterday banned all remaining trade with North Korea to punish Pyongyang for its latest nuclear and missile tests.

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Cabinet “agreed on a ban on all export goods” to North Korea on top of an import freeze imposed after the North’s first atomic test in 2006, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said.

Tokyo’s latest move comes amid worries Pyongyang may soon conduct a third nuclear test after the UN Security Council voted on Friday for tougher sanctions in response to the regime’s May 25 underground test.

Japan’s exports to the North — mainly machinery and transport equipment such as trains and vehicles, food, electronics and industrial goods — totaled just ¥792.6 million (US$8.2 million) last year, the finance ministry said.

Analysts see Japan’s new sanctions as largely symbolic because North Korea conducts the bulk of its trade with China, also its biggest source of aid.

“Japan’s additional sanctions won’t have a substantial impact on North Korea,” said Lee Young Hwa, a Korean affairs expert at Kansai University. “The only thing left for Japan to do now is to persuade China to fully comply with the UN sanctions.”

But Kawamura insisted the ban was more than a token gesture.

“What’s most important is that North Korea make the right response ... to Japan’s strong message, even though there are people who point out the volume of exports is small,” he said.

Meanwhile, the youngest son — and reportedly heir apparent — of North Korea’s ailing leader Kim Jong-il secretly visited China last week and was urged by President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to get the government to halt additional nuclear tests, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday.

During the trip around June 10, Kim Jong-un asked China to continue its energy and food aid to the North, the Asahi said, quoting unnamed North Korean sources in Beijing.

It also said that Hu urged the 26-year-old to have Pyongyang refrain from carrying out any further nuclear and missile tests. It did not provide further details.

South Korea’s Foreign and Unification ministries said they could not confirm the report.

In related news, Pyongyang said yesterday that two US journalists jailed last week for 12 years had admitted a politically motivated smear campaign against the North.

Official media, giving its first details of their alleged crimes, said they crossed the border illegally “for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] smear campaign over its human rights issue.”

A Pyongyang court on June 8 sentenced Taiwanese-American Laura Ling (凌志美), 32, and Korean-American Euna Lee, 36, to 12 years of “reform through labor” for the illegal border crossing and an unspecified “grave crime.”

The official Korean Central News Agency said the pair were “prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle” the North’s system.”

Chen supporters, police in violent clash
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 3
　

Supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) were yesterday involved in violent clashes with the police outside the Taipei District Court, where the former president and some of his former aides are being tried.

Hundreds of Chen’s supporters gathered outside the court building yesterday, wearing green T-shirts and carrying signs with slogans such as “Release A-bian now” and “No police state.”

Supporters staged a peaceful demonstration until the afternoon, when a man asked police officers guarding the court building whether he could go into the building to use the restroom.

Police officers refused his request, saying he was a familiar face among the protesters and that his attitude was provocative.

This angered fellow protesters, who shouted at the police. The verbal clashes soon turned into pushing and shoving, with police officers attempting to maintain order by forming lines with their shields.

Several protesters tried to break through the police line with their fists and began hitting the police shields with their signs.

While protesters and police clashed outside the courtroom, conflict also arose inside the courtroom.

A former city councilor who had been listening to the former president’s trial was escorted out of the courtroom yesterday after causing a commotion.

Wu Ching-yu (吳清游) had been sitting in on the former president’s trial when he suddenly shouted toward Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓): “There are so many available seats, why don’t you let more people in?”

At the time, there were dozens of empty seats in the courtroom. Because of the sudden loudness of his voice, many jumped in their seats.

Chen and his court-appointed attorney, who had been quietly discussing the case at the time, also stopped their conversation.

Bailiffs then escorted Wu out of the courtroom.

Chen and two of his former aides, office director Lin Teh-hsun (林德訓) and former Presidential Office deputy secretary-general Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成), as well as former director-general of the Presidential Office’s accounting department Fon Shui-lin (馮瑞麟), were summoned to appear in the Taipei District Court yesterday regarding Chen’s alleged misuse of his presidential “state affairs fund.”

Prosecutors say that more than NT$27 million (US$821,000) was withdrawn from the fund through the use of “inappropriate ­receipts” to claim reimbursements.

At the beginning of the trial, when Tsai asked Chen routine questions such as whether or not he knew his rights, Chen was silent as usual.

The court stenographer recorded “no answer” whenever Chen was asked to speak by the court.

Chen had previously told Tsai that he would not speak in his defense in court because he had not committed any crime. He also refused to plead guilty, call witnesses or cross-examine witnesses.

However, Chen broke his silence yesterday, exchanging whispers with his court-appointed attorney Tseng Te-rong (曾德榮).

When Tseng visited the detained former president at the Taipei Detention Center last month, Chen refused to see him, sending only a note to Tseng to tell him that he was doing this to protest against an unfair judicial system.

Cohen was ‘bang-on’

Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 8

Jerome Cohen’s recent comments about the weakness of Taiwan’s legal academics and the inaction of members of a supposedly independent judiciary come at a time of growing evidence of the return of the party-state and a rise in police harassment of those who would choose to visibly protest against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration (“NYU professor criticizes legal profession’s silence,” June 13, page 1).

The biggest threats currently facing Taiwan are not the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), nor their post-2005 shared unification agenda, but rather public apathy and indifference, which have caused substantial damage to Taiwan’s ability to conduct its own affairs.

When even a small minority of Taiwanese put their personal profit, fatalism or fear of reprisal before a collective requirement to defend the nation’s economic and political sovereignty, democracy and the rule of law, it makes it far easier for external forces to harm Taiwan’s development and restrict the freedom of its people. The fact that the president and the legislature are in the hands of a party that panders primarily to the China-centric aspirations of between 6 percent and 12 percent of the population, speaks constitutionally but fails to act so and which cannot accept public consensus on identification with Taiwan as a country, portends great and unsettling changes, the full severity and impact of which may not become apparent to Taiwanese until it is too late.

It will take more than 600,000 people protesting on one weekend to make this government respect Taiwan as a country and its people. If Ma is able to ignore four major protests against him in just one year and revise history at will, if police can break the law with impunity and get promoted and if the judiciary and prosecutors are just tools for political vendettas, then what is the future of this democracy, its de facto independence and the right of the Taiwanese to manage their own affairs?

The tragedy of the early years of the Republic of China (ROC) is that Chinese were not united behind the new country and many used this lack of consensus to enrich or protect their own familial and financial interests. Thus the nation ultimately collapsed into civil war, which came at a tremendous cost to Chinese.

Let us hope that Taiwanese will learn from history and prevent this from happening in their country, but I am not optimistic. Perhaps this is, after all, just the “tragedy of the commons.”

Cohen was spot on with his analysis of Taiwan’s precarious state. If Taiwanese keep putting “pragmatism” and “win-win” before the very principles of democracy and rule of law that serve as the foundation of a sovereign constitutional order and cohesive society, they will lose every gain in self-determination that so many have fought and died for in the last 400 years of colonial occupation.

Only when the KMT accepts Taiwan as its only territory, or when the ROC finally goes home, will Taiwanese be safe from the forces — internal and external — that seek to subjugate them politically, economically and culturally.

BEN GOREN
Taichung

Such power in a single man’s hands
　

By Lu I-Ming 呂一銘
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 8

Most academics and people polled in recent surveys do not support the idea of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) doubling as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) party chairman. Most academics, on the other hand, advocate reforms to Taiwan’s constitutional democratic system and the establishment of a system similar to those of Western countries.

Such ideas, however, ignore Ma’s real thoughts and his attitude toward democracy. So far, I have not heard any convincing arguments supporting Ma taking over as party chairman. All we have seen is infighting and power struggles within the KMT.

Ma’s low-key profile on the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre and democracy and human rights in China, as well as his comments about how Demos Chiang (蔣友柏), the great-grandson of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), does not understand democracy despite having studied overseas, are good indicators of Ma’s ideas on democracy.

Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for the New York Times, had the following to say about Ma in a piece on the Tiananmen Square Massacre: “In Taiwan in 1986, an ambitious young official named Ma Ying-jeou used to tell me that robust Western-style democracy might not be fully suited for the people of Taiwan.”

Even as president, Ma has said to Taiwan’s Aborigines: “I regard you as humans.”

Ma has also shown a lack of respect for opposition parties by talking to the media rather than engaging in dialogue. For example, he has not adopted democratic procedures to inform the public on the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China. He has even said that people cannot say there is no consensus just because the opposition party disagrees. Such rhetoric is reminiscent of comments made by former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀).

But Taiwan is not Singapore. These examples highlight the contradiction between Ma’s democratic understanding and his squeaky-clean image.

One of the reasons Ma wants to double as party chairman is the legislature’s “disobedience,” which on several occasions has sent him begging for support on legal bills and election promises as well as personnel appointments to the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan.

In addition, the Cabinet, which enjoys Ma’s full support, has often been kept in check by the legislature because of its own vested interests. But we have yet to see Ma handle these matters using democratic means. Instead, he feels that from a government perspective, the party should cooperate and help him smoothly achieve his political goals, while forgetting that this could belittle the legislature and turn it into a rubber-stamp office.

Is it OK to bypass legally required procedures to make things easier for the Cabinet? Regardless of whether we look at this issue from a three-branch or a five-branch government, moves aimed at restoring the party-state are detrimental to the consolidation of democracy and riddled with problems.

Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has also been a factor in the calls for Ma to take over the party chair from Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄).

In addition to clearly stating that the forum between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would continue, Hu has showed a willingness to negotiate important agreements, including a peace agreement.

While not discussing the appropriateness of party-to-party talks, the KMT-CCP platform still requires chairman status to facilitate meetings.

In particular, since Hu’s term ends in October 2012, he naturally hopes Ma will become party chairman sooner rather than later to allow the necessary time to go through the laborious process of setting up a meeting. Such a meeting would affect Hu’s place in history and that is also why American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt told reporters that cross-strait relations were at an all-time high after a meeting with Ma as he transited in the US.

During his year in office, Ma has been troubled by lack of government-party synchronization, with even the KMT-CCP forum coming up against resistance at times.

Ma learned from former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) that authoritarianism is not necessary and that power and influence can be obtained by controlling the party-government and the legislative party caucus.

In addition, the party chairman holds the right to nominate candidates for elections at all levels, and he can even decide who becomes legislative speaker and legislator-at-large.

That means Ma begins with his hold on power and then continues with system reform. However, being both president and party chairman is a double-edged sword.

It will facilitate policy implementation, but also means there may not be room to maneuver, especially when it comes to handling elections, disagreements and political infighting between faction leaders.

Ma’s clean image is easy to talk about but difficult to use, and it actually interferes with the operation of the system of checks and balance between the Cabinet and legislature. Only time will tell if Ma can carry out constitutional reform.

The process to determine whether Ma will double as party chairman has been rather coarse and the issue of the “government leading the party” can potentially lead to conflict over government and party appointments.

Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.

More work is needed to address unjust laws
　

By Bruce Liao 廖元豪
Wednesday, Jun 17, 2009, Page 8

The legislature recently passed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), granting Chinese nationals married to Taiwanese the right to work in Taiwan as well as complete inheritance rights. The wait for Chinese spouses applying for citizenship has also been shortened from eight years to six years.

This stands as the government’s first human rights accomplishment since the legislature passed the Act Governing Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (公民與政治權利國際公約及經濟社會文化權利國際公約施行法) in April.

Transnational immigration researchers have long acknowledged that legal immigrants should have the right to work and that residence requirements for citizenship applications should be shortened. Such preposterous and discriminatory regulations as an inheritance cap for people from particular countries are rare in the international community.

The government’s efforts to push the amendments only brought the nation a bit closer to meeting human rights standards, but this small step may symbolize the advent of new progress.

When the cross-strait relations act was established in 1992, not long after the lifting of Martial Law, Taiwan did not have a deep understanding of human rights and apprehended burgeoning cross-strait exchanges.

When it was in power, the Democratic Progressive Party based its political capital on animosity toward China and treated Chinese spouses like enemies.

Chinese spouses have been treated even worse than other foreign spouses.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) have repeatedly declared that all immigrants are treated equally. But the reality is very different.

Civil organizations have proposed to the legislature a more comprehensive version of the amendment to extend fair treatment to Chinese spouses, but it failed to gain government support.

If the government really wanted to revise discriminatory laws, why not amend more articles in the cross-strait relations act?

The legislature’s recent acceptance of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, an achievement proudly touted by the Ma government, offers a new opportunity for the government to further amend laws.

The covenant, for example, prohibits differential treatment based on national origin. The ban on discrimination based on national origin is an important human rights principle dismissed by Taiwan: When the government deals with immigration matters, it is not allowed to discrimination against people of different origin.

Taiwan, however, has dismissed this principle.

In accordance with the Act Governing Execution of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, government at all levels should amend all laws and regulations that violate the covenant within two years.

Discriminatory laws such as the Act Governing Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area must be amended.

The government’s sincerity in revising this act will show whether Taiwan measures up to the covenants and reveal the truth of Ma’s declarations.

Bruce Liao is an assistant law professor at National Chengchi University.