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Publications Topics Archive Topics Archive 2004 Vol.34- No.11 Taiwan Briefs
Publications Topics Archive Topics Archive 2004 Vol.34- No.11 Taiwan Briefs | Taiwan Briefs |
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CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS
CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS DIFFERENCES OF OPINION ON NATIONAL DAY SPEECH In his first major address on cross-Strait issues since his inauguration address in May, President Chen Shui-bian appealed for progress toward dialogue with Beijing on "the basis of the 1992 meeting in Hong Kong." But those words were construed in some markedly different ways when the president's remarks underwent the inevitable close analysis. Many observers, hearing that phrase, understood the president to have acceded to the "Hong Kong consensus"- a consensus whose meaning, and very existence, are in deep dispute. From China's perspective, the "Hong Kong consensus" means that Taiwan and China agreed in 1992 that there is only "one China" - and that only this agreement allowed talks between the two countries to proceed the following year in Singapore. From the perspective of the Kuomintang - though not, notably, from the perspective of Lee Teng-hui, who was president (and the party's chairman) at the time - a "one China" consensus indeed existed, but the two sides agreed to disagree on exactly what "one China" meant. And from the perspective of former president Lee and many others, the only consensus reached was that the two sides could make progress by limiting their discussion to certain practical issues, such as the repatriation of hijackers. That seemed closest to President Chen's intention - a reminder that "One China" differences need not present a barrier to substantive engagement. The U.S. State Department reacted to President Chen's speech by saying that it carried a "constructive message" and contained "creative ideas." China, on the other hand, saw nothing good in the speech, calling President Chen a "splittist" who was risking "great catastrophe." But perhaps China's attention was less focused on the all the talk about 1992 than on President Chen's declarations, elsewhere in his speech, that "the sovereignty of the Republic of China is vested with the 23 million people of Taiwan- and that "the Republic of China is Taiwan, and Taiwan is the Republic of China." COLIN POWELL'S CHOICE OF WORDS CAUSES ALARM Before Secretary of State Colin Powell began a three-country tour of Asia in late October, the State Department had announced that the secretary would encourage China to engage in dialogue with Taiwan - and that he would point to President Chen's National Day speech as an "opportunity" for progress. But Powell set off alarm bells in Taipei when, in two television interviews, he said that Taiwan "does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation" and that the two sides should move toward "peaceful reunification." For Powell, as head of a government department whose statements on Taiwan typically occupy a very narrow rhetorical terrain - and are normally repeated with mind-numbing uniformity - this was either a major statement of altered policy or a serious slip of the tongue. Representatives of Taiwan's government immediately contacted the State Department expressing their "grave concern," and asked for clarification. Clarification came in due course, with Randall Shriver, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian Affairs, informing Taiwan's top representative to the United States that U.S. policy remained unchanged. Powell readdressed the issue in a later interview, saying that "the term of art really is to have a 'peaceful resolution' of the problem," suggesting that his use of "reunification" could safely be ignored. Still, some observers speculated that Powell had, with his language in Beijing, sent a message to Taiwan - a message saying that parts of President Chen's National Day speech had, after all, not quite been to the liking of the United States. CHINESE SORTIES RAISE MILITARY TENSIONS Reports came out in October that late September had been a time of higher-than-usual tension in the Taiwan Strait, with Chinese aircraft having made a record number of sorties to the center line of the Strait on September 22. Officials from the Ministry of National Defense, deeply concerned by what they saw as provocation from China, reportedly informed the United States that Taiwan would not hesitate to defend itself if circumstances warranted. Both Taiwan and the United States reportedly viewed the sorties as a signal that - Chinese President Hu Jintao's taking control of China's military notwithstanding - the country's military posture would not soften. Also in October, Taiwan's defense ministry led the media on a tour of one of the country's three Patriot-missile bases. The tour was widely seen as having been intended to win support for the government's controversial plan to purchase a major arms package, including more advanced Patriot systems, from the United States. The anti-missile batteries that reporters were shown are in place to defend against China's 600 or so ballistic missiles based in Fujian Province. DOMESTIC NEWS COURT RULES AGAINST PAN-BLUE SUIT You'd need a roomful of lawyers to understand the two lawsuits filed by KMT Chairman Lien Chan and People First Party Chairman James Soong in the aftermath of their loss in the March presidential election. But it was easy enough to comprehend the ramifications of the verdict reached by the Taiwan High Court regarding one of those lawsuits - President Chen would remain in office. The other lawsuit, still knocking about in the court system, seeks to have the election annulled. The one resolved on November 4 sought to overturn the Central Election Commission's certification of President Chen as the winner of the election. This suit alleged that the votes had not been counted properly, that the pan-green camp had unfairly influenced the outcome of the election by scheduling a national-security referendum on the same day as the voting for the president, and that the pan-greens had staged the March 19 assassination attempt - which in turn had improperly influenced public opinion and had allowed Taiwan's national security mechanism to be enacted, thereby preventing many military personnel from voting. Regarding the vote count, the court adjusted the totals slightly to reflect the results of a meticulous recount. But the numbers didn't move enough to change the outcome. Regarding the other allegations, the court found no merit in the pan-blues- claims, and the only thing that Lien and Soon got for their trouble was the right to pay court costs estimated at NT$77 million (US$2.39 million). Lien and Soong vowed to appeal. MEDIA'S COVERAGE OF TYPHOONS CAN BE FATAL Tropical Storm Mindulle in early July. Typhoon Ranamin in mid-August. Aere in late August. Haima in mid-September. Meari in late September. Then, in late October, when everyone thought the season was finally over, Typhoon Nock-ten. Sure, an extra day off from work is nice every now and then, but the flooding and the downed trees and the property damage began to seem a little cruel after a while. And then there was the loss of life. Four died as a result of Nock-ten - including a young TV cameraman, who drowned. This prompted some examination of the risks that TV crews take in order to get spectacular typhoon shots. The risks include exposure to winds that whip debris through the air at dangerous speeds, climbing up unstable slopes, and wading into raging waters that may hide downed power lines or be contaminated with sewage. Why do they do it? Because Taiwan's television market is crowded and competitive, with half a dozen cable news networks operating 24 hours a day in a country that - let's face it - only produces a certain amount of news. The result is that aggressive journalists like Ping Chung-cheng, the cameraman killed while covering Nock-ten, sacrifice their lives in order to inform the rest of us that it's rainy outside and the wind is blowing. TAIWAN'S NUCLEAR EXPERIMENTS It has long been believed, though never quite admitted to by the government, that Taiwan operated a nuclear-weapons research program in the 1960s, discontinued it in the 1970s, and briefly revived it in the 1980s. The story took a new twist in October when officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported to the Associated Press that Taiwan had in the 1980s gone so far as to carry out experiments in plutonium separation. The new information was allegedly discovered as a result of tests the IAEA recently carried out after Taiwan's government had agreed to extra controls being placed on Taiwan's peaceful nuclear program. The AP's report was disputed by Taiwan's Atomic Energy Council, which maintained that Taiwan had carried out nuclear experiments only for peaceful purposes, and that even those experiments had ended in the 1970s. But a prominent U.S. analyst - David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank in Washington - said that there was concern within the U.S. government that Taiwan might even now be involved in planning for a nuclear-weapons program, something the United States would seek to end before it could develop into anything more concrete. All this came against the backdrop of Premier Yu Shyi-kun having said in September, rather provocatively, "If you fire 100 missiles at me, I should be able to fire at least 50 at you. If you launch an attack on ... Kaohsiung, I should be able to launch a counterattack on Shanghai." INTERNATIONAL CHARGES FLY ON LATIN AMERICAN BRIBERY Former Costa Rican president Miguel Angel Rodriguez had held his position as secretary-general of the Organization of American States for only two weeks when, in the middle of October, a bribery scandal relating to his time as president forced him to return home and face charges. Just a domestic news story in a small Latin American country, right? Wrong, because the parties alleged to have bribed Rodriguez included the Republic of China. Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen duly denied the allegations, saying that all of Taiwan's aid to Costa Rica had been earmarked for specific purposes and that he had never even heard of a thing called the Friendship Company - an organization alleged to have made payments in Costa Rica on behalf of Taiwan's government. Meanwhile, the legislature put a temporary freeze on a secret budget for aid to Latin countries. The issue of Latin American bribery subsequently took a turn for the ridiculous when legislators from the People First Party advanced an unsubstantiated charge that President Chen had made a birthday gift of US$1 million to former Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso - and that he had given the gift for reasons that need not be repeated. President Chen filed suit against those who had made the charges, seeking a public apology (and no money). Moscoso also contemplated filing suit, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth the trouble. KOREAN EX-PRESIDENT AND TOKYO GOVERNOR VISIT If you're a high-profile foreign politician and you'd like to visit Taiwan, it helps to either be retired or hold a position below the national level - mayors and governors welcome. One politician from each category visited Taiwan in October. The first was former South Korean president Kim Young-sam, who did what was hoped of him by announcing at a press conference that Taiwan is a sovereign nation. He also discussed China's efforts to prevent him from visiting Taiwan, which included the offer, apparently meant to be irresistible, of a visit to Beijing instead. The other prominent visitor was Shintaro Ishihara, governor of Tokyo. The primary purpose of Ishihara's trip was to promote tourism, and so the governor was treated to a trip from Taipei to Hualien on the Star of Formosa luxury train - a trip that had to be pushed back a day because of Typhoon Nock-ten. But because the typhoon had closed the rail line to passenger traffic, certain opposition legislators lodged public protests against the special treatment accorded to the foreign dignitary. By that time, Ishihara might in any case have been more concerned with the strong earthquakes that had rocked Japan, but President Chen nonetheless thought it appropriate to extend an apology to the governor. BUSINESS FINE LEVIED OVER JORDAN VISIT Government organs such as the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) are not meant to do things in haste, and so it was that in October that the FTC imposed a fine on shoemaker Nike over a May event at which basketball great Michael Jordan had - albeit briefly - appeared. And in fact the brevity of Jordan's appearance was precisely the issue, with those who attended the event having bought pricey Nike goods in exchange for tickets -only to find that, after all the expense and anticipation, they would only see His Airness in the flesh for 90 seconds. For several days afterwards the media had provided extensive coverage of the fans- grievances, who felt they'd been misled and who demanded compensation. Nike indeed apologized, saying that the company's local operation had no experience in dealing with a star of Jordan's magnitude and offering to compensate fans with free merchandise. But in the end the FTC saw little good in apologies, and ordered the company to pay a fine of NT$1 million (US$ 30,196). |
