2009 ELECTIONS: DPP must forge ahead: panel

Courtesy: taiwandc.org, Published on Taipei Times (taipeitimes.com) on 7th December 2009

By: Ko Shu-ling

Saturday’s local elections highlighted the power of the people and consolidated the leadership of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen, but many challenges remain for the DPP, which should adopt a more aggressive approach in future nominations, panelists attending an election forum said in Taipei yesterday.

DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling said the elections showed that Taiwanese still have faith in democracy and that “the ballots can talk.”

“The public knows how to use ballots to make the best possible choices and have their voices heard,” she said at a forum organized by Taiwan Thinktank, to look at Saturday’s three-in-one local elections. “When people have the power to chose, the administration should give them the right to hold referendums.”

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) clinched 12 of the 17 counties and cities in the election, but garnered 47.88 percent of the total votes, a drop of 2 percent from the 2005 elections. Although the DPP secured only four areas, it received 45.32 percent of the total ballots, a 7.2 percent increase.

Kuan said the DPP’s showing was on a par with the party’s very best performance in history in 2001, but cautioned that it was not enough to turn the DPP into a majority party at the local level.

The elections nevertheless consolidated Tsai’s leadership, she said, adding that the path of “Xiao Ing” (Tsai’s nickname) had proved effective and made the likelihood of infighting at the DPP unlikely in the near future.

Kuan said the party should adopt a more aggressive approach to nominating candidates in future elections, adding that it should not fear its KMT rivals.

Soochow University political science professor Lo Chih-cheng said the public must not overestimate the DPP’s performance in the elections by seeing it as a sign that it could win the next legislative and presidential elections.

Lo said the elections pitted a united DPP against a divided KMT, a group fighting a lone campaigner — President Ma Ying-jeou — and a DPP fighting for its survival against a complacent KMT.

“The result is a pivotal point allowing the DPP to bounce back, while the KMT goes from prosperity into decline,” he said. “The DPP is like a patient out of intensive care making a fresh start.”

The KMT’s setback could compel Ma to consider slowing down the pace of his cross-strait policies, Lo said, adding, however, that Beijing would seek ways to prevent him from doing so.

“Beijing will redouble its efforts to help Ma get re-elected in 2012 so it can resolve the Taiwan issue as soon as possible,” Lo said. “Taiwan is racing against time.”

The seven legislative by-­elections will be important for the DPP, Lo said, as they will decide whether the DPP can keep the Ma administration in check.

Tseng Chien-yuan , an assistant professor of public administration at Chung Hua University, said the elections showed there was room for improvement in terms of the electoral system. This includes whether public TV channels should allow candidates to promote their campaign platforms, whether future elections should be funded by the government and whether campaign subsidies should be issued before the elections.

He also proposed a decrease in the number of party representatives in local election committees from 50 percent to 40 percent.


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Spanish Court Indicts Top Chinese Communist Party Officials for Torture, Genocide of Falun Gong

News Courtesy: Falun Dafa Information Centre (faluninfo.net), 18th of November 2009


NEW YORK – In an unprecedented decision, a Spanish judge has indicted five high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials for their role in crimes of torture and genocide committed against Falun Gong practitioners. Among the defendants is former CCP head Jiang Zemin, widely acknowledged as the chief instigator of the campaign to “eradicate” the spiritual practice.

Following a two-year investigation, Spanish National Court Judge Ismael Moreno last week notified attorney Carlos Iglesias of the Human Rights Law Foundation (HRLF) that the court had granted a petition to indict the defendants on charges of torture and genocide. According to the notice, for committing the crime of genocide, the defendants face imprisonment for up to 20 years and may be economically liable to the victims for damages.

The Judge’s notification also stated that the court had granted a petition to send rogatory letters (letter of request) to the five defendants in China with questions relating to each individual's involvement in the persecution of Falun Gong. The decisions followed a series of submissions to the court by Iglesias and other HRLF staff.

The defendants have 4-6 weeks to reply and could subsequently face extradition if they travel to a country that has an extradition treaty with Spain. The decision was taken under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows domestic courts to hear cases of genocide and crimes against humanity regardless of where they occur.

“This historic decision by a Spanish judge means that Chinese Communist Party leaders responsible for brutal crimes are now one step closer to being brought to justice,” said Iglesias. “When one carries out the crime of genocide or torture, it is a crime against the international community as a whole and not only against Chinese citizens. Spain is emerging as a defender of human rights and universal justice.”

Among the accused are former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, widely acknowledged as the primary instigator of the campaign launched in 1999 to “eradicate” Falun Gong. Also facing charges is Luo Gan, who oversaw the 610 Office, a nationwide secret police task force that has led the violent campaign. Chinese lawyers have compared the 6-10 Office to Nazi Germany’s Gestapo in its brutality and extra-legal authority.

The other three accused are Bo Xilai, current Party Secretary for Chongqing and former Minister of Commerce; Jia Qinglin, the fourth-highest member of the Party hierarchy; and Wu Guanzheng, head of an internal Party disciplinary committee. The charges against them are based on their proactive advancement of the persecution against Falun Gong when they served as top officials in Liaoning, Beijing, and Shandong respectively. In a Pulitzer prize-winning article, The Wall Street Journal’s Ian Johnson describes how Wu imposed fines on his subordinates if they did not sufficiently crackdown on Falun Gong, leading officials to torture local residents, in some cases, to death. (news)

Other evidence considered by the judge during his investigation included written testimonies from fifteen Falun Gong practitioners and oral testimonies from seven practitioners, including torture victims and relatives of individuals who had been killed in Chinese custody. The judge also relied on reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. Human Rights Commission to reach his decision, HRLF attorney Iglesias said.


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Pitfalls and possibilities in Obama’s Taiwan line

Article Courtesy: taiwandc.org as well as Taipei Times (published on 9th November, 2009)


By: Nat Bellocchi


As US President Barack Obama prepares for his visit to Japan, South Korea, China and Singapore, it is worthwhile to consider a number of issues that affect US-Taiwan-China relations.

On two of the three sides in this triangle, we have relatively new actors at the political helm: the Obama administration in the US and the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou.

Obama has the advantage of being at the start of a new chapter in relations with both Taiwan and China. He is relatively unburdened by the inhibitions of the past, and has the freedom to do some out-of-the-box thinking.

But there is already a tendency — similar to that seen in the administration of US president George W. Bush — that the US “needs” China to resolve major issues like global warming, pollution and the financial crisis.

While it is essential to engage China on these issues, we need to ensure that this is not done at the expense of a free and democratic Taiwan. During the past weeks, Chinese spokesmen have called on the US and other international partners to respect China’s so-called “core interests.” It would be good if Obama emphasized clearly that it is a core interest of the US that the future of Taiwan be resolved peacefully and with the express consent of the Taiwanese people.

Similarly, in his first year in office, Ma opened a new chapter and started rapprochement with China. While there is broad agreement that a reduction of tension in the Taiwan Strait is desirable, Ma has been criticized for moving too far, too fast and for allowing Taiwan’s drift into China’s sphere of influence to be accompanied by erosion of justice and a decline in press freedom.

The US’ Taiwan policy has traditionally swung back and forth between realism and idealism. The policies of president Richard Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, president Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, president Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s and Bush in the period 2001-2004 are all testimony to the fact that the US made significant mid-course changes that were detrimental to Taiwan and that contributed to its international isolation, despite Washington’s statements that its policies were “unchanged” and contributed to “stability.”

From an international perspective, Taiwan is an example of a successful transition to democracy. The most rational and reasonable outcome of Taiwan’s normalization of relations with China would be acceptance of this young democracy in the international family of nations. This is a process that will need cooperation from all sides; for its part, China will need to see that it is in its own interests to come to terms with a small and democratic neighbor with which it can live in peace.

Taiwan can justifiably be proud of its achievements, economically and politically, but it needs to stay the course and strengthen its democracy, sovereignty and international relations so that it can be an equal partner in the international community.

Taiwan can also strengthen the fabric of its society by implementing judicial change, improving governance, protecting human rights and finding new niches in the international economy. All of these will enhance the nation’s acceptance and respect around the world.

The US can play a constructive role if Obama is willing to apply creative thinking and steer away from the pitfalls of the mantras that were recited in the past. The fundamental values of democracy and human rights, for which the US stands, mandate that we are more supportive of the dream of many Taiwanese that their country be accepted as a full and equal member of the international community. That would be change we can believe in.


(Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group.)


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Don’t concede more on Taiwan

(Article Courtesy from taiwandc.org , also published in Taipei Times on 6th of November 2009)

By: Hisahiko Okazaki

For those who are concerned that democratic Taiwan should continue to have the freedom to choose its own future, US President Barack Obama’s upcoming visit to Beijing brings back the memory of a regrettable episode during former US president Bill Clinton’s visit to China in June 1998.

Early in the spring of that year there were signs that the US government would assure China that Washington would not defend Taiwan if it declared independence. On March 13, Joseph Nye proposed in a Washington Post op-ed piece to eliminate the ambiguity in the US position by stating that the US would not recognize or defend Taiwan if it were to declare independence.

I argued against such a policy in an op-ed piece in the Japan Times and directly to the US assistant secretary of state Stanley Roth in Tokyo when he was accompanying US secretary of state Madeline Albright on her way to Beijing to prepare for Clinton’s visit.

My argument was as follows: “Suppose Taiwan declared independence and China used forced, believing in the American statement of its position, I wonder whether the American public and the Congress would acquiesce in abandoning a free and democratic Taiwan to China. If not, it is tantamount to tricking China into a war. It would be similar to how the Korean War began. The United States declared that South Korea is outside its defense line, but intervened when the North launched an attack, having possibly believed in your words.”


I do not know whether my arguments had any influence, but there were no statements about not defending Taiwan then. On the eve of Clinton’s visit, however, stories began to circulate that he was going to state a “three nos” policy: The US would oppose Taiwan independence, oppose a “one China, one Taiwan” policy and oppose Taiwan’s formal membership in state-based international organizations.


Fortunately, there was no mention of “three nos” in Clinton’s joint press conference with the Chinese president Jiang Zeming (江澤民), nor in Clinton’s major policy speech at Peking University. Then the volte-face came. On a visit to Shanghai, Clinton announced the “three nos” during a dialogue with Chinese intellectuals on a TV show.


Although the US Congress quickly rejected Clinton’s commitment through resolutions of both Houses, China may still view his remarks as an official commitment of a US president and may quite likely expect Obama to reconfirm the three nos.

It is not difficult to suspect that there were some disgraceful deals behind the scenes. The date of Clinton’s visit, to start with, is believed to have been sought by the US to turn attention away from a domestic scandal, and that indebted the US to announce the three nos, while bypassing Japan and South Korea to make the longest trip Clinton paid to a single country. In addition, the topics of the Shanghai TV interview, which was originally scheduled to focus on cultural affairs, appeared to have been changed on short notice.

Through the 37-year history of US-China engagement, the US has consistently retreated in the war of semantics about Taiwan. The US has been unable to muster points against the steel wall of one-party dictatorship. It lost inch-by-inch every time. Each time, however, Washington reassured the US public that its position hadn’t changed.


How deceptively the US position had eroded can be seen in the comments made by Clinton. He began his remarks on the “three nos” by stating that he was reiterating US policy on Taiwan but not specifying the time of the previous remarks, whether it was during his meetings in Beijing or much earlier. Then national security adviser Sandy Berger said the US had simply repeated its basic position.


In fact, the US has consistently shifted its position. It started with an admirably objective statement by then national security adviser Henry Kissinger in 1972: “The US acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.”


This was cleverly phrased but would have become obsolete were Taiwan to declare independence. The retreat from this position began in 1983 by denying the intention of pursuing a policy of “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan.”


The word “pursuing” implies planning, working for and encouraging, but it does not prevent the US from accepting a fait accompli of Taiwan’s independence. However, there is a more clear implication in the term “not support” used during Clinton’s 1998 visit, which was well explained in Washington Post editorials as among the options that the Taiwanese eventually might choose.


The US assured Taiwan at the time that “not support” did not mean “oppose.” In fact, “oppose” was the term sought by China through former US president George W. Bush’s administration. China boasts domestically that it has won the commitment from the US, but there is no diplomatic record to testify to such a position.


As for Obama’s trip, it would be best not to go beyond the three joint communiques that have long defined US-China relations. The bottom line should be not to reconfirm the “three nos,” which were already denied by Congress. The Obama administration should never accept a change from “not support” to “oppose.”

Incidentally, the Japanese government, perhaps uncharacteristically, has never conceded an inch in the past 37 years from its stand to “understand and respect the Chinese position.”

(Hisahiko Okazaki has served as Japanese ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He now runs the Okazaki Institute, a think tank in Tokyo. This piece was first published in ACFR NewsGroup No.1528, an e-mail publication of The American Committees on Foreign Relations, on Oct. 27)

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