Daily Links, November 22, 2007 -UPDATED-

Mention My Name in Atlantis: over on Wiki discussion page for the Ma Ying-jeou entry, I drew the following complaint:

This article is extremely biased, likely due to the influence of prominent anti-KMT (Ma's party) bloggers such as Michael Turton (http://michaelturton.blogspot.com/) and Taiwan Matters (http://taiwanmatters.blogspot.com/).

Hey, I'm a "prominent anti-KMT blogger"! And there I was, imagining the only prominence I had was that bulge around my waistline. I think poor Brian there made my day. Meanwhile, let's hand out some recognition to bloggers who are less biased than my poor "Just because the DPP [says] it makes it right" self....

Culture portal opinions: Josambro has an article on Taiwanese who deliberately speak Taiwanese to you when they could be speaking Mandarin, and David Reid of David on Formosa has an article on film. Check out their event list for art events in Taiwan. They are looking more and more promising, and well worth repeat visits.

Mark Wilbur blogs on the speech of Morris Chang, Taiwan Semiconductor CEO, to the American Chamber of Commerce a few days ago, apparently in response to Feiren's posting of off-the-cuff comments made by Chang at a seminar last year, on the very different goals of Taiwanese firms and the local foreign chambers of commerce.

A-gu blogs more on the kind of language that Chen Shui-bian uses, resonating in the South, meeting upturned noses elsewhere...

J Michael Cole strikes again with a great response to Primor's piece on moral nakedness....

Onion-style, Sean breaks the news that Japan plans to hunt pandas for scientific research.

The Wild East writes on an English teacher who advocates Taiwan independence in his classes. Hmmm....

ROC the Boat has been blogging on the long-dreamed of Taiwan-US FTA.

Red A blogs on the rising "China Price."

Sponge Bear blogs on Ma's trip to Japan in the media there.

From the world of I'm Not Making This Up: Eliana Burki and her Funky Alphorn is giving a concert in Taipei.

bent blogs on Asustek and the future of the electronics industry.

ADDED LINK: Global Voices online has an interesting discussion of the relationship between the US-Costa Rica free trade agreement, China, and Costa Rica's switching from Taiwan to China.

MEDIA: The Lonely Planet's China guide is banned (or maybe not)(thanks, Ian) in China. European parliamentarian calls on Taiwan to adopt emissions trading scheme.

[Taiwan]

Economy ticks along at 5%

Bloomberg reports on good news for the incumbents and bad news for the KMT. The latter party is attempting to run on the economy, and a key part of that is attempting to convince the public that the economy is bad. At the moment, though, things are going pretty well as growth might well be topping 5 percent (in 2006 we did 4.6%). The economy still has many problems, but the export sector and reviving consumer demand appear to have plenty of firepower left...

Taiwan's economy probably grew at the fastest annual pace in almost two years as spending by consumers and companies made up for a drop in exports to the U.S.

Gross domestic product expanded 5.12 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to the median estimate of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. That would outpace the second quarter's 5.07 percent increase. The report is due at 4:30 p.m. in Taipei today.

Manufacturers, led by AU Optronics Corp. and Hewlett- Packard Co., and banks including Standard Chartered Plc are expanding and hiring more workers, boosting household incomes and stoking consumer spending. Faster economic growth provides room for the central bank to raise interest rates next month.

``The cyclical recovery in consumer spending has helped cushion slowing external demand and is the key to our rather upbeat growth assessment for Taiwan this year,'' said Tony Phoo, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Taipei.

Phoo predicts the central bank will raise the island's benchmark rate to 3.375 percent in December from 3.25 percent.

The World Bank last week boosted its forecast for Taiwan's economic growth this year to 4.6 percent from an April estimate of 4.1 percent. Phoo expects a 4.7 percent expansion in 2007.

Taiwan's Taiex index has climbed 8 percent this year, compared with a 14 percent decline in Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average and a 1.5 percent gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index in the U.S.

Economic growth in the three months ended September 30 would mark a 17th consecutive quarter of expansion in Taiwan. A reading matching the median forecast would be the strongest since the 6.58 percent increase in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The looming recession in the US could curb growth here, but exports to China have boomed, tracking the high growth there (of course it's not 10% annually as the government claims, but if China as a whole is growing 6% or so, as analyses of its electricity consumption and other types of analyses show, that means that the coastal areas contain a population of 300 million or so who are growing at 15% a year...)

The article goes on to explain that companies are taking on extra workers to service orders for the coming quarter, keeping its low umemployment rate -- less than 4%, a rate many countries would kill for -- at a low level.

The numbers are favorable, and the DPP needs to get out there and talk about it, to counter the constant flow of propaganda from the Other Side. If the KMT chooses to run on the economy, let's bury them with it.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT]

Prehistoric Intercourse

Taiwan's origins were a topic in the news this week. First there was an article on the jade (nephrite) trade in SE Asia thousands of years ago...

Taiwan was at the centre of a one of the most extensive sea-based trade networks in the prehistoric world, new research shows.

The network, which traded in Taiwanese jade, has been uncovered after mineral analysis determined the source of jade used in two types of earring.

Lead researcher Hsiao-chun Hung, of the Australian National University in Canberra, says since the 1930s archaeologists have noticed two very specific styles of ancient jade earring common across Southeast Asia.

These are the three-pointed, so-called lingling-o earring, and the double-headed animal ear pendant.

Hung says mineral analysis of a number of these has shown most are made from Taiwanese jade.

There's a couple of articles on that site; go visit. Also up were the results of genetic studies on the local Taiwanese population....

Eighty-five percent of Hoklo and Hakka people have Aboriginal ancestry, according to a study on the DNA of non-Aboriginal ethnic Taiwanese conducted by Mackay Memorial Hospital's transfusion medical research director Mari Lin (林媽利).

Those 85 percent have strains from both plains and mountain Aboriginal tribes, as well as from Fujian and Guangdong and minor traces of ancestry from the Philippines, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian islands, the study found.

Only 1.5 percent of Taiwan's population have full Aboriginal ancestry, the study found.

As an example of the nation's ethnic diversity, Lin cited the example of Taiwan independence activist Peng Ming-min (彭明敏), whose patrilineal DNA is part Aboriginal, while his matrilineal DNA has Hakka and North Asian traces.

Lin said Hoklo and Hakka DNA was diverse. She said the tests showed that more than 90 percent of Hoklo and Hakka have at least some Vietnamese ancestry, specifically from China's southeast coast.

Lin said genealogical analyses had shown Vietnamese are genetically more similar to Southeast Asians than northern Han.

Stuff like this always fascinates... UPDATE: Wulingren left this link to review in Taiwan Review of a new book on the Japanese period below. Looks very interesting.



[Taiwan]

Taiwan News on Referendum/Polling Issue

Taiwan News has a fantastic piece on the Referendum vote, in which 18 county governments run by the KMT have determined to defy the law and separate the legislative vote and the referendum vote.....below they point out that the KMT plans to scatter 50,000 "election monitors" around the voting booths to intimidate voters, and learn who is pro-DPP by seeing whether they vote on the referendum issue (most people who bother to vote will vote positively)...

+++++++++++++++

EDITORIAL
Taiwan News

Stop subversion of secret ballot

The announced intention by the opposition Kuomintang and its 18 city and county mayors to implement a so-called "two-stage" balloting system for the January 12 Legislative Yuan and referendum election despite last Friday's decision by the Central Election Commission for a "single-stage" method may present Taiwan's democracy with a grave challenge.

Under the Central Election Law, the CEC is responsible for deciding policy on election processes and other related matters and the city and county election commissions, typically headed by the mayors or commissioners of such districts, are responsible for implementation.

While the actual layout of voting booths is the responsibility of local election officials, any arrangements cannot violate the process and procedures for voting determined by the CEC.

By a nine to four vote, the CEC resolved Friday to adopt a "single-step" voting format for the January 12 Legislative Yuan and the concurrent holding of two referendums.

Under the system, voters will collect four ballots for constituency and party proportional legislative ballots and two referendums, respectively a
DPP-promoted referendum on the repossession of KMT "ill-gotten" party assets and a KMT-sponsored "anti-corruption" initiative, and cast the ballots into four separate boxes.

However, the KMT has demanded a "two-step" format in which citizens will collect and cast referendum ballots separately after completing voting in the Legislative poll.

This system would be similar to that used in the March 20, 2004 polls in which two "peace referendums" initiated by President Chen Shui-bian were held in tandem with the presidential poll and were invalidated as neither received the necessary 50 percent turnout due to a boycott by the KMT and other pan-blue parties.

It should first be noted that single ballots or collection or single-step use of voting machines is the norm in most democracies and that the principle of the secret ballot, which is enshrined in Article 129 of our own Constitution, is consistently given far higher priority than the question of whether arrangements are made for citizens who refuse to vote.

A case in point is Australia, which requires that all citizens vote as a legal obligation of citizenship and imposes significant fines onrecalcitrants.

The government and the Democratic Progressive Party favor the "single-step" pattern to simplify the voting process for efficiency and to expedite easy, rapid and convenient participation by citizens in voting for both the legislative polls and the referendums.

Another clear intent is to reduce the effectiveness of vote buying or any forms of subsequent intimidation or punishment of voters and block "contract" vote buying by making it more difficult to monitor for whom voters cast their ballots.

Such reasons may not be entirely "disinterested" but the motivations to boost participation and protect universal, equal and secret voting are at least within the bounds of democratic ethics.

Big Blue is watching

On the contrary, the 2-stage process supported by the KMT camp would expose voters who wished to vote in referendums to public view, especially if the polling booths for the referendums were physically separated from the balloting for the legislative races or even put in different buildings.

Indeed, many voters who collected the referendum ballots on March 20, 2000 faced such obstacle courses or were even subject to heckling or even intimidation by pro-KMT voters or "monitors."

The KMT's clear short-term objective is to discourage voters from participating in the "party assets" referendum, even though polls show that an overwhelming majority of citizens, including "pan-blue" and nonpartisan voters, favor the return of its "ill-gotten assets" to the country.

But even more grave is the fact that the combination of "two-stage" voting and plans by the KMT to mobilize over 50,000 "election monitors," enough to assign three to each polling booth, will allow local KMT branches to collect detailed information on just whom in each voting precinct favors the DPP or KMT.

The "two-stage" format's structural exposure of the preferences of each and every voter to public view will undoubtedly undermine the fundamental democratic principle of the secrecy of voting and constitute a massive violation of the basic human and civic rights of all our citizens, no matter what their preferences.

Moreover, the fact that the coming presidential poll may well be the last opportunity for the KMT, at least in its current form, to "win back Taiwan" will leave open the possibility that citizens whose preferences have been so exposed will be vulnerable to all kinds of pressures and intimidation to either switch from "green" to "blue" or not vote at all on March 22.

Moreover, the "two-stage" system and its attendant monitoring will spur the use of "contract" vote buying by providing a simple and direct method for local party organizations to monitor "contract compliance" by observing whether the "bought" voters abide by the tacit referendum boycott.

Given the tight nature of the coming presidential race, the use of intimidation or vote-buying against "green" supporters, could well determine the result of the March 22 poll and allow the KMT to "win back" domination over Taiwan through the most undemocratic of methods.

If the KMT wins the upcoming legislative and presidential elections by trampling on the sacred democratic principle of the secrecy of the ballot box, it is quite possible that Taiwan will never again have free elections.

The KMT camp, led by the Harvard University law school doctorate and former justice minister Ma Ying-jeou, have adopted the attitude that the CEC or the DPP-led Executive Yuan cannot do anything to block their concerted effort to realize "one country, two systems" in our national elections.

We believe that there is absolutely no room for ambiguity on the part of the Taiwan government in defending our hard-won democracy with all the legal and political tools at its disposal against this open conspiracy to subvert the sacred democratic and human right of the secret ballot and thereby compromise our hard-won right of domestic and, quite possibly,national self-determination.

In addition, we urge all Taiwan citizens to consider whether a party that shows such disdain for our fundamental constitutional rights and the integrity of Taiwan's legal system merits an opportunity to impose its undemocratic rule on our 23 million people.

+++++++++++++++

A great editorial.....the DPP needs to scream about the election monitors. And scream and scream. And we need to get the international media INVOLVED.

[Taiwan] [KMT] [DPP] [Ma Ying-jeou]

Ta-ken Trail Mix

A breakfast vendor in Tanzi.

Saturday morning found myself and Jim Boyden of Sponge Bear gallivanting off to Ta-ken for another hike on the wonderful trails that criss-cross the area (click on any picture to be taken directly to it).

We decided to go up trail two. I didn't see any warnings directed at pudgy balding bloggers....

Like most of the Ta-ken trailheads, on the weekends the area is crowded with vendors.

Selling breakfast....

...like radish cakes...

...and shoes, in case you forgot to bring some.

Fruit vendors are a must.

The trail starts up steeply, rising from about 350m to over 850m, according to the sign at the top.

After a short level area, we started going up.

These absolutely regular stairs were made of concrete. Humping those sacks up there must have been a delight. Climbing them certainly was.

Jim strikes a pose.

The trail was steps and ladders most of the way, and packed. We often had to wait for people to descend before going up. After so many years here, I find the presence of people reassuring, though crowds are obviously not for everyone.

Don't get close!

Deja vu all over again....so there I was, facing another vertical trail in the company of someone more than a foot taller than me.

There would have been some great views toward the town of Chungshingling, but the haze was pretty bad.

"No, Mike, that's not vertical. That's just an optical illusion caused by the darkness and perspective."

At the top, there's always a vendor.

We took the leisurely and elegant trail to be relaxed and refined.

Coming back we took trail 1, which was sealed with yellow tape and marked dangerous. This was an invitation, right?

In many places the ropes had been pulled out of the ground and stairs were missing.

As we descended, we reached a point where the trail simply disappeared. Intrepid hikers, of which there were many on the way up, had cut a new trail along the area where the slope had slid into the valley below.

As we came around the bend, I took this composite of six pictures trying to capture the massive washout.

This vendor displayed the largest pomelos I have ever seen.

What? You didn't think I'd let you get away without a spider, did you?

Overall, trails 1-5 appear to be far more difficult than 6-8 (can't say anything about 9). But the views are excellent, and the climb is stimulating. They make a great weekend outing.

[Taiwan]

Taiwan to be isolated?

As I wandered around RT Mart yesterday observing the vast quantities of chocolate now available even in totally localized grocery chains, I realized that the American pachydermal physique may well be The Shape of Things to Come. It will be good not to be alone... speaking of expansion (and aloneness), the defection of the speaker of the Marshall Islands parliament to the opposition party made news here because of his comments on doing so....

The sudden defection of the Marshall Islands speaker to the opposition ahead of national elections has fuelled speculation in the central Pacific nation about the future of its ties with Taiwan.

Two days ahead of Monday's vote, Speaker Litokwa Tomeing said the Marshall Islands had "wronged" China by recognising Taiwan in 1998 and it was time to "fix this problem by adopting a one-China policy."

The Marshall Islands, with a population of 60,000, is one of just 24 countries that formally recognise Taiwan, which China considers a rebel province awaiting reunification.

China has threatened to invade Taiwan if it declares formal independence.

Tomeing had been the Marshall's parliamentary speaker for eight years since the United Democratic Party (UDP) of President Kessai Note won control of the government from former president and paramount chief Imata Kabua.

However, when he defected a week ago saying the UDP had not lived up to its promises of reform he reduced Note to just a two-vote majority going into Monday's election.

Tomeing's push for a rollback to diplomatic ties with China follows his trip to Beijing last week and a trip by four leading opposition MPs to China last month.

The opposition group included Senator Tony deBrum, the architect of the Marshalls' shift to Taiwan in 1998 when he was finance minister in a previous government.

DeBrum has declined detailed comment about the reasons for his China visit saying only that it was a "fact finding visit" and he would address the issue after the election.

The Marshall Islands business community strongly supports ties with Taiwan in large part because Taiwan funding goes directly to hiring local construction contractors and their workers, circulating money in the economy.

Chinese money at work? Does this case highlight a trend for increasing isolation of Taiwan by China?

I think not. Look at Jinmen and Matsu, as well as the loot in the National Palace Museum. Although Jinmen and Matsu are indisputably Chinese territory and could easily be grabbed by China, China has never taken them. Similarly, the loot in the National Palace Museum is indisputably Chinese and has nothing to do with Taiwan, but Beijing has never demanded that back. Why?

The answer is simple. If Jinmen and Matsu return, then Taiwan has no connection, no overlap, with China at all. Ditto for the National Palace Museum -- it is a concrete reminder that Taiwan and China are supposedly connected. If Taiwan loses those things, it has no connection China -- it is isolated. This simply makes the "annexation vs independence" debate sharper -- while tends=ing to stress the independence of Taiwan. Of course, those islanders in Jinmen and Matsu are 100% KMT. Keeping them in the Taiwan polity brings benefits for the pro-China parties.

Consider Taiwan's diplomatic isolation. During the period of KMT rule, Taiwan shed recognition right and left. During the DPP period, there has been a steady leak, but nothing like the collapse under the KMT. Taiwan is now recognized (as China!) by only 24 countries, all small and impotent. China could, with a combination of cash and muscle, easily push those small countries away from Taiwan. Why doesn't it? Same reason: because as long as someone recognizes the ROC as Taiwan and as China, Taiwan and China are still connected. Once China cuts away all recognition, Taiwan is once again confronted with the stark annexation vs. independence choice, a choice that inevitably favors independence. Hence, the best solution for China is to restrict recognition of Taiwan to a handful of impotent nations, preserving that virtual state, the ROC, whose twilight existence serves the needs of both the pro-democracy and pro-China sides of the cross-strait conflict.....

[Taiwan] [China]

Referendum Conference Informal Report

Adam Menon of Learn Chinese Online, whom I finally met in person a couple of weeks ago, was kind enough to send me his report on the Referendum conference held earlier this month. Posted with permission (sorry it took me so long!)

++++++++++++

Hi Michael,

I attended the Referendum conference yesterday and really enjoyed every moment of it. It was my first time attending such a conference so most of my comments reflect that.

You can see some pictures I took here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19709&l=ffc7b&id=610751756

When I got to the hotel, there was a heavy police presence as you might expect. We had to go through a metal detector to get into the conference room. There were about 10 agents (recognized by their earpieces) spread out in various seats across the room. When the president came in he was flanked by his security entourage who also spread out around the room. Two sat right behind him. The others stood in a row down the side eyeing everyone around the room.

It was interesting that I later spoke to one of the speakers (a Swedish national) who mentioned that most of this "security" was just for show and that if someone really wanted to do harm to the President, he felt it wouldn't be hard to do so.

I was really impressed by the translators. We all had access to earpieces that translated the English to Chinese on one channel and the Chinese to English on the other channel. The English translator had a very clear voice and used very good English even while translating on the fly. What a great skill to have!

The conference itself featured speakers from East Timor (talking about the importance of the referendum there to help them gain independence), Switzerland (who leads the world in national referenda), various professors from Taiwan and in the Academia Sinica. Later sessions featured Lin Chia Lung, Secretary General for the DPP along with some of his colleagues, M. Dane Waters (US), and Boris Voyer (Canada) both from the Initiative and Referendum Institute (IRI). Voyer later mentioned that he also works for the GIO.

The round table at the end was very interesting as the panel featured some interesting questions. One person asked why the GIO doesn't do anything about the foreign media always adding the "China and Taiwan split in 1949 during a civil war) to their articles. Linda Arrigo asked Lin Chia Lung why the DPP didn't accept Yu Shi Kun's version of the Normal Country resolution.

There was a very nice book prepared of all the speakers and their positions including very nice backgrounds on the referenda used in Taiwan and the KMT's role in trying to prevent them, with lots of nice charts and statistics to back the positions.

[Taiwan]

Week of Speeches

It was a week of speeches. Monday I gave a short talk at Fengchia, in the Urban Planning Department. Thursday, I listened to a talk on core competences in teaching, pictured above. The speaker sat for two hours and spoke in a low voice. Nuff said about that presentation, rife with irony, considering it was on teaching skills. Meanwhile Friday I visited Ming Chuan University in Taoyuan, where I spoke to Professor Graeme Bell's class on blogging. I was deeply touched to see veteran blogger Scott Sommers had kindly made the trip out from Taipei just to see me, and prevent any obnoxious outbursts of ego on my part.

Ming Chuan is located in Guishan, just south of Taoyuan city proper.

The campus of Ming Chuan. I got there just at 6, for Dr. Bell had alerted me to me to the photographic possibilities of building EE, perched on a hill overlooking, well, what seemed like the rest of Taiwan.

I can see for miles and miles and miles...

The mountains look mysterious in the early morning sun.

A pan of just the mountains.

Ming Chuan from above.

Taoyuan.

A pan of the entire view.

Same thing, not quite so tilted.

Just the built up area in front of the mountains.

More Taoyuan.

I couldn't get over how beautiful the mountains looked, so I shot them again.

Panned them again, too.

Looking due....south?

The campus, which is quite new, has a couple of interesting looking buildings.

Fountains are a must.

Amazingly, there is a Mexican restaurant right on campus. I can't say as a I like the substitution of ketchup for picante sauce. The coffee also left much to be desired.

Ming Chuan was quite special. When I got to the gate, the guard asked me why I had come. I explained that I was speaking in Dr. Bell's class. This produced a blank look. The guard didn't know who he was -- and I thought to myself: "how many foreigners can there be?" After all, Chaoyang where I teach has only three.

The answer arrived over the course of the next couple of hours, as I watched in astonishment as a veritable United Nations strolled up to the teaching building. It turns out there's an English-language BA program at Ming Chuan and not only are there plenty of foreign profs, there are also what seemed like a few hundred foreign students. Dr. Bell's class was about 85% foreign students -- you know, talkative, opinionated, active, questioning...fantastic students. I was flabbergasted and challenged by their enthusiasm and hard work. It was also a pleasure to meet Dr. Bell, a modest, friendly, and acutely intelligent fellow who can solve NP hard problems in his sleep and not only knows how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but also what their names are.

I thought the talk went well, and everyone seemed to have fun. Hopefully they all got something out of it, and they'll send me pictures, since I didn't have time to take any.....

[Taiwan]

DPP Foul-ups

The DPP laid several eggs recently...

First there was the heckling affair. There was a spate of articles in the news media, the usual puffery from the pro-China side, on pan-Blue heckling of the DPP leadership. ESWN, always on the anti-democracy side, has compiled a list of reports from the pro-Blue media here.

But of course, what they did is only an issue if you are setting out to make it an issue. The whole point of the pan-Blue coverage of the hecklers was to turn nothing into something, and Chen and Lu played right into their hands by saying nasty things. Chen's remark that there's no cover on the ocean, and people who love China should just swim there, is a good example of Chen appealing to his base by saying things that many Taiwanese think privately but few say out loud. That would be great if Chen were a retired President, or not the campaign Chairman, but..... Chen needs to get into the habit of saying "thank you," to hecklers and moving onto the next topic....it is irrelevant whether they are plants or not (news came out this morning that the heckler known as Charlie is a nutcase who was arrested yesterday for obnoxious behavior). They should simply be ignored.

Last week TVBS reported that China was returning mail stamped with "UN for Taiwan". Since the report came from TBVS, a station famous for making up news, I filed it away, but more credible news sources soon reported the same tale. For the full description, The Foreigner blogged on the UN for Taiwan postal fiasco, as does Taiwan Chronicles with a great post.

Has the UN for Taiwan tactic run its course? Well, it does have the KMT following along with a rival referendum. And it did get plenty of attention for Taiwan, and the negative attention did cause locals to rally round the flag. Ok, it is a popular issue and widely supported among the public at large. But after two months the campaign has grown stale. Time to move on, guys. Next big thing, please. And start talking about the economy. Don't let the KMT own that issue.

The UN for Taiwan campaign also raises another issue that I have complained about often in these pages: the abuse of the law and government by both parties. Everyone has noticed that all government buildings sport the UN for Taiwan banner. Even the train has "UN for Taiwan" in its running advertizements. Since the UN for Taiwan is the private tactic of a particular political party, the DPP is sending a message that the government is simply the spoils of whoever wins, just a combination ATM, advertizing agency, and work program for political hacks. The DPP did that a couple of weeks ago with the Torch Relay event (pics), when I noted:

Observers often note that over in China provincial and local authorities often declare themselves independent of Beijing. The same thing happens here, though not as obviously, because the law is administrative rather than normative, and has no ethical force for those underneath it. Last week the Taipei City government rightly pointed out that the DPP's UN Torch relay was illegal under the law since they hadn't applied for permission (too bad the city didn't take the same attitude toward Shih Ming-te's faux protests). President Chen then challenged the city government to arrest him. It's nice to defy authority....except when you are authority. Then you simply signal that that law is irrelevant if you have power. And that is the wrong signal to be sending in a democracy.

The fact is that good governance tends to make Taiwan independent, while bad governance serves China and the KMT, who both want to see governance fail here. That's why the KMT has been paralyzing the various branches of government, holding up needed legislation, and keeping its criminal servants in key positions in local government. The DPP needs to set a better example...

....as shown by events this weekend. The Central Election Commission (CEC) ruled that the referendum and vote ballots must be handed out together at polling stations. The purpose of this was to prevent the shenanigans that occurred last time around, when the KMT deliberately misled voters about the referendum in areas it controlled, reducing the number of voters who voted for it. Instead, the KMT now has the 18 counties whose governments it controls defying central government authority on the issue...

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday defended his party's plan to ignore the Central Election Committee's (CEC) ruling on "one-step voting" and instead adopt the "two step" voting system in 18 local cities and counties during the legislative election in January.

"The CEC's decision was merely an administrative order. The 18 city and county governments governed by the pan-blue camp would not violate any laws by adopting the two-step system," Ma said yesterday during a visit in Tainan City.

The CEC on Friday said that ballots for the Jan. 12 legislative election and referendums would be handed out together at the entrance to the polling stations, ending weeks of wrangling between the pan-blue and pan-green camps over the manner in which the ballots should be handed out.

The KMT condemned the CEC decision and vowed to stick to the two-step system.

Ma said the 18 local government heads would exercise their authority and handle the elections their own way to ensure order during the vote.

"The local government heads will be well-prepared to ensure that voting on election day goes unhindered," Ma said.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), meanwhile, confirmed yesterday that the Taipei City Government would also follow the KMT's plan and would start educating Taipei residents about the process.

"The two-step system will prevent disputes over election-related issues. Besides, the arrangement of elections lies within the local government's authority," he said in Taipei yesterday.

The 18 pan-blue local governments signed a joint statement pledging to exercise their authority according to the Local Government Act (地方自治法) and handle the Jan. 12 elections their own way.

Thanks to its defiance of the law over the Torch Relay case and numerous other instances, the DPP government does not own the moral high ground on this one.

[Taiwan] [DPP] [KMT]

US-Taiwan Relations Fun

Yesterday the Taipei Times reported that the Formosa Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the premier advocacy group for Taiwan in the US, had slammed Steve Young of the officially unofficial US representative body, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), for his attacks on the UN referendum. Gerrit van Der Wees passed around the text of the letter and press release:

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For Immediate Release
Contact Iris Ho @ 202.547.3686
November 15, 2007
FAPA expresses strong disagreement with AIT Director Steve Young;Says that US statements are undermining Taiwan's democracy.

On Wednesday, November 14th 2007, the Formosan Association for Public Affairs -- a Taiwanese-American grassroots organization based in Washington DC -- sent a letter to the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Mr. Stephen Young -- expressing strong disagreement with statements he made, criticizing the planned Taiwan referendum on entry in the UN under the name "Taiwan".

In a press conference in Taipei on November 9th 2007, Mr. Young reportedly stated that the referendum, planned to coincide with the presidential elections in March 2008, are "neither necessary nor helpful"and that "there is a price to be paid in mutual trust."

The Association said that the referendum is necessary for
three reasons:

1) in order to let the international community know that the Taiwanese people have no intention of letting themselves be subdued by an authoritarian regime in Beijing;
2) to let the world know that the Taiwanese people want their country to be a full and equal member in the international community, and
3) to counter the PRC's relentless pressure to isolate Taiwan and push it into a corner.

In response to Mr. Young's statement that there is a price to be paid in mutual trust, the Association stated that the price to be paid is "...the fact that US opposition to the referendum is severely undermining international trust in the US government's resolve to stand up for human rights and democracy in the world."

The Association added: "Your statements, and those of other US government officials, are also undermining democracy in our homeland. We find this totally unacceptable."

The Association closed its letter, which was signed by its President C.T. Lee MD, by saying that if the United States is serious about spreading democracy around the world, "...it needs to be supportive of and nurture those countries that have attained democracy through the hard work of their citizens. Taiwan is such a country, and if the US wants to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it needs to show resolve in support of our young and fragile democracy."

The full text of the letter is given below.

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Washington DC, November 14th 2007
Mr. Stephen Young
Director, American Institute in Taiwan
7 Lane 134, Hsin Yi Rd. Sec 3
TAIPEI, TAIWAN 106

Dear Mr. Young,

As an organization of American citizens of Taiwanese descent we want to express our strong disagreement with your statements last week about the planned referendum in Taiwan regarding membership in the United Nations. You said that the referendum is "neither necessary nor helpful" and that you think "there is a price to be paid in mutual trust."

Yes, there is a price to be paid, but this price is the fact that US opposition to the referendum is severely undermining international trust in the US government's resolve to stand up for human rights and democracy in the world. Your statements, and those of other US government officials, are also undermining democracy in our homeland. We find this totally unacceptable.

The referendum is necessary in order to let the international community know that the Taiwanese people have no intention of letting themselves be subdued by an authoritarian regime in Beijing. The referendum is necessary to let the world know that the Taiwanese people want their country to be a full and equal member in the international community. The referendum is necessary to counter the PRC's relentless pressure to isolate Taiwan and push it into a corner.

It should be clear to you and your colleagues that Taiwan is not threatening China in any way: the Taiwan government has emphasized time and again that it wants the country to live in peace with all its neighbors, including China. However, as you well know, China is building up its armed forces with the specific aim of attacking Taiwan, and is threatening Taiwan with 980+ missiles.

If the United States is serious about spreading democracy around the world, it needs to be supportive of and nurture those countries that have attained democracy through the hard work of their citizens. Taiwan is such a country, and if the US wants to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it needs to show resolve in support of our young and fragile democracy. Looking forward to hearing from you,

C.T. Lee MD
President, Formosan Association for Public Affairs
cc.
President George W. Bush
Secretary Condoleezza Rice

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As I noted earlier, Young's remarks were comparatively mild -- he didn't accuse Taiwan of undermining the status quo, merely saying that it was unnecessary. The US claim, that Taiwan is damaging mutual trust, omits any mention of the role of the US side in undermining that trust. AIT's position places the onus on Taiwan. That sucks. Until the Bush Administration removes its restrictions on high-level visits to Taiwan, especially military contacts, the US will be in the position of undermining US-Taiwan relations.

Germane to this is the Administration's mad refusal to sell F-16s to Taiwan. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission recently reported to Congress. While it did not make its criticisms clear in the report, privately commission members were unhappy with the Bush Administration's position on the F-16s.

The Bush administration must base its decisions on arms sales on security interests, not politics, leaders of a prestigious commission dealing with US-China relations said on Thursday, in what appeared to be a criticism of the administration's refusal to sell advanced F-16 fighter aircraft to Taiwan.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, in an annual report to Congress, recommended that Congress urge the administration to continue to sell Taipei weapons it needs to counter an attack by the People's Republic of China (PRC).

But the report stopped short of specifically urging the sale of the F-16s.

The chairman and vice chairman of the commission, answering press queries, said the failure to deal with the aircraft issue stemmed from timing and other issues and was not a result of a policy decision.

Vice Chairman Dan Blumenthal, a former senior Pentagon official dealing with China affairs, said: "We did not have enough time to deliberate on it. We discussed Taiwan earlier and the F16 issue was moving faster than we had a chance to catch up with."

However, he indicated that the commission favors the F-16 sale, and was not happy with the administration's decision to block it.

The Bush Administration has also attempted to suppress Taiwan's development of missiles capable of striking China, though it has done little about missiles from China capable of striking Taiwan. Of course, if the Bush Administration were running Taiwan, they'd be developing missiles capable of hitting China too, and probably nukes as well.

The US made this bed and now it is going to have to find a way to lie in it. It pushed Taiwan to democratize -- and the consequences of that move were known to both ROC and US leaders back in the 1960s. Further, as an academic recently pointed out to me in a private email, when Kissinger and Breziniski sold out Taiwan, they made Taiwan independence inevitable. Previous to Kissinger, the US position had openly been that the status of Taiwan was undecided, a position it still quietly holds today (as the recent UN flap demonstrated). But Kissinger essentially sold Taiwan to China, giving the island only two choices: being annexed to the PRC, or becoming independent. It's not entirely a coincidence that the democracy movement here became an independence movement with a big influx of Taiwanese after the US restored links with China under Kissinger.

It is apparent that Bush Administration simply has no idea how to deal with Taiwan and even less of a clue about how to deal with Taiwan as a full-blown formal nation-state in the world community. It's sad that Kissinger sacrificed US strategic flexibility -- yet another RealPolitik fuckup -- but that flexibility is latent in the US position, and needs to be reclaimed.

[Taiwan] [US] [China] [2008 Presidential Election] [F-16] [FAPA]