Taroko people vs Asia Cement: the long twilight struggle

The amazing beauty of Taroko.

FocusTaiwan on the massive Asia Cement plant disaster outside Taroko Gorge...

Economics officials said Thursday that the Asia Cement Co.'s mining project inside the Taroko National Park can be terminated next year as new Environment Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) hopes, but the company's operations in the 417 hectares outside the park cannot be suspended without new legislation banning such activities.

....

His new "vision" immediately alarmed the Hualien County government, which said the livelihoods of more than 1,000 families would be affected if the minister's new policy was carried through.

Kuomintang Legislator Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚), wife of Hualien County Magistrate Fu Kun-chi, said Lee should have listened to local people and should give them some time to adapt before announcing his new policy.

If you're thinking that the cement company is in bed with the pan-Blue local government...

History from the piece above....

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Asia Cement obtained a license to develop a total of 442.7 hectares in Hualien in 1973. Some 25 hectares of the licensed mining district were zoned in the Taroko National Park when the park was established in 1986, but it did not affect Asia Cement's right to keep developing the land.

In 1994, Asia Cement requested government permission to continue using the mining district inside the park, a request that was granted the next year.

The News Lens also picked up on this story, but also left out an important component of the issue. When the KMT legislator mentioned "local people" she meant the jobs dependent on the plant, not the livelihoods it wiped out. Those "local people"... who could they be? They've gone completely missing from the FocusTaiwan, News Lens, and Taipei Times report, which present the case in conventional environment vs big business terms. Let's restore their existence...

In 1974, the Siou-lin District administrative office, the Hua-lien County (花蓮縣) government, and the Asia Cement Company held several meetings for residents regarding Asia Cement's desire to develop a production site in Siou-lin District. However, as the Council’s judgment clearly points out, “The meeting only highlighted the benefits of the establishment of an Asia Cement factory during these “informational meetings,” never clearly stating to attendees that they would need to desist all cultivation and use of Truku Reserved Lands.” Furthermore, the Truku people's full understanding of the meetings' proceedings cannot be taken for granted when these meetings were conducted solely within the context of the laws and language of the Republic of China, which were alien and unfamiliar to the Truku people.

Subsequently, the Siou-lin District administrative office proceeded to transfer the lease for large sections of Reserved Lands to the Asia Cement Company, soon afterward revoking the cultivation rights registrations for 146 hectares of land. Fortunately, because of errors in documentation, a few of these revocations were not completed and a few were able to retain their cultivation rights. Two of these comparatively lucky rights holders eventually became litigants in the aforementioned case. After the lease agreement between the Siou-lin District administrative office and Asia Cement was formed, the original Truku rights-holders were forced off their land. Many of the original cultivation rights’ registrants have since passed away, and the remaining few who are parties to this case are now quite elderly.

During the course of protracted litigation, the Siou-lin District administrative office and the Asia Cement Company have repeatedly produced a written document which they claim is an agreement to abandon cultivation rights to which the seals and signatures of the Truku cultivation rights-holders have been affixed as proof of the aboriginal people's voluntarily renouncing cultivation rights and receipt of compensatory payment. However, the two aboriginal plaintiffs in this case do not recall signing any such document, and the handwriting used on all the signatures appending the agreement is curiously identical.

Read the whole thing, it's a common story of what really goes on in these cases when indigenes face large government-backed resource extraction companies. The historical background is given in this piece here by the awesome Scott Simon:

In 1968, the KMT government began legal registration of Aboriginal land in Taiwan as Aboriginal Reserve Land. Although indigenous people had lived on Taiwan for 6,000 years before the first Chinese settlers arrived, Aboriginal families received only cultivation rights under the new legal system. Usage rights on the land, moreover, were granted only on the condition that crops be planted for 10 years. The stipulation effectively forced assimilation on Aboriginal people, as it made them abandon their traditional mix of hunting, gathering, and slash-and-burn agriculture. It required that they instead adopt Chinese customs of settled agriculture, presumably for the growth of cash crops. The law stipulated that land could not be sold or rented to Chinese people--it either had to be cultivated or ceded to the government as state property.

Although Aboriginal Reserve Land was supposedly reserved for indigenous people, legal loopholes actually gave the Taiwanese government as well as Han Chinese individuals and corporations access to indigenous land. The government often "rented" indigenous land to outside commercial interests if indigenous people did not cultivate the land and sign "rental" agreements for the property in question. And indigenous people themselves often rented land to each other or outside Han Chinese. Han Chinese entrepreneurs were thus able to acquire space for villas, hotels, and factories on reserve land. The legacy of these problems remains. Indigenous people have no full legal ownership rights over the land, which means that they have no right to take out loans against it, a restriction that has prevented them from developing their own lands.

The policy of Aboriginal Reserve Land thus gave corporations adequate legal loopholes through which to seize Aboriginal land during a window of opportunity from 1968 to 1978. In 1973, the Taiwanese conglomerate Asia Cement applied to rent land from the Hsiulin Township Office and held its first consultative meeting with Taroko people. Township officials encouraged Taroko people to rent the land, saying it would give them employment opportunities, prevent out-migration of young people, and bring development to the community. The original landowners received compensation for displaced crops--a mere fraction of the land’s real estate value--and the promise that the land would be returned to them after 20 years.

In sum, Asia Cement did not have to compensate the aboriginal people for the value of the land (since the government "owned" it), just for the (far smaller sum of the) value of the crops it could have grown. Theft, backed by martial law, so protest was impossible. The article notes that few jobs were given to local aborigines out of the cornucopia promised, all grotty low paying work, which eventually was given to migrant workers, displacing even those few aborigines who got work at the cement company. It also tells the story of how the case was revived, with depressingly predictable responses....

One lucky day for the Taroko people, township officials left a hearing in anger, leaving behind a stack of documents. As Igung Shiban looked through them, she found that they were filled with irregularities. Some were missing dates or official seals. Most suspicious of all, the signatures of many former owners who had supposedly given up their property rights were all written in the same handwriting. In nearly a year of research, she pulled the agreements, one by one, from the township office files and showed them to the signatories to confirm whether or not they had actually signed them. It turned out that most of the signatures on the agreements to relinquish land rights were forgeries.

Asia Cement resorted to intimidation to stop her research--Shiban and her husband were physically attacked twice, and her husband was burned on the leg—but they didn’t give up. Fortunately, local environmental activists and National Legislator Bayan Dalur, an indigenous representative given a seat through the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), helped them pursue the case by providing access to government documents.

This old report, preserved on the useful Taiwan First Nations website, describes:

"There will definitely be bloodshed next time. We'll kill you one by one," promised Chou Wei-kuen, a company spokesman, after the group stormed the gates.

Activist Igung Shiban started an organization and took its case to the United Aborigines Working Program of the UN (here) where it didn't make much progress because you-know-who across the Strait suppressed it because it was Taiwanese. Packed with useful, fascinating details, Igung Shiban wrote in her 1997 report to the UN...

This dilemma of the Taroko people is the dilemma of all the indigenous people of Taiwan: Shimen Dam in Taoyuan County drowned the villages of the Taiyal. The military air base built into the mountain near Hwalien airport displaced the villages there. The Machia Dam in Taitung County forced the Lukai people out of their homes. The forced expropriation of indigenous reserved land by the government's Retired Servicemen's Association, Forestry Department, and National Parks Service, have each contributed their part to the loss the indigenous land and extinction of indigenous culture. If the campaign for return of land from Asia Cement were to succeed, it would be a crucial turning point. So we must persist in this campaign. This is not just our struggle; it is part of the hope for indigenous people throughout the world.

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Daily Links:

• Awesome: Dynamic maps of the Taiwan Strait and its relations throughout history
• Tsai faces world's worst property market
• Latest issue of NCCU's Strategic Vision is out
• Legislature struggles over assets bill
• Ibises = problem

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Gaoping Great Lakes Controversy

Map of Gaoping Great Lakes Project (source). Google satellite image of area.

Marc Reisner's Cadillac Desert remains one of the great books on water policy, and one of the things he notes in it is how water projects develop a life of their own, with justifications and shapes shifting over time, but with the drive to build the dam thing no matter how bad a dog it is never dying. Are we seeing this in the Gaoping Great Lakes Project? The Taipei Times reports on a protest:

Environmentalists and farmers from Pingtung County and Greater Kaohsiung yesterday staged a protest against the Gaoping Great Lakes (高屏大湖) project, which they fear would divert water used for farming and damage local soybean production.

A project of the Water Resources Agency’s (WRA) Southern Region Water Resources Office, it would build five manmade lakes in a nearly 700-hectare area covering many farms at the border of Pingtung County’s Ligang Township (里港) and Greater Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃).

The project was originally part of the Jiyang artificial lake project, which passed an environmental impact assessment in 2002, for cross-border water channeling and to save water during dry seasons.

After severe flooding in the south caused by Typhoon Morakot in August 2009, the project was modified to become part of a southern Taiwan water stabilization project by the WRA. It was further modified into a three-phase project, with the first artificial lake — covering about 200 hectares — being constructed in the first stage.

.....

The project aims to channel excess water from the Nanhua Reservoir (南化水庫) and the Gaoping River Dam (高屏溪攔河堰), but the only time the two areas have excess water is in summer, Yang said.

Moreover, since the target areas do not suffer from a water shortage during summer, he questioned why the government should spend billions of dollars to construct manmade lakes that would have very limited benefits.

The lakes have a depth of just 12m. This website observes that not only are the soybean farmers and workers in the area protesting, but in Ligang the Thai Shrimp farming and vegetable farming will also suffer from water shortages if pond E is built. Because locals are so dead set against the project, the legislature has canceled the budget on several occasions, it reports.

Another view (source).

Another article states the government's position on the young soybean impact:

水利署進一步指出，農委會資料顯示，我國毛豆「複種面積」於100年度達7,338公頃，其中位於高屏大湖第一期工程（E湖區）範圍內之「種植面積」為188.86公頃，佔全國毛豆種植面積2.57%，亦僅佔高屏地區種植毛豆之土地面積2,497公頃的7.56%，故高屏大湖計畫並未排擠原有毛豆種植面積。

The irrigation authorities, citing the Council of Agriculture, say that the total area of the first and second soybean crop is 7,338 hectares, of which the initial development, E area, represents just 188.86 hectares, or 2.57% of the (re)planted area, or 7.56% of the Pingtung young soybean land area of 2,497 hectares.

The farmers respond that the first crop and the second crop are not identical -- the government is engaging in mathematical sleight of hand, lowballing the estimate by playing with the first crop vs the total area planted. According to the farmers, soybeans are planted in spring and fall in Taiwan. Thus, the effective area lost to the farmers is 367 hectares (twice the government's estimate) because two season's worth of production, first and second crop, is lost.

Of course, that estimate is only for the E area, phase 1. Once phase 2 and phase 3 are completed, the farmers point out, they will cover 500 hectares -- meaning that two crops of production totalling 500 hectares are lost, effectively 1000 hectares of production. Total soybean production in the area is only 2,497 hectares for all seasons.

That article says that some soybean farmers are arguing the project isn't about water at all, but about gravel. As the project plan makes clear (google "1.2 開發行為之內容" and see section 1.2), creation of the lakes, 12 meters deep, will necessitate the removal of millions of cubic of meters of gravel, a material in high demand in Taiwan, which whoever owns the land and sells the gravel can make an easy and quick profit off of. More need not be said....

ADDED: See good comment below arguing main issue is really tiny amount of water provided. I was really just curious to understand why such an obvious dog of a project was still being completed.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Friedman on Taiwan

The NYTimes hosts another commentary by Tom Friedman, which just makes me want to wail and gnash my teeth.... He scribes:

EVERY so often someone asks me: “What’s your favorite country, other than your own?”

I’ve always had the same answer: Taiwan. “Taiwan? Why Taiwan?” people ask.

Very simple: Because Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has to import sand and gravel from China for construction — yet it has the fourth-largest financial reserves in the world. Because rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence — men and women. I always tell my friends in Taiwan: “You’re the luckiest people in the world. How did you get so lucky? You have no oil, no iron ore, no forests, no diamonds, no gold, just a few small deposits of coal and natural gas — and because of that you developed the habits and culture of honing your people’s skills, which turns out to be the most valuable and only truly renewable resource in the world today. How did you get so lucky?”

First, kudos to Tom for even mentioning our forgotten fair isle. But for a guy whose second favorite place is Taiwan, he sure doesn't know anything about it.

Taiwan is not a barren rock, but a large and complex island whose riches have been obvious to eager settlers, colonialists, and investors for nigh-on four centuries. The island is blessed with a superabundance of water, a key component of almost every industrial and agricultural process, fertile agricultural land, rich forest resources, and a long tradition of complex economic activity and participation in world markets.

His point about gravel is a laughable misunderstanding. As I noted six years ago in a long post on gravel, the import of gravel into Taiwan is the result of exporting it to Japan in the 1970s and more importantly, of the insatiable demand from our construction-industrial state sociopathology, whose goal appears to be to carpet the entire island in concrete. After all, the entire west coast is a plain consisting largely of a thin layer of soils overlaying vast beds of gravel wash brought down from the central mountain range or deposited by the ocean over the last few million years by the ocean. Imported gravel is not a sign of a lack of resources but rather a symptom of distress, of a political economy gone off the rails.

How did Taiwan get so lucky? A healthy bit of luck was being incorporated into the US security arrangements in East Asia. The US sought to make an example of Taiwan and showered it with all sorts of aid. In the 1950s it was US experts who pushed for reductions in the military budget and incorporation of a robust private sector into the KMT vision of a Party-State dominated economy. In the 1960s the Vietnam war drove the development of the island's concrete industries. Not until 1989 was Taiwan removed from the list of nations that received export privileges for the US market.

Friedman's major point about human capital is correct (about the only thing in the piece that is), but it would have been nice if it had been properly contextualized with two major points: first, the "education system" is not merely the government-run school system but encompasses a gigantic range of cram schools. It is virtually impossible to find writing on Taiwan (and Asian) education in the mainstream media that sturdily confronts the existence of a parallel but gray educational system (for example, a recent gem on class size from The Economist). Asian school systems produce high test scores in part because the students are trained to take tests, in part because they go to school up to seven days a week as high school exams approach, and in part because, I have long suspected but can't prove, the international test score assessments are gamed to produce the expected high scores.

I'm really tired of not seeing the cram school world mentioned in articles on East Asian educational attainment. Yes, Taiwan has improved its human capital; education and literacy were widespread in the pre-KMT period (see Tsurumi's Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, 1895-1945), and of course, this improvement was contingent on the US giving Taiwan a special quota for college students from Taiwan that enabled Taiwanese entrepreneurs both to educate promising family members and connect to the all-important US market. Friedman's piece would have been far more useful and interesting had it started with the point about human capital and economic growth (a commonplace in the scholarly literature) and then moved on to discuss how Taiwan educates its children, to put that human capital growth in its proper perspective. And if he had refrained from a cheap political shot about debt to make the more useful and serious point about America underfunding its educational systems in order to carry on pointless, stupid wars in the Middle East.

ADDED: Jenna also comments extensively on Friedman's ridiculous characterization of Taiwan
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Calendrical Encyclicals

J Michael Cole with another hard hitting Op-Ed in the Taipei Times on the recent calendar "errors" says Only fools wouldn’t see a developing pattern:

NOT ONCE, NOT twice, but on three occasions calendars meant for distribution by government offices across the country included Chinese holidays such as Reunification Day and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) birthday, or substituted the Republic of China (ROC) flag with that of the blood-drenched People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Every time, government officials blamed printing companies or, in an insult to our intelligence, black-and-white samples that had ostensibly prevented proofreaders from seeing clearly, for the mishaps.

First it was a Taoyuan county calendar that acknowledged PRC holidays, then a similar incident in Taitung and now Hualien. As Cole points out, it is difficult to imagine how the printer could have screwed that one up. Or how three different printers could have screwed them up once each.

If you were wondering what China wants out of all this, look no further than the gravel shipping industry, the latest victim of the Ma Administration's China policy. The Taipei Times ran a story on the continuing saga of Where did our market go? The gravel shippers planned to stage a protest because they have been chiseled out of their markets by the KMT's support of China:

Cheng said they were not going to trust the government any more, adding that the agreement on direct sea transportation links did not benefit Taiwan.

“Officials at the transportation ministry and the Mainland Affairs Council [MAC] seem to be working for the Chinese, not for us,” Hsiao said.

Cheng said Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) has been trying to talk him out of pursuing the shippers’ case. Chiang also told him that he could not do anything to help because the MAC had not authorized him to negotiate, Cheng said.

Since Jan. 1, Cheng said 15 of the association’s ships have stopped operating and that they had lost NT$73 million (US$2.3 million) in the last half a month.

Cheng has two ships that have been transporting gravel from China since 2000. He said he cannot afford to sell them because each cost him more than NT$300 million, but now he could only sell them for about NT$30 million.

China has approved 10 of its own ships for the direct sea transportation links, but Cheng said five of them had never shipped sandstone before. The five Taiwanese ships authorized to transport gravel across the Strait before the agreement was signed must apply for new permits from both Taiwan and China, but China had approved only three, he said.

What is worse is that the three ships cannot transport river sand, which is more popular because of its better quality and accounts for more than 75 percent of the local gravel market, Cheng said. Rive sand can only be shipped by their Chinese counterparts, while Taiwanese ships can ship only artificial sand and pebbles, Cheng said.

Although Taiwanese shippers could file applications for China’s single-trip permits or long-term permits, Cheng said, China has yet to approve any application from Taiwanese shippers.

Taiwanese without a permit can no longer enter Chinese ports because the Chinese government has banned Chinese shipping agencies from sponsoring their ships, he said.

In the long-term, China wants to annex Taiwan, but in the short term, it is using the "improved relations" (read relations that serve China) to lever Taiwanese out of cross-strait markets. One key reason China objected so vociferously to Chen Shui-bian was because the DPP administration fought to maintain Taiwanese markets in the China trade. The KMT Administration has other priorities....

The KMT, on the other hand, dreams of retaking China and turning it into a "democracy." President Ma Ying-jeou, speaking to the World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD) Republic of China Chapter (Google that, it's a hoot). Ma noted:

“A military race is the last thing we need with China,”Ma said.

"Where we should really compete against each other is the race for freedom and democracy.

“Considering our strength (in those areas) , I believe we will definitely win,”the president said.

Only through reconciliation can both sides of the Taiwan Strait avert conflicts, and cross-strait confrontation can only be replaced with negotiations, Ma asserted, which is why his administration resumed talks with Beijing immediately after assuming office last May 20.

“If there is no war but peace and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait, I believe both governments will have greater courage to promote free and democratic societies,”Ma said.

True to his word, news came today that Taiwan is cutting the size of its military. The report, which comes originally from the CNA, contains a factual error: it was not Ma that resumed talks, but China. The DPP was always willing to talk with China; it was China that cut them off.

Everyone is saying that the upcoming WHA meeting will be a test of China's Taiwan policy. Will China give Taiwan observer status at the meeting?

The outcome of Taiwan’s bid for observer status at World Health Assembly (WHA) in May will serve as an important indicator of whether the development of cross-Taiwan Strait relations can be normalized, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言), quoting President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), said that if Taiwan continues to be isolated from the meeting, it would be impossible for Taiwan and China to foster normal links.

Two things should be mentioned. First, the framework -- what if China asks Taiwan to enter as a region of China? If that occurs, remember our problem: The Process is the New Status Quo. If Taiwan balks, there will be criticism from people who want Taiwan to Just Enter The Process. The process of engagement thus has a built-in ratchet effect -- each time Taiwan balks at China's embrace it will receive criticism that it is disrupting the process -- that it is, in effect, unilaterally altering the status quo. Not that the KMT government would ever do such a thing.

Hang on to those 2009 PRC holiday calendars. They may come in handy in the not too distant future....

[Taiwan]

Gravelly Voices

Gravel, of critical importance to the local political economy, has appeared again in conjunction with other ugly trends. First, the background: Taiwan Journal summarized the clout China has in the local political economy two Novembers ago:

The [2006] ban on gravel exports has produced economic ripples on both sides of the strait. Immediately after imports stopped, the price of gravel in Taiwan initially skyrocketed from US$13.8 to US$30.8 per cubic meter, and no longer having access to Taiwan's lucrative market means that gravel exporters in China's Fujian Province have been hit hard as well. High prices and the suspension in trade left Taiwan with a shortfall of 25 million cubic meters of sandstone this year. As a consequence, overall economic development has naturally slowed and many large-scale public construction projects have been forced to halt due to the lack of materials.

This reliance on imports of gravel means that China plays a huge if quiet role in the local political economy, which runs on gravel used to fuel the cement that is the lifeblood of the construction-industrial state. Without China, the article notes, it will be difficult to grow the construction-industrial economy -- its importance is signified by the fact that the first two wharves at the new Taipei Port were gravel wharves (completed in 1998).

Given all this, anything that impacts that flow of gravel from China has a profound effect on Taiwan's construction industry and the island's local political economy. The CNA reports via the Taipei Times:

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday that negotiations on gravel shipping operations across the Taiwan Strait could begin at any time if Chinese regulations on Taiwanese shipping operators do not comply with the spirit of the direct sea transportation agreement signed with Beijing last month.

MAC Deputy Minister Chao Chien-min (趙建民) said that the administration would find out whether China’s requirements failed to comply with the spirit of equal participation, and if that were the case, it would be “properly dealt with.”

This declaration came on the heels of a quiet but urgent flap. From the same report:

Chao made the remarks in response to questions about a complaint filed by local gravel shipping operators, who have accused the government of neglecting them during negotiations for direct sea transportations links across the Taiwan Strait.

They criticized the transportation ministry for overlooking their financial plight and asking them to buy new ships. They also complained that China’s requirement that flag-of-convenience ships be less than 33 years old was too strict.

They threatened to use their ships to stage a protest at Taipei Port on Thursday if they did not receive a positive response from the government. Thursday marks the day when Chinese permits issued to five Taiwanese ships are set to expire.

Lee Li-jane (李麗珍), director of the council’s Department of Economic Affairs, said that five Taiwanese ships were allowed to transport gravel across the Taiwan Strait before the agreement was signed and they must apply for new permits from both Taiwan and China before Thursday. However, the department’s understanding was that China had not yet received any application from the firms, Lee said.

As for those who could not obtain a permit before the agreement was signed, Lee said they could continue to ship gravel from China, but they must go through a third country before coming to Taiwan, or they could apply on-line for a single shipment trip. The transportation ministry said it would help them resolve any problems, although the ministry’s position was to encourage them to buy new ships.

Lee said most of those who did not obtain a permit were rejected because their ships were too old. Those operators have asked the Taiwanese government to issue them permits so they would be allowed to ship gravel from China, but Lee said the department’s evaluation was that it would put Taiwan in a less favorable position because China might ask Taiwan to reciprocate for its old ships. Therefore, the proposal was not put on the negotiation table, she said.

The reason that the ships were able to ship gravel before the agreement was signed was because they took advantage of China’s lax implementation of its laws, Lee said.

“Now that the agreement has been signed, that door is closed,” she said.

Regarding the complaint that 10 Chinese ships that Beijing has approved were over the age limit, Lee said the oldest among them was built in 1975 and that ship would not be able to renew its permit next year. Statistics show that Taiwan imports 95 percent of its gravel from China, or 15 million tonnes to 30 million tonnes a year.

The "95%" figure seems a bit off; it probably means 95% of imports. Other reports say China fills about 1/3 of Taiwan's gravel needs. Taiwan News gave the shippers' side of the story:

A sandstone imported surnamed Cheng said that as Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) launched the Da Bang Ship, a flag-of-convenience ship carrying sandstone, at Taichung harbor on Dec. 15, marking the commencement of cross-strait shipping links, Da Bang Ship was denied entry of Huangpu port in southern China on its second voyage even though it has “direct shipping permit” issued by Taichung Harbor Bureau. With several failed attempts for negotiation, the ship could only stop at Hong Kong followed by its return to Taichung.

Da Bang Ship has received a “urgent notice” from China, demanding that the ship owners apply to China for “cross-strait waterway transportation permit” and “cross-strait ship operation license” and can only enter Chinese ports with the above two licenses starting next year, said the Taiwan Sandstone Import Association.

The Association said that they had asked many departments for help, including the Office of the President, the Mainland Affairs Council, and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), but in vain. The Association decides to hold a press conference today and gather twenty ships at the Taipei harbor this week for protest.

Cheng said that Taiwan imported over 30 million tons of sandstone from China every year, 75% by Taiwanese owners and 25% by Chinese owners. However, after the signing of cross-strait agreements, China had unilaterally announced that only ten Chinese cargo ships could do business and twenty ships on Taiwan’s side are banned from entry into China.

It's a similar pattern: we have direct flights, but China will only send its tourists on Chinese aircraft. Other potential participants in cross-strait relations are excluded, and China uses the new agreements to take over trade once controlled by Taiwan. You can see why China wanted the DPP out: the DPP would never have given away the island like this. Another aspect of the pattern is, of course, KMT government officials defending such Chinese behavior while condemning their own people.

Taiwan News report in its entirety (wait until blog loads COMPLETELY!) Taiwan News report:
Twenty flag-of-convenience ships owned by a Taiwan company are banned to enter Chinese ports beginning next January 1, according to Chinese-language newspaper Liberty Times.

A sandstone imported surnamed Cheng said that as Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) launched the Da Bang Ship, a flag-of-convenience ship carrying sandstone, at Taichung harbor on Dec. 15, marking the commencement of cross-strait shipping links, Da Bang Ship was denied entry of Huangpu port in southern China on its second voyage even though it has “direct shipping permit” issued by Taichung Harbor Bureau. With several failed attempts for negotiation, the ship could only stop at Hong Kong followed by its return to Taichung.

Da Bang Ship has received a “urgent notice” from China, demanding that the ship owners apply to China for “cross-strait waterway transportation permit” and “cross-strait ship operation license” and can only enter Chinese ports with the above two licenses starting next year, said the Taiwan Sandstone Import Association.

The Association said that they had asked many departments for help, including the Office of the President, the Mainland Affairs Council, and the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), but in vain. The Association decides to hold a press conference today and gather twenty ships at the Taipei harbor this week for protest.

Cheng said that Taiwan imported over 30 million tons of sandstone from China every year, 75% by Taiwanese owners and 25% by Chinese owners. However, after the signing of cross-strait agreements, China had unilaterally announced that only ten Chinese cargo ships could do business and twenty ships on Taiwan’s side are banned from entry into China.

Cheng protested that China asked Taiwan owners to apply for two licenses but rejected the issuance during their application.

Cheng also slammed the government and related cross-strait departments for not helping the nationals to resolve the problem.

MAC Chairwoman Lai Hsing-yuan (賴幸媛) did not make any comment on the news today, merely saying that it was a biased report.

Taichung Mayor Jason Hu said today that as far as he knows, only a few ships obtained licenses required by China, posing a trouble for Taiwanese owners. The matter should be discussed by the SEF with China on the possibility to relax the restriction.

According to the SEF, President Chiang Pin-kun (江丙坤) would begin talks with China on the matter as soon as documents were submitted by the Mainland Affairs Council.


REFS: Empire of Bacon, Gravel and Taiwan.

[Taiwan]

Old Line "Corrupt" New Line: "Stupid"

Q: How is the Taiwan Stock Market like a Bathyscaphe? A: Because they both plumb the depths while threatening to implode! Yes, that one's mine, and I think I should get extra points for using the word bathyscaphe in a joke. But even as our stock market wipes out paper value faster than the ghost money burner at Lungshan Temple in Taipei, the Blue media is up to the task of assigning blame -- to Ma Ying-jeou.

KNN -- that's K as in Kuomintang, not K as in Klingon -- offers up another Blue media roasting of Ma Ying-jeou, who is being pretty regularly roasted in the media of whatever color. To wit:

Indeed, President Ma should be grateful. A crisis of governance has exploded during his first 100 days. He still has three years and over 200 days to make corrections.....

In retrospect, President Ma's plight may be the direct result of his career path. It has simply been too smooth, too easy. Apart from being indicted over the Top Executives’ Discretionary Fund Case, he has never experienced a major setback in his entire political career. He never experienced the pain Chiang Ching-kuo suffered during his exile in the Soviet Union. He never experienced the nail-biting factional clashes of the KMT Lee Teng-hui must have gone through. He never experienced the repeated election setbacks as Chen Shui-bian. He was quite young when he gained favor with Chiang Ching-kuo. He had little administrative experience at the ministerial level. Despite his lack of party experience, he was made KMT Deputy Secretary-General. During the intense struggles between the mainstream and non-mainstream factions, he deftly kept his head down. He was subsequently drafted by popular acclaim to run for Taipei Mayor. Ma Ying-jeou has never developed any irreconcilable enmities within the Blue Camp. Nor can he find any opponents who are his match in the Green Camp. Only when this darling of the masses ascended to the highest office were his character defects and personal limitations exposed, one after another.

No one will deny that President Ma is a man of moderate character, who seldom speaks ill of others, and who is uncorrupt. That much we know. He is not a President likely to embezzle money and transfer it overseas. He is not a President likely to engage in empty boasting on pirate radio stations after he commits a crime. He does not have a First Lady who lusts after power and money. That said, a good President must be more than just a good person. We cannot simply turn the affairs of the nation over to a person who is elected as the model of those who have merits or have done good things.

.....................

Who among those in high office does not want to be loved by the people? Who does not want to be proud of his political achievements? Who does not want a place in history? But as the famed German sociologist Max Weber put it, politics is a calling. Ruling a nation is hardly as easy as Ma Ying-jeou imagines. A few more photo ops of you jogging and selling moon cakes are hardly going to convince people you are doing your duty as President. The people have limited patience for a President who constantly makes apologies. President Ma must not waste any more time with public relations, in an attempt to repair his image. He and his team must engage in a little more self-introspection. What President Ma needs is a little less show, and a little more go.

Fortunately this is his first year. He can still save the day. Eventually, however, he will run out of chances. We can't believe that years from now President Ma will want people to remember him and reluctantly sigh, saying, "He was a good man, but a stupid President."

There's lots to talk about here, but I'd like to point out that the China Times conception of the Presidency is that it "rules the nation." Not leads it. Big diff.

More interesting is contemplating exactly what the Blue media hopes to accomplish by hacking on Ma in this way? To save the party from its President? It's not our fault! We didn't realize he was so stoopid! It's not our policy, it's our president!" The new conventional wisdom promulgated by the chattering classes is that Ma is stupid. Unprepared. Naive.

Meanwhile Typhoon Sinlaku highlighted the real problem when it laid waste to a major bridge between Taichung and Miaoli county, which collapsed even as the police were trying to close it. Three cars made it onto the bridge before the police could act. One poor driver was on his cellphone at the moment the car was deposited to its doom below. Six people are missing.

The collapsed bridge does not point the finger at Ma, but at the organization he is serving as a very convenient scapegoat for: the legislature. The bridge was apparently due for maintenance but then funds were slow coming out of the KMT-controlled legislature during the Chen years. Then there was the problem of illegal gravel digging, which wrecks riverbeds and threatens the structures that span them. And of course, Taiwan's local governments are broke.

From my perspective, the problem isn't Ma, but the legislature, which appears to lack leadership in areas vital to the nation's progress. And beyond that, there's the construction-industrial state that is constantly investing in spraying concrete all over the landscape in new projects, but not putting money into the less sexy act of maintaining and improving what is already in existence. The media spotlight needs to leave Ma, who, after all, is at the mercy of economic forces beyond anyone's control, and to illuminate other problems in Taiwan's governance....

[Taiwan]

Polls and Budgets and Gravel

The Central News Agency has a nice bit of reporting out on the Hsieh-Ma debate. Among the local news organizations its reporting is generally the most balanced. The first half of the article offers a report on the polls:

Ratings released by two major local dailies after Sunday's debate, however, offered different public views on Ma's performance, with one showing he gained a few percentage points while another showed his support had slipped by several points.

The United Daily News poll showed that support for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ticket of Hsieh and vice presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang rose by 3 percentage points to 21 percent, while support for the Kuomintang (KMT) ticket of Ma and Vincent Siew -- slipped by 7 percentage points to 49 percent, compared to a poll conducted 10 days ago.

Meanwhile, a poll carried out by the China Times showed that support for both DPP and KMT tickets rose slightly, to 23 percent and 49 percent, respectively, with a margin of error of 2.7 percent. Support for Hsieh went up by one percentage point while that for Ma rose by two percentage points, according to the poll.

More interesting than the particular numbers is the vast, hilarious gap between Ma and Hsieh. Who can take these polls seriously? In the Chinese Times poll Ma leads Hsieh by 26%, while in the United Daily News Ma leads Hsieh by 28%. Back here in reality, Hsieh lost the Taipei mayor election by 15%. In other words, according to these two pro-KMT papers, Ma is going to beat Hsieh by a gap 50% greater than that generated in the Taipei area, the Bluest area in the nation.

Sure. I believe that.

In 2000 3% separated Chen from Soong; in 2004; it was less than 1%. Whatever the outcome, it is hard to imagine either man winning over 25%.

The CNA also reported on Hsieh's attack on Ma's budget plan.

Hsieh said Ma was "being too rash" and warned Ma would be "bringing down the economy," by aggravating the nation's deficit, worsening inflation and increasing the tax burden for the public.

Hsieh on Monday also attacked Ma's calls for investing around NT$4 trillion into the economy, among which the government will spend NT$2.65 trillion and will attract NT$1.3 trillion from the private sector. The money would be spent on 12 major infrastructure projects, according to Ma.

Hsieh repeated what he said on Sunday that this will mean that each household will have to write Ma a NT$400,000 bounced check.

He pointed out that Taiwan's annual budget is only between NT$1.5 trillion and NT$1.6 trillion. Even if Ma can serve two terms with a budget of NT$12 trillion, if the government spends about NT$2.6 trillion on the project, it will squeeze budgets for national defense, social welfare and education, Hsieh said.

For his part, Ma said that he had explained his policy in Sunday's debates, and will leave the details for related government agencies. He has on several occasions criticized Hsieh's DPP party for causing Taiwan's economy to suffer during its eight-year rule.

Ma's economic plan is quite simple. As I've often noted, locals outside the tech-driven export economy experience a very different Taiwanese economy, one with stagnant incomes and rising living costs, making KMT attacks on the DPP credible. I've also observed that the KMT spent tons of cash on the Jan 12 legislative election, which it will now have to recoup by tapping flows of government spending. Ma is simply signaling his supporters that zillions of dollars will indeed flow out of the government into local coffers all over Taiwan, irrespective of debt (for a look at what will happen in a Ma economy, see Japan's massive debts under the LDP). Hsieh has a strong issue here if he can keep hammering Ma on debt....

The KMT has forged tight cooperation with Beijing.... and one way China will play a big role in this local political economy through the provision of gravel for it. Taiwan is already dependent on China for gravel -- in 2006 the cut-off of imports from China, which supplied 20% of demand -- drove gravel prices up all over the island, and sent Taiwanese scurrying to Vietnam and the Philippines to develop alternate sources. Taiwan Journal summarized the clout China has in the local political economy last November:

The ban on gravel exports has produced economic ripples on both sides of the strait. Immediately after imports stopped, the price of gravel in Taiwan initially skyrocketed from US$13.8 to US$30.8 per cubic meter, and no longer having access to Taiwan's lucrative market means that gravel exporters in China's Fujian Province have been hit hard as well. High prices and the suspension in trade left Taiwan with a shortfall of 25 million cubic meters of sandstone this year. As a consequence, overall economic development has naturally slowed and many large-scale public construction projects have been forced to halt due to the lack of materials.

Without China, the article notes, it will be difficult to grow the construction-industrial economy... and China has already said it will consider re-opening the trade in gravel. Given KMT-PRC cooperation, and the necessity of gravel to enable the KMT to revive the local economy that it has starved, we'll see this trade resume when Ma comes in. Thus, the new Taipei Port is specifically aimed at the Construction-Industrial State -- its first two wharves were gravel wharves (completed in 1998), original meant to catch ships that serviced the Keelung-Hualien gravel route, since Keelung had become too small and inconvenient. Analysts expect a big construction boom in the north if Taiwan permits direct links. Note how well-placed the Port of Taipei is to service ships from China feeding gravel and other products into the concrete maw of Taipei's insatiable construction market...

[Taiwan] [media]

Krosa Spurs Calls for Suhua Freeway Project Resumption

Typhoon Krosa, which caused the usual allotment of landslides, roadbed destruction, and flooding on the east coast, has apparently led to calls to build the Suhua Freeway:

The repeated disruptions in transport service and calls from residents on the east coast prompted the government to propose a new transport artery -- the 89-km Suhua freeway -- with a budget of NT$93 billion in eight years.

But the project has run into stiff opposition from environmental protection organizations while the residents in eastern Hualien and Yilan counties have escalated their call for building the new freeway.

Following the latest of typhoons last weekend and throughout September, Transportation and Communications Minister Tsai Duei and officials at The National Expressway Engineering Bureau called for an earlier start for the construction work.

They pointed out the repair work for the old highway in recent weeks already cost more than NT$100 million. Much more money will be needed after the latest attack from Typhoon Krosa over the weekend.

The government has been forced to allocate NT$1.5 billion for continuing repair work on the old road.

The officials said a new freeway will not only help promote economic development in eastern Taiwan but, more importantly, will provide greater safety for motorists and passengers.

They said a proposal from Legislator Lu Po-ji of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party to build the freeway in two phases is worth consideration.

The Suhua Freeway is a proposal to shove a highway over the ridges between Suao and Hualien, which boast some of the highest sea cliffs in the world. The current highway snakes along the ridges overlooking the ocean, and while spectacular, is not conducive to large traffic flows, and blockages are frequent in inclement weather. The project was initiated prior to the DPP's assumption of the Presidency in 2000, but since then has bogged down due to environmental and political issues (protests earlier this year). The project was supported by Chen Shui-bian in both 2000 and 2004.

The project was reviewed, stopped in 2003 with a proposed budget of NT$90 billion (the high cost has also been an issue), and reviewed again in January of this year. The China Post noted:

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday refused again to give green light to the construction of a controversial freeway between Suao Harbor and Hualien City on the eastern coast of Taiwan.

The 11 scholars and members on an environmental evaluation panel held reservations on more than 30 problems concerning possible ecological impact and contradiction with land regulations when reviewing the massive construction project planned by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC).

EPA officials said the MOTC also failed to clear the doubts on the impact on the land faults along the 114-kilometer freeway as tunnels and bridges will account for about 90 percent of the whole system.

While one purpose is indeed to bring more tourists down to the East Coast, something the local tourism industry would love to see, the real driver is gravel, the substance that fuels the local political economy. In Taiwan, where public construction is the lubricant of the relationships between the central government and local political factions, access to gravel is of prime political importance, and the swift rivers of the East Coast offer treasures of gravel whose exploitation has not yet been completed. However, trucking that gravel over to the west coast where it can be used to line more river bottoms with concrete or top more rice fields with cookie-cutter housing requires humping the current Suhua Highway, a two-lane, winding, up and down road that is hard on trucks. Hence the desire among local politicians, who are overwhelmingly KMT, for a smooth, straight, four-lane truck route. Last year Chen Li-ling, a local academic, asked why the people of Hualien weren't pissed off:

Recently, the Vice Chairman of Hualian County’s Legislative Assembly slandered and harassed of some members of the Hualian Dreamers’ Union (洄瀾夢想聯盟), professors of Donghua University and National Hualian Teachers College. Their problem? They dared to publicly oppose the Suhua Highway! Once again we see how politics in Hualian try to snuff out any meaningful discussion of issues. It worked in the past when people spoke out against the cement factories in Hualian, it worked when people spoke out against the eradication of Hualian’s ocean shoreline with the cement blocks that are ostensibly used to prevent erosion but which are just one more subsidy for local politicians in cahoots with the cement and construction companies. With wave after wave of defeat we watch our mountains and waters (of which the people of Hualien are said to be so proud) disappear.

Some countries that promote tourism place a premium on areas along the ocean coast. Here in Hualian tourists can be sure to see the 2 or 3 dump trucks passing by every minute of the day laden with gravel and soil gouged out of the Central Mountains, the riverbeds and wherever else they can – whether with or without government license. Foreigners that have pedaled the bicycle trail that leads to at Seven Star Beach (七星潭) pass by one of our monuments to stupidity, Taiwan Cement factory, and then have to hold their noses as they pass by a section of steep slope inhaling the stench of trash from the landfill. To think this could have been a surfer’s paradise. Once not-so-long-ago pristine beaches are now covered with concrete blocks and several times a week we are awakened late at night by the stench of the emissions from the Chung Hua paper pulp factory.

It seems likely, with so much pressure from politicians in both parties, that at some point this freeway will be built. And then the East Coast will be changed forever....

UPDATE: An engineer on the east coast publishes a ringing defense of the proposed freeway.

[Taiwan] [organized crime] [gravel]

Will Work for Gravel

Foreigners outside of Taiwan admire our high tech industries and rambunctious democracy, never realizing that what really makes Taiwan's political economy go is something else entirely. The China Post today reminds us of two intertwined local problems in Taiwan: a quiet but urgent fiscal crisis among the island's local governments, and the problems the island is having in obtaining its most important raw material: gravel.

The government will allow more dredging of Taiwan's rivers to alleviate the shortage in sand and gravel supplies on the domestic market, a senior official said yesterday.

Wu Yueh-hsi, deputy director general of the Water Resources Agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, told reporters that his agency will allow an extra 4 million cubic meters of sand and gravel to be gathered through river dredging this year, raising the ceiling to 20 million cubic meters.

According to Wu, the county governments of Yilan, Hualien, Miaoli, Taichung and Nantou have all expressed interest in helping the Water Resources Agency to implement the expanded river dredging plan and at the same time creating extra revenues for their counties.

Taiwan's construction industry needs about 70 million cubic meters of sand and gravel a year.

Taiwan began to import sand and gravel from China six years ago, with nearly one third of its market needs filled by imports from China.

China's Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of Customs announced in April 2006 that it would ban the export of natural sand starting May 1, 2006, but postponed the date to March 1 this year after Chinese suppliers asked for more time to cushion the impact on their businesses.

As I noted in a longer piece on gravel last year, Taiwan has been suffering from gravel shortages that have had a severe effect on the construction industry and on local economies. Expect to see more such decisions ahead of the legislative elections in December 2007.

[Taiwan] [gravel]

Gravel and the Beautiful Island

Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday voiced his support for Taichung County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng's (黃仲生) proposal to dredge the Tachia and Ta-an Rivers, and then sell the accumulated silt and gravel to interested buyers.

Huang suggested the idea to the premier when Su visited Miaoli and Taichung Counties yesterday. Huang said the suggestion could help the county government with its financial problems -- he said that the county was currently "dead broke." -- Taipei Times

Outsiders see a different Taiwan. That Taiwan is an innovation powerhouse, with ADSL in a quarter of all homes, glittering metros swiftly ferrying passengers from one station to the next, world-class manufacturing facilities, and links to design, production, and shipping firms all over the world.

The other Taiwan is something else entirely, It runs, not on electronics, software, and OEM production, but on a system in which flows of money out of the central government treasury into local government coffers transmogrify into flows of cement into local government landscapes. And to keep that system going, Taiwan needs gravel.

At first glance, it seems almost unbelievable that a nation whose west coast is a plain consisting largely of a thin layer of soils overlaying vast beds of gravel wash brought down from the central mountain range or deposited by the ocean over the last few million years would ever suffer from a gravel shortage, but Taiwan does. Until May of 2006, Taiwan's insatiable appetite for gravel was satisfied with imports from China, which accounted for 97% of Taiwan's gravel imports, and 20% of its overall gravel consumption. Imports from China began in 2001 with a mere 1.8 million tons. By 2003 that had risen to more than 63 million tons. Taiwan also takes about 15% of US gravel exports, second only to Canada. Other important sources of gravel for the island are the Philippines and in the future, Vietnam, where a few Taiwanese investors have already commenced gravel mining operations.

Taiwan actually exported gravel to Japan in the 1970s, when many riverbeds in the latter country had become completely scoured of usable gravel, but by the 1990s the island had run out of gravel. The construction industry slowed, and many small firms either went bankrupt or engaged in cutthroat price competition, a situation intensified by the large numbers of illegal gravel mining companies that compete in the industry. In 2000 the government announced plans to permit extraction of gravel from land, but the expectation was that gravel mining in Taiwan would cause serious ecological problems. The sourcing of gravel from China was likely a response to anticipated problems with gravel mining in Taiwan. A further problem with west coast gravel mining is that since the early 1990s the government has been trying to move mining operations over to the east coast.

The May announcement by China led to hoarding and steep price increases locally. Eleven gravel firms were fined for stockpiling gravel to engage in price gouging, while the government claimed that there was a two-month supply of sand and gravel on hand, and that prices should not rise until the end of the year. The Water Resources Agency (WRA) announced:

[spokesman] Chen said that Taiwan uses 60 million cubic meters of gravel for construction each year, with an average of 5 million cubic meters used each month. He added that there will be a 9 million cubic meter gravel shortage once China suspends gravel exports to Taiwan May 1, which has prompted the WRA to work out a plan to allow additional dredging from the Lanyang, Dajia, Jhuoshuei and Gaoping rivers, as well as several others, allowing an additional 4 million cubic meters of gravel to be collected from these rivers. Chen said that according to tallies compiled by the Bureau of Mines under the MOEA, there are approximately 8 million cubic meters of gravel in storage and the government must prevent construction companies from hoarding gravel.

Various forms of price manipulation, including cartelization, quotas, delivery slow-downs, and price-fixing, are a common feature of the industry. In 2003, for example, the Nantou County Gravel Suppliers Association, responsible for most of the gravel that goes into central Taiwan, attempted to erect a system for pricing gravel deliveries using a base price, prorated by distance. This looked a lot like a cartel to the local Fair Trade Commission, and the system was shut down.

The problems with the gravel supply in Taiwan, coupled with the cut-off of imports from China, has led to exploration of other neighboring countries. In August of 2006 Taiwan and the Philippines began exploring the gravel trade:

The official from the Board of Investments said the Taiwan delegation would look at sustainable sources of riverbed-grade gravel and sand, especially in two provinces in Central Luzon which have expressed readiness to meet Taiwan’s aggregate requirements, estimated at 25 million metric tons a year.

At the prevailing price of $10 per metric ton, the potential earnings from the export of gravel and sand to Taiwan was about $250 million annually, said the BoI official, who declined to be named pending negotiations between the Taiwanese traders and local government units.
The BoI official said Taiwan wanted assurance of a steady and environmentally-sustainable supply of gravel and sand for the next 10 years. Taiwanese businessmen will come to the Philippines to ascertain the representation of one province in Central Luzon that it can fully meet Taiwan’s requirements.

“The Taiwanese want assurance of supply, and that the gravel and sand are sourced from riverbeds, not from mountains and coastal areas that are potentially disastrous to the environment,” the official said.

This state of affairs is not without its opponents in the Philippines:

“On the surface, the prospect of exporting ‘very valuable’ resources like gravel and sand would bring about untold economic gains to the province in particular and the country as a whole.

“However, a closer look on the annual cost of the aggregates would reveal the enormous volume of gravel and sand that would be exported annually to Taiwan. $200 million worth of aggregates would translate to at least 400 million tons of gravel and sand each year. This volume is so huge that we cannot help but wonder where it will be sourced.

Economic gains?
“In the province of La Union, it has the Naguilian-Bauang River as the source. But will it be able to satisfy its quota share of the aggregates over the years? Suppose the supply of sand and gravel in the Naguilian-Bauang River is totally depleted, will the situation not put pressure on private contractors/businessmen to get their supply of aggregates from other sources [e.g., hills and mountains]?

“When the object of quarry operations shift to the hills and mountains, then we can expect tremendous environmental repercussions like removal of forest cover, soil erosion and flooding not only in the towns of Naguilian and Bauang but also in nearby localities, the city of San Fernando included. These potential eventualities may bring about huge losses in terms of life, property and livelihood.

“The question now is: Will the expected economic gains far outweigh the potential damage to the environment that the supply of aggregates to Taiwan would bring?”

Standard Today reader and engineer Armand Gonzalez last week echoed the same sentiment. Says Gonzalez: “To give you an idea of the magnitude of such a requirement, it would take 24,338 truckloads a day to move such quantities. If a truck could do eight trips a day, we would be talking of needing something like 3,043 trucks daily. Imagine these many trucks buzzing in and out of the area. What will happen to our countryside?

“Couldn’t all that effort be better put to developing the area for tourism, instead? While the gravel and sand business may generate 10,000 new jobs, how many new jobs would be developed if, instead, 500 tourists arrive daily?”

Nevertheless, the Taiwanese are promising plenty of carrots for the province that gets the contract, including the upgrading of private port facilities. In the future the Philippines will likely become a key source of gravel for Taiwan.

In the following month, a main bridge crossing the river suddenly collapsed, resulting in several casualties. The accident was due to the loss of gravel in the riverbed after years of illegal quarrying. -- Taipei Times

Taiwan's demand for gravel has done grave harm to its riverbeds and riverine ecologies, in turn damaging the structures that humans place in and along the island's rivers. Not only does the illegal quarrying of gravel leave vast pits in the riverbed, but it is commonplace for firms to illegally dispose of their waste by dumping it in the pits left behind by illegal quarrying.

An additional problem is that the proliferation of dams in the 50s and 60s limited the amount of gravel that could be removed from riverbeds as no new sedimentation was taking place, since the dams retained sediment behind them. Intensive quarrying from riverbeds has lowered some river bottoms as much as 5 meters. The results? Threatened bridges all over the island.

On August 27, 2000, the bridge across the Kaoping River between Kaohsiung and Pingtung collapsed. A passer-by had actually warned the local authorities that the bridge was tilted two hours prior to the actual collapse, but no one did anything. The Taipei Times noted:

After a study conducted by a nine-member investigation team headed by the president of the Taiwan Construction Research Institute, the cause of the Kaoping Bridge collapse has been attributed to the loss of riverbed gravel due to quarrying, in addition to design inadequacies.

Since the collapse of the bridge on August 27, engineering experts have suggested that illegal gravel quarrying could be the reason for the accident.

Owners of quarrying operations have disputed the accusations, saying that their activities in the river were halted in 1997.

Chern Jenn-chuan, president of the construction research institute, said the group made two inspections of the site before meeting to discuss their findings.

"Our team has concluded that the collapse was primarily attributed to erosion of the riverbed which had been deepened by as much as eight meters. We also found that some of the buttresses were poorly protected," Chern said at a press conference yesterday.

"Excessive gravel quarrying in the vicinity is, of course, related to the cause of the deepened riverbed and exposed pillars," Chern said. He refused, however, to blame the problem on quarrying alone.

Chern said that the protective barriers immediately upstream from each pillar of the bridge were also to blame, as it appeared that they were not properly preventing the riverbed from deepening around the pillars. Chern said that this was especially true of the P22 pillar that failed, allowing sections of the bridge to collapse.

One investigator said that the protective barriers were not the same and that this could have been significant.

"The river flow at the time of the collapse was between 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes per minute. This was fairly normal for the Kaoping River. However, the difference in height among the adjacent barriers had produced many hydraulic jumps which increased the flow of water and pounded against the pillars," according to Tsai Chang-tai, a team member and a professor of hydraulic engineering at National Cheng Kung University.

Chern said that "stability of the riverbed is key to the safety of all bridges," and that the Kaoping Bridge was no exception. Even though quarrying was to have stopped in the river at least three years ago, he said that there was no doubt that earlier quarrying had deepened the riverbed.

Experts had warned that the bridge was a problem nearly five years before, and that other bridges were threatened. But the problem, as always is connivance between local officials and the local organized crime gangs who carry out illegal quarrying operations:

Five legislators from the DPP's New Tide faction (新潮流系) visited Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) early yesterday morning to request that Chen target illegal gravel quarrying as part of the ministry's crackdown on crime and corruption, DPP lawmaker Tsai Ming-shian (蔡明憲) said.

DPP Legislator Lai Chin-lin (賴勁麟) said the operation of illegal gravel quarrying typifies the illegitimate connection between organized crime groups and local government officials.

Wong recounted rumors about how elected officials in her constituency of Chunghua County compete for illegal gravel quarrying through violent means. Unless the government endeavors to eradicate these illegal practices, similar tragic bridge collapses will be repeated, Lai warned.

The gravel industry, and illegal quarrying, remain a serious problem for the island:

What remains noteworthy is that not only do none of the figures for depletion and degradation provided above consist of any losses in social costs, but Taiwan's combined rating of 2.65 percent against NDP (1998) is higher than 1.15% of neighboring Japan and 2.63% of South Korea with similar backgrounds using the same SEEA system. This implies that the levels of waste and water pollution, illegal quarring, and groundwater pumping remain excessive, setting off a warning that there is plenty of room for improvement despite the long way Taiwan has come in the area of environmental protection.

UPDATE: Jason reminds me of how Non-Partisan Solidarity Union legislator Yen Ching-piao rose to prominence through a mix of different businesses, organized crime connections, gravel, and religion. No career better represents Taiwan's local politics than Yen's, who was elected to office while in jail, and whose son's wedding was attended by major Blue leaders.

[Taiwan] [organized crime] [gravel]