US Congress to hear Taiwan resolution
　

‘SECURITY AND STABILITY’: The resolution aims to pressure US President Barack Obama to stand up for Taiwan when he meets the Chinese president next month
　

By William Lowther
STAFF REPORTER, WASHINGTON
Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, Page 1

A few weeks before US President Barack Obama embarks on a trip to China, Democratic Congressman Robert Andrews has introduced a resolution on Capitol Hill “expressing the sense of Congress regarding the freedom, security and stability of Taiwan.”

It is aimed at pressuring Obama to stand up for Taiwan when the issue is raised — as it surely will be — at his meetings with President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in Beijing.

Bob Yang (楊英育), president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), said: “In addition to the military threat, China is now also gaining tremendous economic leverage over Taiwan. China’s dual strategy of economic and military coercion to compel Taiwan into submission has alarmed many Taiwan supporters in the US Congress.”

The resolution says that “grave concerns” exist in Congress over the continued deployment by China of more than 1,400 ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan.

It instructs Obama to seek “a public and unequivocal renunciation” by the Chinese leadership of any threat or use of force against Taiwan.

The resolution adds that Taiwan’s future should be determined peacefully, free of coercion by Beijing and with the express consent of the people of Taiwan.

While it is unlikely that the resolution will be approved by Congress this year, its significance lies in it simply being introduced at all during this highly sensitive time.

Obama’s nine-day trip through Asia — he leaves on Nov. 10 and returns on Nov. 19 — will take him to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea.

He will be in Beijing and Shanghai between Nov. 15 and Nov. 18.

China has indicated that trade protectionism will be at the top of its list of priorities and White House sources have said that Obama will push China to reach a bilateral climate change agreement.

But the Jamestown Foundation, a respected US think-tank, puts “the Taiwan issue” first in its list of “sticking points” in the US-China relationship.

Thousands of Taiwanese-­Americans are expected to urge their representatives to support the resolution to bring it to the attention of the White House.

Andrews, from New Jersey, is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.

A Pentagon report issued earlier this year warns that China’s military modernization could be used in the future to pressure Taiwan toward a settlement of the cross-strait dispute on Beijing’s terms, while “simultaneously attempting to deter, delay or deny any possible US support for the island in case of conflict.”

“The people of Taiwan live under a constant dark cloud of threats, intimidation and harassment. They should be able to determine their own future free from fear,” Yang said.

Cleaning up the KMT’s illicit assets is no easy task
　

By Mo Yan-chih
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, Page 3

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) promise to clean up Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets to transform the KMT into a clean party could be empty words as the problems of illicit party assets, election bribery and factional infighting continue to cloud the party, analysts said.

Ma took over for the second time as KMT chairman at the party’s 18th national convention yesterday morning. He promised to deal with party assets and reexamine the role of local factions in an effort to clean up the KMT’s “black gold” image.

Critics, however, cast doubts on Ma’s ability to clean up the KMT because he failed to fulfill the same goal when he served as party chairman in 2005.

Lee Hsiao-feng (李筱峰), a political critic and a professor from National Taipei University, said the KMT had a long history of ­engaging in election bribery, embezzling money from the government and acting against democracy, and it would be difficult for Ma to eliminate his party’s culture of “black gold.”

“The KMT has counted on organized crime and local factions to operate and win elections. It would be almost impossible for Ma to eradicate black gold and risk losing major elections,” he said.

National Chengchi University political science professor Ku Chung-hua (顧忠華) said Ma already failed on his first attempt to solve the issue of illicit party assets, and it will cost him public support if he fails to fulfill the promise again.

Ma served as KMT party chairman in 2005, but stepped down in 2006 over allegedly embezzling a special allowance fund during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The Taipei District Court found him not guilty in 2007.

Cleaning up party assets was a major goal for Ma when he took over as KMT chairman in 2005 after he pledged to make the party “asset-free.”

The KMT started unloading its illicit assets later that year, selling the building housing the Institute on Policy Research and Development for NT$4.3 billion (US$133.6 million) and three media assets — the China Television Co (CTV), the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) and the Central Motion Picture Co (CMPC) — to the China Times Group for NT$9.3 billion.

Ma, however, failed to sell the Central Investment Co (中央投資公司), which is valued at more than NT$20 billion, during his one-year term. The Democratic Progressive Party challenged the KMT for rushing those sales at lower prices in exchange for cash to pay for election campaigns and for the lack of transparency during the process.

Ku acknowledged Ma’s efforts to clean up party assets, but said just getting rid of the assets would not convince the public because of the messy dealings related to the sale of CMPC, BCC and CTV, while details on what happened to the huge sums of money made from these asset sales have been carefully concealed.

Ma had said the party would pay off debts and put the rest of the money from the transactions into pensions for retired workers. However, in 2006, the year after the party sold the assets for more than NT$13 billion, the KMT claimed it had spent all the money and could not even pay party workers’ year-end bonuses.

Placating the party’s old guard and overhauling its local factions, as well as its decision-making bodies headed by the central standing committee, are also daunting for Ma’s party reform attempts, he said.

Ku said recent bribery allegations at the party’s central standing committee election and alleged under-the-table deals in the Taitung County commissioner election put Ma in an embarrassing position as the party continues to rely on vote-buying and influence peddling among local factions in elections.

The party elected 32 central standing committee members last week amid allegations of bribery. The KMT promised to annul the election of any member found guilty of bribing voters, but no actions have been made. As to the Taitung County commissioner election, the party’s nominee Justin Huang (黃健庭) resigned as KMT legislator last week to focus on the upcoming battle.

It is speculated, however, that the KMT made an under-the-table deal with Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) when it dissuaded her from running for re-election by promising to nominate her or her ex-husband, former Taitung County commissioner Wu Chun-li (吳俊立), for the legislative by-election.

“It’s like a slap in the face for Ma. It is extremely difficult to bring fundamental change to the party when he has to count on local factions to win the year-end elections,” Ku said.

The party is also scrambling to deal with splits in Yunlin, Hualien, Hsinchu, Chiayi, Nantou and Kinmen.

“Ma will make some compromises because no party can afford to lose the elections,” Lee said.

Wang Kun-yi (王崑義), a professor at National Taiwan Ocean University, said Ma also doubled as KMT chairman to facilitate the implementation of his cross-strait policies.

The Ma administration could become authoritarian and push through cross-strait policies without supervision if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) fails to keep the KMT’s performance in check, Wang said.

The right to a nationality
　

Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, Page 8

The people of Taiwan have the right to choose their nationality. This is the case even if Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) would, through his economic policy, make Taiwan a province of China.

In the Treaty of Shimonoseki, signed in 1895 at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, China and Japan gave each inhabitant of Taiwan the right to choose his or her nationality after China ceded the island to Japan.

Another precedent is the 1898 Treaty of Paris that concluded the Spanish-American War, under which the US and Spain gave every resident of the Philippines the right to choose his or her nationality.

The Taiwan Relations Act, which defines the relationship between Taiwan and the US, covers the whole population.

The Shanghai Communique’s “one China” policy, regardless of the different interpretations in China and the US, referred only to the “Chinese” people on both sides of the Strait. On Taiwan’s side, the Mainlanders are a minority. What about the majority?

This right to have a nationality is guaranteed by Article 15 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

If Ma were to bring Taiwan under Chinese administration against the will of the majority, every citizen could oppose him based on this universal right.

The only way to solve the Taiwan problem without violating the UDHR is to give those people in Taiwan who wish to become Chinese citizens the right to leave Taiwan and become Chinese. Many of them have already moved their financial resources and their family members to China. Besides, most of the people in this group came to Taiwan for temporary refuge after 1949 and were Chinese in the first place.

Those who do not wish to become Chinese citizens — even if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party governments sign any secret pacts — should remain citizens of Taiwan.

For Taiwanese, the right to their nationality as guaranteed by the UDHR has been ignored for too long and needs urgent international attention.

ALISON HSIEH
Athens, Greece

The appeal system for detention is not fair
　

By Wu Ching-chin 吳景欽
Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, Page 8

The Supreme Court sent the Taiwan High Court’s judgment to extend former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) detention back to the High Court last week, saying its reasons were inadequate. But the collegiate panel handling the case at the High Court decided to extend Chen’s detention anyway, citing almost exactly the same reasons.

This has again highlighted the nation’s problematic custody system. Can the same collegiate panel be expected to overrule a decision it has made previously? Can the High Court simply ignore the concerns cited by the Supreme Court?

Article 17, Section 8 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) says that “a judge shall disqualify himself from the case concerned on his own motion and may not exercise his functions” if he or she “has participated in the decision at a previous trial.”

The collegiate panel should have recused itself from Chen’s detention case after the Supreme Court sent the case back to the High Court because it cannot be expected to overturn its previous decision. This is the main reason for Article 17.

The current practice when reviewing the prosecution’s request to extend custody is to focus on protecting people and objects.

The members of the panel believe they are protecting evidence by extending Chen’s detention and that they do not have to disqualify themselves from the case.

A look at the latest custody review, however, reveals that this is no longer a matter of simply preserving evidence, but now involves the actual case against Chen.

Given that the custody review and the trial are being handled by the same court, it has a good understanding of all the evidence, so it would be difficult to justify the claim that the High Court has not already reached an evaluation of the evidence.

It is also contrary to the Code of Criminal Procedure and ignores its goals, one of which is to use mandatory recusal to ensure an impartial court and protect the rights of the accused.

Even if impartiality could be maintained when a decision is returned to the same collegiate panel, lower courts should be bound by the decisions of higher courts, lest the appeal system become pointless.

Since a court does not want to embarrass itself by overturning its own decision, it will often try to find a new piece of evidence to defend its initial decision.

When this happens, the appeal system becomes pointless. A detainee can easily be caught up in a vicious cycle of being put in custody, appealing and having the decision sent back to the deciding court, where the same decision is reached.

The goals of a custody review and the court case it is related to are not one and the same. This means that ideally, the decision to detain someone should not be made by the same collegiate panel handling the court case in question lest detention become a means to pressure the accused into confessing.

Because of limited judicial resources, the current practice is to accept that this sometimes is not attainable.

However, by letting the same collegiate panel review its own decision — and virtually ignore the concerns of the Supreme Court — the accused effectively loses recourse to challenge a court’s decision.

A just legal system cannot rely on a court’s self discipline. Doing so is a recipe for an arbitrary judiciary that stifles human rights.

Wu Ching-chin is an assistant professor in the Department of Financial and Economic Law at Alethia University.

Let the public scrutinize the ECFA

Sunday, Oct 18, 2009, Page 8

‘None of this is clear. The effect is like handing over your chop, ID card, the contract for your house and a whole book of blank checks to a stranger. No one in their right mind would do such a thing.’

When Typhoon Morakot dealt a heavy blow to the government’s reputation, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) managed to put a spin on it. He said that understanding the public’s suffering had led President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to humbly reflect on matters.

Now Ma is speeding up his stubborn push for an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China and ignoring all advice, so that even members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have begun to feel uneasy, asking in media interviews why the government has not explained the ECFA publicly.

Indeed, what is the goal of improving cross-strait ties and the ECFA? Apart from saying that an ECFA is “absolutely necessary,” the government hasn’t offered an explanation.

A look at China, however, reveals that it is busy drawing up strategic plans for foreign trade-related economic matters. Using the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangements (CEPA) it signed with Hong Kong and Macau as a template, China is preparing a blueprint for the ECFA. In other words, Hong Kong and Macau are about to be followed by Taiwan, whose political and economic integration with China now seems all but certain. The difference is that Taiwan is walking into it of its own volition.

What is the CEPA? After its return to China in 1997, the negative effects of contacts with the Chinese mainland put Hong Kong under pressure. Industries were being undermined, the foundation for science and technology weakened, and unemployment rose.

Before China delivered on its pledge to open up to the outside world, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region hoped that after China’s entry into the WTO, it could sign a trade agreement with China to rescue its flagging economy.

Hong Kong was already part of China under the “one country, two systems” model, but China was not satisfied.

Prior to signing the CEPAs in 2003, it set elaborate goals for what it hoped to achieve by signing such an agreement.

First of all, it wanted to prevent the return of Hong Kong from going wrong and becoming an international embarrassment. China had to help Hong Kong’s economic development and maintain social stability there.

But nothing is free, and China felt that to further integrate Hong Kong and Macau with China, it was necessary to set up a system that would direct economic exchanges toward the realization of “one country” and to further integrate sovereignty.

In other words, China’s goals were to shift the “two systems” model more toward “one country,” with a goal of gaining complete sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macau.

But even that would not satisfy China. Its third goal was to use Hong Kong as bait. It wanted to bring Taiwan into the mix by making Hong Kong the starting point for a greater China economic region. From the perspective of China’s strategic interests, Taiwan is the missing piece.

Outside observers think this will satisfy China, but they are wrong. China has placed the integration of Hong Kong and Macau into a regional economy on the agenda. After signing the CEPAs, Hong Kong and Macau signed a Pan-Pearl River Delta Regional Cooperation Framework Agreement in 2004. China got all it could from the region, while the influence of Hong Kong and Macau was restricted to the Pearl River Delta. If they weren’t completely marginalized, they were at least being sidestepped.

If that’s how China treated Hong Kong and Macau, which were already in its pocket, one can only wonder what it would do to Taiwan, which it seems to covet more than anything else.

The ECFA is strikingly similar to the CEPAs when one considers how the CEPAs led from two systems toward one country.

China’s State Council in May passed a document containing suggestions for speeding up the development of Fujian Province as the area directly across from Taiwan. The measure is intended to complement the ECFA once it has been signed, with the goal of integrating Fujian and Taiwan.

It is easy to imagine the other goals of this document. China is keeping a high profile, telling Taiwan: “This is what we offer. It’s up to you to decide whether you want it.”

The government has already said it intends to begin negotiating an ECFA with China late this year. This raises questions about what an ECFA will entail, who will benefit from it and who will lose out, how the nation will benefit and what it will sacrifice, in what capacity Taiwan will sign the agreement and whether the public will be allowed to approve it.

None of this is clear. The effect is like handing over your chop, ID card, the contract for your house and a whole book of blank checks to a stranger. No one in their right mind would do such a thing.

Since this is precisely what Ma seems prepared to do, it is necessary to launch another petition calling for a referendum on the ECFA issue. At the same time, the year-end elections for county commissioners, mayors and city and county councils will be an opportunity to cast a vote of no confidence. The public must tell the government loud and clear that it cannot do as it wishes without their approval.