Police officer injured in Taichung protests
　

By Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTER, IN TAICHUNG
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 1

One police officer was taken to hospital and six men were arrested last night after the officer fell from a truck as he tried to stop protesters from shooting fireworks at the hotel where Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was staying.

The incident marked the most serious injury and the first arrests during this week’s cross-strait talks.

The Taichung City Police Bureau said the officer, Chen Chu-hsiang (陳諸想), was pushed from the vehicle by members of the pro-independence “908 Taiwan Republic Campaign.”

Doctors said Chen sustained an eye injury and would undergo a brain scan to check for head injuries, the bureau said.

Taichung City Police Deputy Chief Yu Hui-mao (余輝茂) said Chen climbed onto the vehicle to ask the protesters to stop setting off the rockets because they could injure people around them on the main road in front of the hotels where the Taiwanese and Chinese delegations were staying.

Chen reportedly fell from the truck at 7:02pm, about 30 minutes after a banquet hosted by Taichung City Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) for the delegations began at the Windsor Hotel.

The six men were arrested on charges of public endangerment, obstruction of justice and causing injury.

At 10:30pm police released video footage at a press conference apparently showing the officer being pushed.

The protesters had said that they had footage proving Chen fell and was not pushed.

One of the protesters, surnamed Shen, said she saw the officer slip and fall, adding that she felt intimidated by police during the protest.

Approximately 300 armed officers had been dispatched to maintain security and order around the hotels. Yu said he would not increase the number.

Yesterday morning, two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taichung City councilors gained access to the heavily policed restricted zone around the hotels and held up posters attacking the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing.

The two women were immediately prevented by police from reaching the Windsor.

Later, also near the hotels, a group of DPP councilors released a few dozen pigeons, calling them “peace doves” and urging Beijing to remove more than 1,000 missiles pointed at Taiwan.

A group brought by DPP Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) threw blue and white flip-flops at portraits of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chen Yunlin.

Both delegations had left their hotels to tour central Taiwan before the protests began.

High Court upholds Feng conviction for rape again
　

HUSH MONEY?: Following his alleged rape of his housemaid, ex-New Party legislator Elmer Feng paid her NT$800,000 and packed her off to the Philippines
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 2
　

The Taiwan High Court yesterday sentenced former New Party legislator Elmer Feng (馮滬祥) to six months in prison for the rape of his Filipina housekeeper in November 2003.

The High Court convicted Feng of sexual assault, saying he had abused his position of power, because he had employed the victim as a maid. Judges yesterday handed down a one-year prison sentence, which can be reduced by half to six months under a commutation bill passed in 2007. Feng may also pay a fine in lieu of serving his prison sentence.

Judges found Feng guilty of the charges against him because prosecutors and forensic scientists found DNA on the maid’s underwear that matched Feng’s. Judges also said there was no way to prove the authenticity of Feng’s claims that he was framed by his former housekeeper.

Feng told judges that his former maid, identified only as Rose, had framed him by taking semen from a condom he had used when having intercourse with his wife and smearing it inside her underwear.

Immediately after the alleged rape, Feng paid her NT$800,000 (US$25,000) and sent her back to the Philippines.

The Taipei District Court originally sentenced Feng to four years in jail. He then appealed to the High Court. After the original verdict was upheld, Feng appealed to the Taiwan Supreme Court, where his defense presented a statement from forensic expert Henry Lee (李昌鈺) casting doubt on the pattern of the semen stains.

The Supreme Court then returned the case to the High Court for a new trial. In January last year, High Court judges decided to uphold his four-year sentence.

Feng then filed another appeal of the ruling to the Supreme Court, which again returned the case to the High Court.

Yesterday’s ruling is not final and Feng said he would appeal.

Tight security reigns on Day 3
　

O MATSU HELP US: Despite a high police-to-protester ratio yesterday, a pair of Falun Gong practitioners managed to come to within 2 meters of Chen Yunlin

By Ko Shu-ling and Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTERS, IN TAICHUNG
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 3
　

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) yesterday came his closest to protesters while visiting Miaoli.

Chen visited the Sanyi Wood Sculpture Museum, where Falun Gong practitioners and independence and unification activists shouted slogans.

Falun Gong practitioners and unification groups gathered downhill from the museum, while about 15 independence activists protested just outside the museum.

Chanting “Taiwan and China, one country on each side,” protesters wore headbands reading “Give me back my civil rights.” They were surrounded by 120 law enforcement officers.

Chen made a brief stop at a gift shop next to the museum after his visit. The independence group was about 10m away.

As Chen got into his car, two Falun Gong practitioners breached a security line and came within 2m of him.

Chen did not react.

Before the visit to the museum, Chen visited a resort, West Lake Resortopia, with former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) and other KMT officials.
　

The facility was closed to the public and Chen was surrounded by two lines of security personnel as he watched a lion dance outdoors.

Arrangements for media were chaotic, with security personnel, reporters, photographers and TV cameramen jostling for space.

Some reporters were annoyed after discovering that they would not be allowed to cover a lunch hosted by Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) of the KMT.

However, reporters were allowed to place tape recorders in the room during the closed-door lunch.

Chen said he “regretted” that he could not stay longer in Miaoli or have more contact with its residents. Nevertheless, he said he could “feel their hospitality.”

Referring to Wu as “chairman” and his “good friend,” Chen said he appreciated Wu’s driving an hour and a half to see him in Miaoli.

Meeting Wu felt “natural and normal” and not political, he said.

The Mainland Affairs Council said before Chen’s visit that no KMT members would host any meals for him.

Chen said his “profound friendship” with Wu could not be easily changed “by any factors.”

“Being a government official is temporary, but being a person is forever,” he said.

Wu apologized to Chen for not being able to host the lunch.

He said he hosted a dinner for his “old friend” in November last year but that it lasted eight hours.

He was referring to a dinner he hosted that saw Chen stranded at the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei hotel when protesters surrounded the building and blocked the exits.

Wu said the KMT supported the government’s cross-strait policies and would work to convince the public that the policies were for their own good.

Meanwhile, Chen praised the Hakka culture, saying 65 percent of Miaoli’s population is Hakka and that Hakka are a “simple, honest and kind” people.

Wu is a Hakka.

“As Hakka culture promotes ethnic harmony, this spirit is part of our Chinese tradition,” Chen said. “I greatly appreciate Hakka culture.”

Later in the day, Chen was accompanied by Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman ­Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) to visit Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia Township (大甲), Taichung County.

More than 1,500 police were dispatched from surrounding townships and counties to maintain security at the scene.

About 100 young men, dressed in pink and red shirts and some covered in tattoos, stood guard around the area.

They refused to say what group they were with or why they were there.

Prior to Chen’s arrival, one man using a loudspeaker shouted that “the atheist communist” was not welcome at the temple and pleaded to Matsu, the Goddess of the Sea enshrined in the temple, to “expel and stop Chen from bringing ill fortune to Taiwan.”

“His presence at the temple is nothing but a show because he is not even religious. He must be stopped from exploiting our beloved Matsu for his own benefit,” said a local farmer surnamed Yang.

One woman standing in the restricted approved area, caught everyone by surprise when she ran out in protest against Chen while holding a green placard saying “One Taiwan, One China.”

She was immediately dragged away by two men who crumpled up her sign.

Chiang and Chen were greeted by Yen Ching-piao (顏清標), the chairman of the temple and an independent lawmaker who presented Chen with a tin sculpture of a deer to symbolize good luck and prosperity.

Chen said he and Yen are “longtime friends” and it has long been a wish of his to see the temple.

Chen was scheduled to tour a nearby orphanage but the event was closed to the media.

Jason Hu’s image juggles a lack of transparency
　

By Mo Yan-Chih
STAFF REPORTER, IN TAICHUNG
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 3

The government’s failure to be open and transparent with the itinerary of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) during his five-day visit has irritated local and foreign reporters.

The fourth round of cross-strait negotiations started in Taichung City on Monday.

The Mainland Affairs Council said it would make a last-minute announcement on Chen’s daily schedule, claiming it had to discuss things with ARATS representatives before finalizing Chen’s schedule.

After President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Monday morning asked government authorities to make public most of the Chinese delegation’s itinerary, the council held a press conference to announce Chen’s daily itinerary and posted the information on its Web site.

However, the Taichung City Government did not make public the itinerary for Chen’s tour of the city on Monday afternoon.

Insisting on keeping Chen’s itinerary a secret, the city government divided reporters covering the event into two groups and arranged six shuttle buses to transport them — no one knew where — to certain locations.

“We were on a journey to nowhere and I felt like I was being kidnapped by the Taichung City Government,” one reporter told the Taipei Times.

Asked about the destination, both the bus driver and the Government Information Office (GIO) official on the bus said they did not know where they were going either.

“I was told to follow the bus ahead of me,” the driver said.

The first group of reporters was later taken to Chen’s first destination, a luxury apartment complex at an urban planning area in the city, while the second group was supposed to be taken to a local temple Chen was to visit later.

However, all the reporters were transported to a hotel, where Hu invited Chen to view municipal developments from the top of the 46-story building.

A newspaper reporter surnamed Wang criticized Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) and his staff for their unapologetic attitude and their failure to explain why Chen toured a privately owned luxury apartment building instead of local government infrastructure.

“Keeping the reporters in the dark is something that a rogue nation would do and [this] should never happen in Taiwan,” she said.

The lack of transparency, the reporter said, also suggested that the decision to hold the meeting in Taichung may have been a means to boost Hu’s chances of getting re-elected.

Another reporter who spoke on condition of anonymity said that five reporters from his newspaper were assigned to cover the “mysterious event,” adding that it was frustrating that Hu, a former GIO head, failed to strike a balance between serving as a host to Chen and his delegation, and addressing the needs of the media.

“If we knew the two groups of reporters were going to the same destination, we would not have wasted so much manpower on that particular event. Hu and his team offended all the reporters and made fools out of themselves,” he said.

Hu apologized for the lack of transparency in handling Chen’s itinerary, while insisting that keeping Chen’s schedule a secret was necessary.

“The guests’ safety is our biggest concern and we have to make such arrangements for security reasons,” he said.

Confronted by reporters over the city government’s failure to respond to Ma’s call for transparency, Hu said that unveiling Chen’s itinerary would cause unnecessary chaos as protesters would hound Chen.

“I saw the Presidential Office’s call [for transparency regarding Chen’s schedule] on TV and I think I am being transparent enough,” he said.

Asked about other city and county governments’ openness on the same matter, Hu refused to comment and said local government each had their own considerations.

Chen visited Dajia Jenn Lann Temple (大甲鎮瀾宮) in Taichung County and West Lake ­Resortopia in Miaoli County yesterday. Both counties had communicated Chen’s itineraries to the media.

Chen will head to Nantou County tomorrow and will stay at The Lalu Hotel at Sun Moon Lake.

Oversight and public debate needed
　

By Tseng Chien-yuan 曾建元
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 8

The fourth round of talks between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) is taking place in Taichung. The talks cover quarantine inspections of agricultural products, avoidance of double taxation, fishery labor services cooperation, cooperation in standard inspections and mutual recognition of certification.

The legal nature of routine agreements reached at cross-strait talks is equivalent to that of administrative agreements. They do not have the binding status of law, which means that in case of conflict, the conflicting part of the agreement will be invalid unless it is amended so that it conforms with the law.

The second paragraph of Article 5 of 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) states: “Where the content of the agreement requires any amendment to laws or any new legislation, the administration authorities of the agreement shall submit the agreement through the Executive Yuan to the Legislative Yuan for consideration within 30 days after the execution of the agreement; where its content does not require any amendment to laws or any new legislation, the administration authorities of the agreement shall submit the agreement to the Executive Yuan for approval and to the Legislative Yuan for record, with a confidential procedure if necessary.”

This means that if a cross-strait agreement involves legal issues, the Cross-Strait Relations Act only allows the implementation of the pact by way of legal amendment. It cannot become legally binding immediately in the same way that a treaty does.

If the government does not submit a cross-strait agreement to the legislature, any part of the pact that violates the law should be subjected to judicial review and declared invalid.

However, talks on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) or a peace agreement are of a different nature. These talks focus on issues that are defined by the cross-strait legal relationship. The main point is that the formal text and the legal force these pacts would entail would involve the cross-strait sovereignty dispute.

Unless the People’s Republic of China changes its “one China” standpoint, these issues will lead to great political concern in Taiwan over worries that Taiwan will lose its sovereignty and national status.

Therefore, if the Taiwanese were allowed to participate in the establishment of an economic or sovereignty framework agreement — fundamental cross-strait agreements — through a fair referendum, and if the government were also willing to open up public debate about these agreements, only then would it be possible to build public confidence in the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, and only then would further collective action to declare de jure independence for Taiwan no longer be a pressing matter.

Tseng Chien-yuan is an associate professor of public administration at Chung Hua University and a member of Taiwan Thinktank.
　

Improved ties mean a declining economy
　

By Wang To-far 王塗發
Thursday, Dec 24, 2009, Page 8

‘When Taiwanese invest in China they strengthen the competitiveness of Chinese products on the international market.’

Heavy investment in China by Taiwanese businesspeople will have many negative effects on Taiwan in the long run. I will limit my discussion to just two.

First, large amounts of investment in China by Taiwanese means that less money is invested in Taiwan, and this slows down the rate of domestic industrial upgrade. Since the majority of Taiwanese businesspeople can use their existing technologies to manufacture products in China, they have no need to conduct research and development or to invest in Taiwan, nor do they face any immediate pressure to improve the quality of their business operations, which means industrial upgrades here have slowed and will continue to do so.

The second problem is the risk that Taiwan’s exports will be replaced by Chinese exports. When Taiwanese invest in China they strengthen the competitiveness of Chinese products on the international market, and this poses a huge threat to Taiwan’s export sector. This began happening a long time ago and the way in which Taiwan is being disadvantaged and China is benefiting from this situation is already very clear.

Studies by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research show that in 2004, the export replacement percentage for products made by Taiwan’s manufacturing sector that were replaced by Chinese products in the US and Japanese markets was 13.21 percent and 8.49 percent respectively. Taiwanese technology-intensive products were the item most frequently replaced by Chinese products.

In the US market in 2004, 19.26 percent of Taiwan’s exports of technology-intensive products were replaced by Chinese products, while 8.56 percent and 7.33 percent of less and moderately technology-intensive products were replaced by Chinese products.

In the Japanese market in 2003, 13.22 percent of technology-intensive Taiwanese products were replaced by Chinese products, while 7.35 percent and 10.87 percent of Taiwanese less and moderately technology-intensive products were replaced by Chinese products.

It is worth noting that the Taiwanese-made items most frequently replaced by Chinese products in the US and Japanese markets were the moderately and technology-intensive products, and that the export replacement percentage has been continuously increasing since 2000.

It is now obvious that the substitution effect has started to overtake the complementarity and mutual benefit that is supposed to exist as a result of division of labor in trade conducted between Taiwan and China.

Taiwan’s trade with China so far has seen Taiwanese invest huge amounts in China, which has caused a decrease in investment in Taiwan and had a severe impact on our economy.

If President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government ignores the trade issues I have mentioned and signs an economic cooperation framework agreement with China, Taiwan will become increasingly isolated as it is Sinicized, and we will face economic and financial crises that will be very hard to fix.

Wang To-far is a professor of economics at National Taipei University.