Parties condemn ‘harassment’ of Taiwan student
　

By Jenny W. Hsu and Shih Hsiu-chuan
STAFF REPORTERS, WITH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Dec 09, 2009, Page 1

Lawmakers across party lines yesterday urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lodge a protest against China over reports that a Taiwanese student in South Korea was harassed by a group of Chinese students for displaying a Republic of China (ROC) flag.

Local media reported yesterday that the Taiwanese student, surnamed Lin (林), at South Korea’s Silla University in Busan, received first prize in a Korean-language speech contest. However, after the contest, Lin was chased and besieged by a group of Chinese contestants who were angry over Lin showing an ROC flag during the speech, they said.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) said Taipei should complain to the host and the Beijing government, and investigate whether officials at the Taiwanese representative office in South Korea were guilty of dereliction of duty in handling the matter.

“It was regretful that this happened ahead of the upcoming cross-strait talks. The government should lodge a protest [with Chinese authorities] during the cross-strait talks,” Chou said.

Describing the incident as “outrageous,” KMT Legislator Shyu Jong-shyoung demanded the administration condemn the Beijing government and its people for their unfriendly behavior.

The government also has to voice its protest with the Seoul government if it failed to protect the Taiwanese student, Shyu said.

“There was nothing wrong with displaying our national flag or whatever the Taiwanese student said in her speech. Freedom of expression is a right that we enjoy. The Chinese might not like it, but they can’t stop us from upholding this value,” Shyu said.

KMT Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) said Beijing should apologize although she believed that it was an isolated incident.

“Displaying the national flag was normal behavior as it represents the country. Any normal person would do the same thing,” Yang said.

Ministry Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said the Busan representative office would look into the matter, adding that the organizers had said there was no report of violence and that the media might have exaggerated it.

The ministry is in contact with Lin to clarify what happened, Chen said.

“We will do what needs to be done,” Chen said. “However, we must have a clear picture of the incident before taking any action such as lodging a protest.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers blamed the incident on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “diplomatic truce,” which they said was a form of self-denigration and humiliation designed to please Beijing.

DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-­liang (蔡煌瑯) said what happened in Busan was a “typical example” of the failure of Ma’s diplomatic policy.

“If our own government doesn’t even care about safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty, why should the citizens of any other country respect Taiwan? What the Chinese students did was indirectly permitted by Ma,” he said.

DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said despite the so-called truce, tensions between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were worse than ever “because Chinese hostility toward Taiwan has spread from the government down to the individual level.”

“Ma’s weak stand when confronted with China has made Chinese students overseas feel it’s perfectly fine to oppress Taiwanese students in non-political venues,” she said.

“Ma kept saying the cross-strait détente will help bridge understanding between the two sides, but the reality is, it has only made the Chinese think we are easy pickings,” she said.

ECFA winners must give to society: Wu
　

SINK OR SWIM: The premier said businesses that stand to benefit from an ECFA need to show the public that it is a matter of survival in the face of stiff competition
　

By Shih Hsiu-chuan and Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTERS
Wednesday, Dec 09, 2009, Page 3

“Only irresponsible people and idiots would want to seek independence [for Taiwan].”— Wu Den-yih, premier

Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said the government would urge businesses that stand to benefit from an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China to give back to society.

The cross-strait pact is expected to be negotiated early next year.

“It would be wrong of us to say that [the businesses] are not giving anything back to society [already], but I think that there is room for growth in this regard,” Wu said in an interview with the UFO Network yesterday.

These businesses could give back to society by pursuing environmental policies that are in the public interest, such as energy conservation and cutting greenhouse emissions, he said, adding that the government would urge them to come up with proposals on what they can do to make their contribution.

Wu said businesses that stand to benefit from an ECFA need to show the public that an ECFA would help them sustain their businesses and that it is a matter of survival, because otherwise their exports to China would be subject to an import tariff of 9 percent on average. Losing their competitive edge to rival ASEAN countries, South Korea and Japan after an expanded trade pact takes effect would cause these companies to collapse, Wu said.

Wu said the businesses that would be included in the “early harvest” list under an ECFA were the petrochemical, textile, machinery and computer component sectors.

In the interview, Wu reiterated President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) guidelines for cross-strait policies: “no reunification, no independence, and no war.”

This is the only option to deal with cross-strait relations under current circumstances, he said.

“You don’t have the capability to unify [China] and you don’t want to be unified by it, nor are you capable of declaring independence, which would cause a split domestically, not to mention the possibility of danger from an external force,” Wu said. “Only irresponsible people and idiots would want to seek independence [for Taiwan].”

Meanwhile, at a separate setting yesterday, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Kao Charng (高長) said it would be detrimental to Taiwan’s development if the administration did not sign an ECFA with Beijing.

Kao said that as Taiwan’s neighbors have been working toward free-trade agreements (FTA), the administration has made an effort to negotiate FTAs with other countries.

But unless Taiwan inks an ECFA with Beijing, it will be very hard for Taipei to convince other countries to sign any agreement with it, Kao said.

“To avoid Taiwan becoming marginalized and losing its competitive edge, we must sign an ECFA with Beijing so we can attract more foreign investment,” he said while attending a forum in Tainan County with local opinion leaders.

“What we should be thinking about now is not whether we should sign [an ECFA], but rather when is the best timing,” he said.

As the government hopes to sign it next year, it will make an aggressive effort over the next few months to promote the ECFA, whose content he said was very complicated, he said.

At the forum, a representative from the county’s Dongshan Township (東山), Chen Ching-hui (陳清輝), urged the government to refrain from acting against public opinion and proposed holding a referendum on whether to sign an ECFA.

In Taipei, MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) yesterday said the two sides would not sign or even negotiate an ECFA during the upcoming cross-strait talks in Taichung later this month, but will talk about whether to place it on the agenda for the next round of talks in the first half of next year.

“Our plan is to see it formally made the negotiation topic for the fifth round of [talks],” she said.

Are human rights still on the agenda?

Wednesday, Dec 09, 2009, Page 8

As the world celebrates International Human Rights Day tomorrow, Taiwan will also be presented with an opportunity to reflect on its progress, or lack thereof, in safeguarding human rights over the past year.

Recent events are likely to cast a pall on Taiwan’s image. Just last week, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Deputy Secretary-General Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) announced that the Taichung City Government would designate a 30,000-ping (nearly 100,000m²) “protest zone,” or “opinion plaza,” so that protesters could make their voices heard during the fourth round of negotiations between SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) later this month.

Although Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) put the brakes on what he called a “premature” idea, adding that it would be unconstitutional to deprive people of their right to assemble outside a designated area, Taiwan’s international image as a country that, unlike China, honors freedom of speech, was nevertheless tainted.

Several international media organizations have expressed interest in sending crews to cover the ­Taichung talks, not so much for the talks themselves, but rather over expectations that the “orderly protests” might get out of hand.

And it gets worse.

As the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper, the Liberty Times wrote yesterday, the Taichung City Police Bureau has reportedly attempted to “persuade” shops around the talks’ hotel venue to close during the meeting over concerns of possible riots in the area.

It is understandable that law enforcement officers would seek to maintain social order. But the assumption that protesters will be violent highlights a bias against dissent and reveals an authoritarian mindset that stigmatizes protesters regardless of their cause or behavior.

No wonder the failure to revise the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) continues to top the list of the public’s 10 main concerns about human rights this year, as a survey by the Taiwan Associations for Human Rights has shown.

Taiwan may have completed its transition from the “hard” authoritarianism left behind by dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to a “softer” authoritarian rule initiated by his son and successor Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) in the 1980s, but to this day, many people believe that an authoritarian reflex lingers among government and police officers, which has become the biggest hurdle to a legislative revision of the Act.

It is also inexcusable that the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), which has deeply immersed itself in cementing ties with China, has failed to take people’s rights to assemble with equal urgency.

Whether full engagement with China will bring economic benefits to the nation’s export-oriented economy remains to be seen. But in every contact with China, Taiwan can — and should — use the opportunity to fulfill its international obligations by playing a bigger role in encouraging Beijing to democratize and respect human rights.

By failing to do so and focusing solely on improving its economy — which seems to be the Ma administration’s favored approach — Taiwan will fail in its responsibilities as a stakeholder in the international community.

Kaohsiung Incident a good reminder
　

By Gerrit van der Wees
Wednesday, Dec 09, 2009, Page 8

Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979. It was a watershed in Taiwan’s political history, as it galvanized the democratic opposition in Taiwan and overseas Taiwanese into action, and thus ushered in the beginning of the end of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) martial law and one-party police state.

In Taiwan itself, the event is being commemorated with a series of activities, including seminars, a photo exhibition and a concert in Kaohsiung. The irony of the situation is that one of the defendants in the “sedition” trial that followed the Incident was Chen Chu (陳菊), now mayor of Kaohsiung.

Over the years, much has been written about the significance of the events of December 1979, the subsequent trials and the Incident’s impact on Taiwan’s transition to democracy. Here we want to highlight two aspects: one, what was said during the incident, and did it constitute “sedition,” and two, how it played a role in galvanizing the overseas Taiwanese community.

The event, which started out as a Human Rights Day celebration by the nascent democratic opposition, turned into a melee after the police surrounded the crowd and started using teargas. Three days later, the KMT authorities used the disturbances as an excuse to arrest virtually all leaders of the opposition. Eight major leaders were accused of “sedition,” tried in a military court and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 12 years to life imprisonment.

What is less well-known is that the course of events during the evening of Dec. 10 were later chronicled in a publication called The Kaohsiung Tapes, published in December 1981, which is now available at www.taiwandc.org/kao-tapes.pdf. The document presents a word-for-word account of what was said during the evening, and strongly contradicts the KMT government’s claim that the speakers were “inciting” the crowd to “overthrow” the government — the basis for the sedition charges.

The document shows that the police were primarily responsible for the disturbances, when heavily armed military and police units encircled the crowd and started to throw teargas into the peaceful demonstration. The melee occurred after the crowd broke through the police cordon to escape the teargas.

On the second point: How did the Incident play a role in galvanizing the overseas Taiwanese community? It is of course well-known that the defendants and their defense lawyers became the core of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which was founded in 1986. Their roster reads like the Who is Who of the DPP.

What is less well-known is that the Incident provided a strong impetus for overseas Taiwanese to get organized and to speak out. Before “Kaohsiung” there were pro-democracy organizations and groups, such as the World United Formosans for Independence, the various Taiwanese associations (in the US, Europe, etc) and the Overseas Alliance for Democratic Rule in Taiwan, which was organized by Kuo Yu-hsin (郭雨新). But their impact was relatively limited.

After “Kaohsiung,” the existing active clusters attained critical mass and gained considerable political power and influence in their host countries. In the US, Canada and in European states the overseas Taiwanese organized themselves and started to lobby the US Congress and European parliaments and governments.

This increased political awareness and activity led to the establishment of a number of like-minded organizations, such as the North American Taiwanese Professors Association (1980), the North American Taiwanese Women’s Association (1986) and the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) — set up in 1982 by Mark Chen (陳唐山), who later became foreign minister; Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) and Peng Ming-min (彭明敏).

FAPA was specifically set up to work with the US Congress, and it has gained strong support for human rights and democracy in Taiwan. Through its activities, the “Gang of Four” (senators Ted Kennedy, Claiborne Pell and representatives Stephen Solarz and Jim Leach) frequently and forcefully spoke out for an end to the KMT’s one-party dictatorship and the 40-year-old martial law.

After Taiwan made its successful transition to democracy in the late 1980s, FAPA and the other organizations reoriented their work to support Taiwan’s membership in international organizations, such as the UN and the WHO.

Sadly, the erosion of justice under the President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, and the drift toward China at the expense of democracy and hard-earned freedoms are now necessitating a renewed focus on human rights and democracy in Taiwan.

The anniversary of the ­Kaohsiung Incident presents a good opportunity for the people in Taiwan and abroad to reflect on what has been achieved — and what can so easily be whittled away.

Gerrit van der Wees is editor of Taiwan Communique, published in Washington by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.

PLA generals are much too confident
　

By Lin Cho-shui 林濁水
Wednesday, Dec 09, 2009, Page 8

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly called for ­confidence-building measures between the armed forces on either side of the Taiwan Strait, as did his predecessor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). But military affairs experts from China and Taiwan think this is an unrealistic and amateurish proposition. Chinese experts have given persuasive reasons for this view. As retired Chinese Lieutenant General Li Jijun (李際均) said recently, “If the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] were completely transparent toward Taiwan, it would make it equally transparent for countries that have third-party relations with Taiwan … so it would be hard to implement.”

A seminar on the theme of 60 years of cross-strait relations was held in Taipei last month, followed by one on the subject of Sun Zi’s (孫子) Art of War in Beijing. The odd thing is that at both these forums, retired PLA officers, who in the past have shown no interest in promoting cross-strait confidence-building measures, eagerly and earnestly put forward various plans for doing just that.

For example, they suggested that China and Taiwan could start out by building friendly relations through joint patrols in the South China Sea. Such a proposal is fantastic and full of problems.

There are longstanding tensions in the South China Sea, with ASEAN states looking to the US to back them up. The ideas proposed by Li and others would require Taiwan to reverse the military alliances it has long relied on for its security, from the island-chain containment camp headed by the US to the very camp the US wants to contain.

It would be hard to realize such a plan. If it did come to pass, it would have a dramatic impact on the Pacific island-chain containment strategy, on Japan’s oil supply routes, on the emerging Indian-Japanese joint security framework and more. By coopting Taiwan’s armed forces and placing Taiwan, the Pratas Reef and Itu Aba Island — the largest of the Spratly Islands — within its sphere of influence China would gain a military advantage in the South China Sea, turning it into, in effect, a Chinese inland sea.

Taiwan’s air force still enjoys partial air superiority and its naval power is about half that of China. If the above proposals were to become reality, China would be able to transfer the forces it has tied up to deal with Taiwan, and instead join with Taiwan in presenting a united front against outside forces, greatly increasing its power projection.

The Chinese military’s purpose in trying to get Taiwan into line goes beyond regional considerations. It would achieve the dream China has cherished ever since the Opium Wars of expelling the Western powers from East Asia and reviving the dominant position the Qing empire enjoyed during its early years.

It is also, however, by no means clear what exactly the Chinese generals mean by “friendly” when they talk of cooperation between the armed forces on each side of the Strait and call them “friendly forces.” If seen in terms of Beijing’s position that cross-strait relations are a matter of “one country, two systems,” Taiwan’s armed forces and the PLA would be parallel forces under the central government of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan’s armed forces would have effectively surrendered and joined the other side. Such a scenario, in which Beijing would enjoy all the advantages, is certain to come to nothing.

If, on the other hand, China and Taiwan were to agree to recognize each other as having equal political status, “friendly forces” would be allied forces. In that case, relations between the two would not just be a matter of confidence-building measures, but a proper military alliance. Although this would not satisfy dogmatic calls for unification, that would not detract from its strategic importance. This scenario, however, is equally problematic.

The PLA assures us that there is no need to worry about surrounding countries taking countermeasures if Taiwan changes sides in military alliances. The reality, however, is that China, rising power as it may be, is not a great power like the US that can deliver the tools of development around the world. This makes the China option unattractive for Taiwan.

In an alliance in which one partner would be much bigger than the other, and having discarded the support of its original allies, what bargaining chips would Taiwan have left to use in the event of cross-strait disputes?

These are all tough questions to answer. As KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-ming (帥化民), a pan-blue strategist, said recently, “Taiwan survives in the niche created by the conflict between the Western powers and China. In cross-strait affairs, we cannot rely too much on a peace agreement or mechanism to achieve a breakthrough.”

The proposals for military collaboration are fraught with problems. It is only within the context of China’s greater strategy of a “peaceful rise,” and “peaceful diplomacy and a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues” that these ideas seem to have some mileage. Since 2004, China has been trying to achieve mutual trust with other countries. It has repeatedly made such overtures to the US following last month’s talks between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

Some senior PLA officers have opened the Pandora’s box of ­confidence-building measures. It may be hard to shut the box now that it has been opened. Difficult as the proposals for cross-strait convergence may be to implement, they demonstrate imagination on the part of PLA officers in a rising China, as well as their ambition to unsettle the order in East Asia.

Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.