Chen Chu urges the public to be friendly to Chinese athletes
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER, WITH STAFF WRITER
Monday, Jul 06, 2009, Page 1

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) yesterday urged the public to treat Chinese athletes attending the upcoming World Games with friendship and demonstrate the maturity of Taiwan’s democracy.

“I believe Taiwanese are mature enough,” the mayor of the city hosting the Games said in an interview with SET-TV yesterday. “This is very important because the world will be watching us [during the Games].”

That being said, she would respect freedom of expression of different political opinions because Taiwan is a democracy, Chen said.

The World Games will be held in Kaohsiung from July 16 to July 26. The eighth World Games, expected to attract participants from 105 countries and areas, with 4,000 athletes representing 90 nationalities, is seen as an event that can increase the nation’s international visibility.

Chen also vowed to ensure the safety of all athletes during the event, adding the city government and the National Police Agency had been exchanging anti-terrorism information with other nations.

Meanwhile, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) has agreed to Kaohsiung’s request for the central government to provide 600 military police to maintain security during the Games.

Chen said she hoped President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would be able to attend and preside over the opening ceremony of the Games because the president symbolizes the nation’s sovereignty, but that the city government needed to discuss it with the International World Games Association (IWGA).

Kaohsiung City Council Speaker Chuang Chi-wang (莊啟旺) said in May that the city government had invited Ma to preside over the opening ceremony, but that the organizers had received a letter on April 1 from IWGA president Ron Froehlich saying that no head of state of any country had presided over the opening of the Games in its history.

The letter stated that all seven previous Games were opened by the president of the IWGA or his proxy. At the time, the IWGA said it would invite Ma as a “special guest.”

Chen Chu calls for coordinated DPP policy on China
　

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Jul 06, 2009, Page 3

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), yesterday called on the party to face the rise of China and to fully deliberate its China policy.

Chen said the DPP must face the changed situation and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should lead party officials and members to discuss the party’s approach to China.

“The DPP should achieve a consensus among different opinions [within the party] after gaining a thorough understanding of [the impact of] the rise of China and the [President Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九] administration’s China policy,” Chen said in an interview with SET-TV that aired yesterday afternoon. “The DPP’s China policy should be able to address the current state of [cross-strait relations] and live up to the public’s expectations.”

Chen said it would be “inadequate” for pro-independence activists to advocate de jure independence while being unable to face the nation’s biggest threat.

“Everyone should know that the circumstances have changed. We should learn to face China and its changes,” she said.

White Terror name list updated
　

FINALLY: The process of tracking down victims of the era of White Terror took 10 years and was exceedingly difficult because many of the court filings were missing
　

By Hsieh Wen-hua
STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Jul 06, 2009, Page 3

“The sources for such a long list came from several places.”— Ronald Tsao, Taiwan Art-in Design president

On Friday, Green Island Human Rights Memorial Park will debut a series of events to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, during which an updated name-list of White Terror victims will be unveiled.

The memorial park’s administration said a total of 8,296 names would be disclosed, which is seven times the number disclosed in 1999 by the Bo Yang Human Rights Educational Foundation. The park’s administration entrusted Taiwan Art-in Design with collecting and verifying the information concerning White Terror victims.

Taiwan Art-in Design president Ronald Tsao (曹欽榮), who is also a board member of the Deng Liberty Foundation and the Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation, said the new list covers a time span stretching from just after the 228 Incident in 1947 to 1989, two years after Marial Law was lifted in 1987.

The 228 Incident refers to the military crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration on civilian protesters that started on Feb. 27, 1947. Historians estimate that around 30,000 people were killed.

What followed the 228 massacre has been labeled the White Terror, during which numerous people were arrested. Many lost their lives after the declaration of martial law.

Most of the victims were prominent Taiwanese, including lawyers, prosecutors, doctors, professors and media workers. There is no official tally of the number of people who were jailed, went missing or were killed.

“The sources for such a long list came from several places, including the National Archives Administration, household registration offices, published or unpublished memoirs or oral accounts from White Terror victims, the disciplinary facility for political prisoners in Tucheng (土城), as well as those that have already been compensated by the government for mistreatment during the Martial Law period,” Tsao said.

Tsao said some family members were able to find their fathers or other relatives when a list of “White Terror” victims was released two years ago.

However, family members cannot simply use the list as a way to demand compensation from the government, Tsao said, adding that they must follow the ­government’s procedures.

Recounting the difficulties in tracking down White Terror victims, Tsao said his research team had asked to view more than 100,000 digital files and hard copies of information from the National Archives Administration. The team spent about 10 years tracing the victims and comparing the information, he said.

“Some of the victims shared the same name,” Tsao said. “Some of the victims’ court rulings were lost and others did not even have rulings in their files.”

Tsao said that of the 1,061 people on the name-list who were executed, 63 percent were Taiwanese, while 35 percent were from China. Seventy-six percent of the victims were between 20 and 40 years of age. The youngest of the executed was 19 years old and the oldest was 65, he said.

Those who were executed were from all walks of life, including farmers, vendors, coal miners, small shop owners, sailors, reporters, inspectors of the Taiwan Railway Administration, students, school principles and military officials, he said.

Tsao said the intelligence agency even used daughters of the victims to solicit information from Chinese spies.

Names and photos of the updated list will be gradually posted online at http://2009greenisland.blogspot.com/.

Yonaguni plans raise questions of Taiwan
　

By Lai I-chung 賴怡忠
Monday, Jul 06, 2009, Page 8

Recent news reports said the US and Japan are planning to station military on Yonaguni Island in response to demands from local residents following China’s military expansion. A closer analysis, however, shows that it is more likely that such a military deployment would be the result of US and Japanese questions about the future strategic direction of Taiwan. In other words, the move is aimed at Taiwan rather than China.

Yonaguni lies almost on the same latitude as Hualien, and when the weather is good, it is possible to see Hualien from the island. Yonaguni residents often go to Hualien for shopping on weekends, and some Yonaguni children study in Hualien. It is the Japanese territory closest to Taiwan. Taiwan shields Yonaguni from China, and it lies quite a distance away from the Philippines, so there can only be two reasons for stationing troops there.

The first reason is that the US and Japan believe there is a very high risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait, and that after an outbreak of war, it is very likely that Chinese military would enter and leave Taiwan on the east coast, which would be the reason for strengthening the military presence on Yonaguni.

This implies that the US and Japan do not buy into the claim by Taiwan’s government that cross-strait tensions have fallen and that the situation has stabilized, and that they are stationing military east of Hualien to prepare for all eventualities.

The second possibility is that the US and Japan feel the accession of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has brought about a fundamental change in the direction of Taiwanese strategy and the two countries are therefore preparing for the possibility that Taiwan would side with China in a hypothetical future conflict between the US and Japan on the one hand, and China on the other.

The fact is that after Ma hinted at the possibility of war with Japan over the Diaoyutai and that he would tolerate calls within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to side with China against Japan, after the National Security Council’s advocacy that Taiwan abandon its passive sea and air defense, and after the recent refusal to meet with Japan’s representative to Taiwan, Tokyo is questioning the government’s strategy direction, while the US is beginning to worry over the possible Finlandization of Taiwan.

These concerns prohibit the US-Japanese alliance from treating Taiwan as an ally. If Taiwan were to cooperate with their opponent, Hualien would no longer function as a shield from China and Yonaguni would be on the front line of the conflict and it would also be used to monitor Taiwan’s actions.

Regardless of whether the US and Japan station troops on Yonaguni because they are worried about Taiwan or because they want to monitor Taiwan, such action does not coincide with what the Ma administration has said.

Late this year, Japan will announce its defense strategy outline, and next year is the 50th anniversary of the US-Japanese alliance. By that time, the plans of the two allies will become clearer.

However, the fact that the promise to let Taiwan assemble P3-C anti-submarine aircraft fell through tells us that Taipei has become a strategic uncertainty factor.

As a result of the government moving closer to China, distancing itself from the US and opposing Japan, Taiwan has gone from being a friend that cooperates with the US and Japan to a country that the two allies must defend themselves against. The stationing of troops on Yonaguni will be the first step in this change.

Lai I-chung is director of foreign policy studies at Taiwan Thinktank.