Obama calls N Korea a ‘grave threat’
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, WITH AP AND AFP
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, Page 1
　

US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday — following a White House meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak — that a nuclear-armed North Korea posed a “grave threat” to the world.

He was speaking just a day after the US House of Representatives approved a resolution condemning “hostile behavior” by Pyongyang and called on Obama to “reassure our allies such as Japan and Taiwan that the US will do all it can to prevent and stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear power.”

Sponsoring the resolution, Republican Representative Peter King said: “We should have an open debate, put partisanship aside and stand together as Americans to confront what could be a mortal danger to our allies and also causing the situation in Asia to spiral out of control.”

“I certainly think when Japan sees what North Korea is doing, as far as advancing its nuclear program, we could well see Japan considering a nuclear program. We have strong friends, such as Taiwan, who now will be in danger,” he said.

Pentagon officials told a Senate committee on Tuesday that if North Korea continues to progress at its present rate it would, within three years, develop missiles that are capable of hitting the US.

Standing beside Lee in the White House Rose Garden on Tuesday, Obama said: “We will pursue denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula vigorously. So we have not come to a conclusion that North Korea will or should be a nuclear power.

“Given their past behavior, given the belligerent manner in which they are constantly threatening their neighbors, I don’t think there’s any question that that would be a destabilizing situation that would be a profound threat not only to United States’ security but to world security,” he said.

“Under no circumstances are we going to allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons,” Lee said.

The Washington Post reported Lee secured assurances from Obama that the US would extend its “nuclear umbrella” over South Korea in the face of attacks from the North.

Writing on May 31 in the Boston Globe, Martin Malin and Hui Zhang of Harvard University, said: “China is worried that the Korean nuclear and missile crisis will provide a pretext for accelerating the deployment of a joint US-Japanese missile defense shield, which undermines China’s own modest deterrent force.

“To facilitate enhanced Chinese support for North Korean denuclearization, Washington should address some of Beijing’s security concerns, including US-Japanese missile defense cooperation and sales of missile defense capabilities to Taiwan,” they wrote.

John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org in Washington, told the Taipei Times: “I certainly think that the North Korean nuclear situation could encourage Japan to develop its own nuclear weapons.”

“I am of the view that they have had a covert nuclear weapons program for quite some time. They could have deliverable nuclear weapons in less than a year,” he said. “Having said that, if it looks like the neighborhood is going nuclear I don’t think that Taiwan would want to be the odd man out. It would take Taiwan about five years to develop nuclear weapons.”

Meanwhile, North Korea warned yesterday of a “thousand-fold” military retaliation against the US and its allies if provoked. The warning came just hours after Obama and Lee’s press conference.

In related news, the families of two US journalists jailed for 12 years in North Korea have appealed to Pyongyang to show mercy and said the pair were only doing their job when they were detained on March 17. Relatives of Taiwanese-American Laura Ling (凌志美) and Korean-American Euna Lee spoke to CNN after Pyongyang’s official media gave its first details of their alleged crimes.

Family members of slain businessmen go to China
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, Page 1

Five family members of two Taiwanese businessmen murdered in China left for Hong Kong yesterday en route to Guangdong Province.

A disgruntled factory worker in Dongguan fatally stabbed the two men on Monday, leaving a third Taiwanese critically injured.

Family members have complained that they hadn’t received any assistance from the government.

However, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) spokesman Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) said yesterday that the foundation learned of the incident on Monday night and immediately activated the reporting mechanism with China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).

Maa said the foundation empathized with the families and would continue to offer help.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said the government should discuss security for Taiwanese businesspeople working in China during cross-strait talks to prevent a similar situation.

Although Taiwan and China have held three rounds of cross-strait talks, the issue of personal security for Taiwanese businesspeople and protection for Taiwanese investment were never mentioned, DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said.

Cheng said the government was only pretending to care about Taiwanese working in China, because the security and interest of the Taiwanese had never been its priority.

There are around 500 Taiwanese businesspeople reportedly being held in Chinese prisons and more than 400 cases of deaths or missing people, Cheng said, adding that because the Chinese judicial system is backward and not transparent, the families of those imprisoned didn’t know where their loved ones were.

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the SEF offered little help to those caught in China’s legal system, he said.

Meanwhile, Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Fu Don-cheng (傅棟成) expressed regret over the legislature’s failure to pass amendments to a cross-strait law on double taxation, saying there shouldn’t be a double standard.

The council also issued a statement noting that the government has signed bilateral tax exemption agreements with 16 countries since 1981 and taxation agreements on air and sea transportation with 13 countries and regions.

All these agreements had been approved by the executive branch and ratified by the legislature, the council said. The statement said if the cross-strait revisions failed to pass the legislature, Taipei and Beijing would not have a legal basis to negotiate on preventing double taxation. The legislature began its summer recess on Tuesday.

The statement also dismissed media reports claiming that council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) had pressured DPP lawmakers during Tuesday’s cross-party negotiation on the bill.

In other news, the SEF dismissed speculation yesterday that the fourth round of talks between foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) would be held sooner than anticipated, either next month or in August.

Maa said he had not been notified about the time and place of the fourth meeting, except he knew it would be held in Taiwan.

The Chinese-language Commercial Times reported the talks would be pushed forward so both sides could expedite the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), and that Beijing said it would agree to a meeting next month or in August if Taiwan was ready.

Fu dismissed the report as “groundless,” saying both sides have yet to launch the negotiations on the next round of talks. The three agreements signed during the last Chiang-Chen meeting have yet to take effect and financial memorandums of understanding have yet to be signed, he said.

Both sides have agreed the next round of talks — on fisheries cooperation, agricultural product testing, inspection and certification cooperation and prevention of double taxation — would be held in Taiwan this year.
　

Free Burma concert to voice support for democracy activists
　

By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, Page 2

The Taiwan Free Burma Network — an alliance of more than 100 groups supporting the democracy movement in Myanmar — will hold a Free Burma Concert tomorrow as part of an internationally coordinated campaign calling on Myanmar's military junta to release more than 2,000 political prisoners.

“This is the first time we will be holding a public Free Burma Concert at an outdoor location,” Tsai Ya-ju (蔡雅如), an executive member of the group, told the Taipei Times. “In the past three years [since the first concert in Taiwan], we've always had the concert indoors.”

Free Burma Concerts in Taiwan are held annually on June 19, the birthday of Myanmar democracy pioneer Aung San Suu Kyi.

“The problem with holding indoor concerts was that we always attracted the same crowd — activists or people who already know about these freedom movements,” Tsai said. “This time, we want people who probably don't know much about the situation in Myanmar — students, kids, or ordinary moms and dads — to join us.”

Tsai said she believed music was the most effective way to get their message across.

Several bands — including Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤), StreetVoice, Indulge, Chang Tieh-chih (張鐵志) and Ko Chih-hao (柯志豪) — will perform at the concert.

“Through our music, we hope to encourage more people to find out what's going on in Myanmar,” said Fan Chiang (范姜), a member of the hip hop band Kou Chou Ching.

“I think supporting the Myanmar and Tibetan causes, as well as justice for Tiananmen Square Massacre victims, are equally important. People in Taiwan know more about the Tibetan movement, but not enough about the situation in Myanmar.”

Although most of Kou Chou Ching's works are about Taiwanese history, politics, national identity and social phenomena, Fan Chiang said there was still a connection between the band's music and Myanmar.

“For example, one of our songs, Civil Revolt, tells the story of uprisings in Taiwan during the Qing Dynasty rule because the government was too corrupt and repressive,” he said. “This is the same as in Myanmar.”

Other than enjoying the music, people are also invited to write notes to political prisoners in Myanmar or write postcards to the military junta calling for their release, Tsai said.

The concert will be held from 7pm to 9pm tomorrow at Yonghe City's (永和) Park No. 4 at the intersection of Jhongan (中安路) and Yongjhen (永貞路) roads near the Yongan Market MRT station.

US lawmakers question Uighur ‘terrorist’ label

AFP , WASHINGTON
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, Page 7

US lawmakers on Tuesday sought a review of the US listing of a Uighur Muslim group in northwestern China as “terrorist,” accusing US authorities of relying on intelligence from Beijing.

The call came after the US, defying China, freed four Uighurs held for years at the controversial “war on terror” camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Atlantic island of Bermuda took them in.

Thirteen more Uighurs — all cleared of wrongdoing by US authorities — are awaiting release from Guantanamo. China demands them, saying they belong to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), charges the Uighurs and US officials deny.

Congressman Bill Delahunt called a hearing to examine why the US classified ETIM as a terrorist group. He said the US official blacklisting blamed ETIM for 162 deaths in 200 incidents — the same figures given by China for an array of attacks pinned on Uighur militants.

“It appears to me that we took substantial intelligence information from the communist Chinese regime and then used that questionable evidence as our own,” said Delahunt, a member of US President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party.

He called for a review of how the US blacklists groups, saying: “We should never forget that flawed intelligence played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq.”

Uighurs are a largely Muslim ethnic group in China’s vast northwestern region of Xinjiang. The US State Department said in its latest rights report that China has intensified religious and political repression of the minority.

China said ETIM was behind an attack days before last year’s Beijing Olympics in which two men in the city of Kashgar plowed a truck into a group of jogging police officers, killing 16.

Washington announced it was listing ETIM as a terrorist group during a high-profile 2002 visit to China by then deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage.

“They did this in a pathetic attempt to appease the Chinese government,” said Representative Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken critic of China’s human rights record.

Rohrabacher accused the administration of former US president George W. Bush, a fellow Republican, of attempting to win China’s favor ahead of the Iraq invasion and to ensure Beijing kept buying bonds to finance the giant US debt.

Randy Schriver, a top State Department official on China under Bush and a close associate of Armitage, strongly rejected the accusations.

Schriver testified that China had pressed the US unsuccessfully to blacklist other groups and that Bush rebuffed a personal request by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to give him the men in Guantanamo.

“It doesn’t look like a policy to me to ingratiate ourselves with China. If anything, they were upset with our policy toward ­Xinjiang,” he said.

While voicing sympathy for Uighurs complaining of human rights abuses, Schriver said the US had to keep an objective definition of terrorism, noting that 2.5 million Americans visit China each year.

But experts testifying before the committee questioned the nature of ETIM, accusing China of lumping together all critics under the name.

The non-partisan Congressional Research Service said ETIM was first mentioned in 2000, but China later blamed it for attacks in the 1990s.

Tears or scorn for the KMT’s ‘easy tool’?
　

By Jerome Keating
Thursday, Jun 18, 2009, Page 8

After serving as chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for some two years, Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) has decided not to run for re-election. His case is a textbook example of many of Taiwan’s politically dispossessed.

One is almost tempted to feel sorry for Wu as he steps down — or is pushed off the stage — by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). I say almost, but that is as far as it goes.

Wu is one of those strange Hakka who, like many Aborigines and Hoklo, have a rightful place as masters in their own land but have given it up for the security of being second-class citizens in the KMT.

Why? What drives such people to prefer to settle for guaranteed crumbs and lower status that are provided by the KMT machine?

Wu has held semi-influential KMT positions. He got to be mayor of Taipei, and while the recent presidents of Taiwan have all been mayors of Taipei at some point, that was never on the cards for Wu.

Wu has never been one to risk all in seeking greatness like People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). He has never risked; he has only accepted.

Thus Wu became party chairman, but solely with the backing of Ma.

With that stopgap purpose served, Ma is now telling Wu to step aside because he wants to be not only president of Taiwan but also in control of the party.

Wu has been the typical party man: loyal, unquestioning and subservient to the hierarchical totem pole.

Such party men bend to those above them; they accept the fact that they will always receive bestowed, not earned, positions. They are the unfortunate suffering servants.

This is said not with any reference to the prophet Isaiah. Rather, these men are simply servants in what should be a democratic society, and they certainly suffer. So do they deserve our sympathy? Or do they simply get what they deserve?

Wu was born in Taiwan in the Japanese colonial period. He should understand what it means to live under a colonial regime and therefore should realize that with the KMT, he has helped to substitute one colonial master for another.

Wu’s family suffered under the KMT during the White Terror period, but instead of learning that this is the price of democracy, Wu has only learned to bow and serve his new masters.

Hakka claim a fighting spirit and their history often bears this out, but their history also bears out that many have sacrificed fighting for principles in favor of fighting for bestowed favors.

They will do this even if it means maintaining second-class citizenship.

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is one of a few Taiwanese Hakka who played the system in an alien regime and kept his principles. Biding his time, he rose to the top.

In the 1990s, no one did more in a concrete way to develop Taiwan’s democracy than he.

But Lee eventually suffered KMT retaliation for this. Because he fostered democracy, he had to bear the brunt of the blame of the KMT losing its one-party state.

He ended up as an unwelcome Hakka guest in the KMT ranks.

In contrast, Wu is exiting the stage in Prufrockian fashion. He has been an “attendant lord” and started a scene or two.

He has been “an easy tool,” deferential and glad to be of use.

Even if he is awarded the hollow title of honorary KMT chairman, should we shed tears for him or acknowledge the simple, inevitable slap in his face?

Jerome Keating is a writer based in Taipei.