"Painful to live in fear, isn't it?"

Now Fear has come again
To live with us
In poisoned intimacy like pus...

I struggled all week on how to write on the Chen Yunlin visit. I struggled not because I did not know what to say, but because I did not want to speak. And so I will let others summarize the events of this week: the detentions, the arrival of Chen Yunlin, the agreements, and the meaning of the protests, and above all, the creeping fear that so many of us now feel as we watch what is happening.

JOHN MANTHORPE, VANCOUVER SUN: At least seven senior members of the Democratic Progressive Party administration of former president Chen Shui-bian are being held under draconian "investigative detention" laws that allow prosecutors to hold suspects for up to four months without charge.

Prosecutors claim they believe the detained officials have been involved in corruption and might destroy evidence if not imprisoned.

But DPP leaders and other observers accuse the new Kuomintang administration of using the judicial system to purge the political stage of its opponents, smearing the reputations of the detained DPP officials by leaking unsupported allegations to the media, and using the detentions to try to extract confessions.

Those detained include a former senior official in Chen's office, the former interior minister Yu Cheng-hsien, former deputy prime minister Chiou I-jen, the former deputy environment minister Dr. James Lee, two DPP municipal officials and a county magistrate.

TING-YI TSAI, ASIAN WSJ: "Chen Yunlin will act like Santa Claus," said Wu Yu-shan, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science in Taipei. "But the problem is whether the gifts could create obvious benefit to the economy under the current difficult economic environment."

Mr. Ma took office five months ago, promising a new era of peace and economic normalization with China, after years of contentious relations under his predecessor Chen Shui-bian. But his approval ratings have plummeted since, and he has faced growing challenges within Taiwan to his accommodating stance toward Beijing. According to a poll conducted by the Global Views survey center, Mr. Ma's support rate has slipped to 23.6% from 60.5% in April.

JON ADAMS, CSMONITOR: Tuesday's agreements scrap cross-strait barriers erected in 1949 by rival Chinese regimes that refused to recognize each other's existence. The deals extend cross-strait passenger flights and shorten travel times. Before, all flights had to go through Hong Kong airspace.

Direct cargo flights will make it easier for Taiwan businesses to ship equipment and components to the mainland. Direct shipping links will remove the previously needed stop at Hong Kong or another intermediate port. "It's going to save a lot of transportation costs for Taiwan businesses," says Wu Chung-shu, dean of the college of management at Taiwan's National Dong Hwa University. "They're happy to see the government have a more open attitude."

Still, cross-strait links may not much blunt the global downturn's impact on Taiwan's export-dependent economy. "Improving cross-strait links will not totally insulate Taiwan from the current downside risks of a US recession," wrote Standard Chartered's Taiwan economist Tony Phoo in a report earlier this year. "Taiwan remains one of the most exposed in the region to a US-led global slowdown."

Realtime protest broadcasts
Tainan:
http://live.yahoo.com/tainandirect
It started already. (1 pm, Nov, 8th, 2008, Saturday)

Taichung:
http://1106.ezyou.cc/Home/tai-zhong-chang-ci
This one will start 2 pm, Nov, 9th, 2008, Sunday

TAIWAN NEWS: However, Tsai, who was MAC chairman from 2000-2004, stated that what the Ma government had gained in the SEF-ARATS agreements "were what we almost gained but they did not gain any more and at the cost of accepting political conditions including agreeing to Beijing's 'one China principle' and defining Taiwan as a 'region' and not a state."

Tsai stated that the four agreements would tie Taiwan closer to the PRC economy and expose Taiwan to the "increasing risks and uncertainties of the China market" and predicted that only a relatively small portion of Taiwan society will benefit from the new pacts.

The DPP chairwoman warned that if the Ma government does not effectively adopt complementary measures, Taiwan's domestic-market oriented industries, small businesses, middle and lower classes and farmers "will be harmed, incomes and wages will become stagnant and only unemployment will rise."

"This is the reason why the DPP was cautious in handling China policy as we supported liberalization but also believed we had to adopt complementary measures to reduce the negative impact on ordinary citizens and to accelerate industrial restructuring," Tsai said.

Former DPP MAC chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said the Ma government had failed to gain access to cross-strait shipping for foreign flag carriers or ships flying "flags of convenience" in the cross-strait marine transportation agreement, which he described as "vague" and operationally defined cross-strait shipping as Chinese "domestic" routes.

Chen Ming-tong also noted the air passenger agreement damaged Taiwan's national security by re-routing "northern line" flights from Taiwan to Shanghai and other locations to avoid monitoring by the Japan air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and by excessively shortening air warning times and by effectively defining cross-strait routes as "domestic" by allowing PRC airlines to fly directly to domestic Taiwan airports instead of landing first at the international airports of Taoyuan and Kaohsiung.

FAPA STATEMENT ON CHEN YUNLIN VISIT: The Ma administration knows that the majority of the Taiwanese people do not support a rapid pro-China policy. Yet his administration decided to go ahead with hosting the meeting between Chen and Taiwan’s SEF chief Chiang Pin-kung. This decision is to deliberately provoke the Taiwanese people, divide the Taiwanese society and attack Taiwan’s fragile and hard-fought democracy. We strongly condemn the KMT government’s China policies and protest the government for denying Taiwan’s sovereignty and ignoring Taiwan’s human rights, freedom and democracy.

TAIWAN NEWS: Although Ma and other KMT leaders denounced the "violence" of these unarmed citizens, it is in fact the KMT's monopolization of secret cross-strait negotiations without legislative, media or citizen oversight and its obstruction of the peaceful expression of dissent that forced the people to the streets to protest the KMT's use of state violence.

JOHNNY NEIHU: Now, alas, my buddies in uniform are being sent to clean up a political mess. But it can’t be cleaned up this way for too long, or we will have a police state.

As if in preparation, senior DPP identities are being arrested and locked up in a Singapore-style purge-by-judiciary. Not just the Chen Shui-bian gang, but also sitting elected representatives. Like Singapore, there is just enough legal process to satisfy ignorant foreign media, but way too much for local newspapers and TV stations to be bothered with.

After I turned off the TV, I had a sense of foreboding because I now know how it’s going to play out. Every step of what parachute-packing foreign correspondents call “cross-strait detente” or “rapprochement” or “easing of tensions” will, by necessity, include encroachment on domestic civil liberties — and therefore political liberties — at the reluctant hands of Taiwan’s finest. I also know that there are a lot of people who will fight to stop this from happening.

We’re on our way, dear reader. Will you join me on this journey?

[Taiwan]