UPDATE: The Australian reports that PNG officials did meet with the middlemen....PNG's Post Courier newspaper said yesterday Mr Tiensten, who was trade and industry minister in 2006, had met the middlemen from Taiwan at a series of meetings in Port Moresby, while he was also acting foreign minister. Mr Tiensten said a PNG lawyer, Florian Gubon, "was helping (the Taiwanese) mission" to Port Moresby - where the Taiwan Government has a trade office. Dr Gubon accompanied Mr Bonga, then chairman of the Port Moresby City-owned water company Eda Ranu, to Taipei, also in 2006. Mr Bonga said he went there "to see how we could improve city sewerage, and about water bottling".
PNG's National newspaper yesterday ran a photo showing Mr Bonga, Dr Gubon, Mr Chiou and Mr Wu at a meeting together in Taipei in 2006.
More to come, I'm sure....
The Taiwan News editorializes on the PNG affair that has caused heads to roll....
The flap has already led to the resignations of ex- vice premier and perennial DPP strategist Chiou I-jen, former foreign minister James Huang and ex-deputy defense minister Ko Cheng-heng and the detention of Taiwan-Singaporean businessman and alleged con-man Wu Ssu-tsai and flight of Taiwan businessman Chin Chi-jiu and the disappearance of nearly US$30 million in confidential diplomatic funds....and rightly so. I think, like Taiwan News, that the Ministry will be cleared of criminal wrongdoing, but what the editorial really focuses on is the lost diplomatic opportunity:
The significance of this diplomatic failure is best understood not by obsession with alleged "scandals" or a focus on the PNG alone but with reference to the wider context of Taiwan's efforts to consolidate a cluster of comprehensive partnerships in the Pacific and expand the scope of this community in order to gain strategic influence and direct participation in the 14-nation Pacific Island Forum.Too bad incompetence blew up this opportunity to move forward in an international forum.
Indeed, just as Chiou and Huang were making their secret approach for ties with Port Moresby in the late summer of 2006, Taiwan had initiated a new approach in its management of relations with its six Pacific island allies which surfaced in the "First Taiwan - Pacific Island Allies Summit" held in Palau in September 2006 in which President Chen Shui-bian participated.
The Palau summit, followed by a Majuro Summit in August 2007, marked Taiwan's shift from a focus on defensive bilateral ties to a more proactive and comprehensive multilateral approach aimed at improving governance, grassroots health and education and economic development in the context of building a "democratic community" in implicit cooperation with the PIF's long-term "Pacific Plan."
The strength of this approach has been shown in the resiliency of Taiwan's ties with the Marshall Islands, Nauru and the Solomon Islands, all of which have had changes in government in the last year.
Through this example, Taiwan has also improved ties with Australia and New Zealand, especially in contrast with the PRC, which is playing the neighborhood "bad boy" by acting as the main prop for the military regime in Fuji and the repressive monarchy in Tonga, which has been under martial law for over 18 months.
Although Taiwan has full diplomatic ties with six PIF 14 members, Taipei remains excluded from all formal PIF activities and can only hold "informal" dialogue with the PIF members at their annual meetings and is excluded from the most important deliberations and planning processes of this organization, which is gradually evolving into a regional trade and security organization of strategic importance.
However, Taiwan only needs one or at most two more diplomatic allies to gain sufficient support within the PIF to upgrade its status into at least a full "dialogue partner" on an equal footing with the United States, Canada and the PRC itself or even direct membership.
Official affiliation with the PIF would have marked a huge strategic advance for Taiwan's international status and a major step in counteracting the PRC's global "full court press."
Also on tap today: Taiwan's Minister of Health in the Vancouver Sun on WHO entry.
[Taiwan]
Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index of 179 nations shows Taiwan ranked at 35, well-placed in the top 25% of nations with low corruption.
ReplyDelete(Compare: Singapore = 4; Australia = 11; UK = 13; Japan = 17; USA = 20; Korea = 44; China = 73)
Of Taiwan's 24 allies, only two are ranked as reliably non-corrupt allies: The Grenadines (31) and St. Lucia (24).
(Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu & the Vatican are not included in this report)
Many of the others are on the bottom quarter of the list, including Haiti = 177; The Gambia = 143; Paraguay = 140; Honduras = 136; Nicaragua = 120; Sao Tome & Principe = 120.
Papua New Guinea is ranked at 163.
The loss of Costa Rica, ranked at 46, was a loss of one of the few respectable allies.
Don't forget that Taiwan also was conned by Malawi (119).
It saddens me that Taiwan, with its reasonably clean status (esp compared to Korea or China), doesn't have full diplomatic relations with other nations of equal or better status and must make do with allies who are merely cash sinkholes.
I know, I'm preaching to the choir, but I can't help thinking, "with friends like these..."
The DDP has only itself to blame for this loss of taxpayers funds. Why did it look outside itself for help? How could such huge sums be handed over on such ridiculous terms? Another example of inability to govern. I am no fan of the KMT. A functioning democracy needs competent players.
ReplyDeleteIt saddens me also that with the One-China Policy, how could smaller "territories" of China be given the freedom and self-determination that they deserve? That includes; Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteAs victors of the 2nd World War, the 5 SuperPowers will continue to dominate power, not only at the international levels but domestically and regionally. Then comes the questions of; "why would they be held captive and in suspense by another power?" the 5 powers themselves to not fully uphold state sovereignty and territorial integrity as in the case of UK and US's attacks around the world, why would they hold back the political, social and economic progress of others?
China should go to hell with its policy on One-China, swallow its pride and the 5 leaders of the UN Security Council should draw new rules taking into consideration a wider membership and Veto Power than the present Mugabe-like international system that we have today!