Welcome to Beijing’s world, Malawi

Malawi’s switching relations from Taipei to Beijing on Jan. 14 is already having repercussions on the lives of ordinary Malawians — and not necessarily for the better.

The ink on the new diplomatic relationship hadn’t yet dried when the Chinese ambassador to Uganda, visiting Malawi this week, said that the 26 Malawian students currently studying in Taiwan should be transferred to China. In other words, relations with Beijing now means that Malawian students don’t get to choose where they go; they are ordered by Beijing. Not only does this constitute yet another attempt to humiliate Taiwan — which said that no matter what, the students would be allowed to remain in Taiwan should they choose to do so — but it is also an attempt to “shield” those poor Malawians from the terrible influence of living in a democracy. It would be much safer for them, in Beijing's Orwellian worldview, if they could continue their studies in an authoritarian state where the information they receive and that finds its way into their curriculum is filtered from above.

Meanwhile, whatever benefits that are to be reaped from the new diplomatic ties will remain in the hands of a few back in Malawi and will certainly not trickle down to improve the lives of the ordinary people. For despite the loads of money Beijing is said to have offered Malawi to abandon Taiwan, the former cares not one iota for the welfare of Malawians. The development projects initiated by Taiwan that Beijing claims it wants to take over will become mired in corruption, or will simply be abandoned when — and this is to be expected — Beijing breaks its promises and the money fails to materialize.

For readers of this site who are based in Asia, such developments have nothing unusual about them. At the WHO, for example, Taiwan and its allies are routinely humiliated, repressed and snubbed, and, despite Beijing’s claim to the contrary, the rights of the 23 million Taiwanese ignored.

Readers who are not based in the region, however, may not be aware of this. But little by little, Taiwan’s democracy is getting crushed by Beijing. I have tried, on a few occasions, to raise the issue with publishers in North America — especially at the height of Taiwan’s bid to join the WHO — but absent a regular flow of information on the subject, the interest simply isn’t there. Politics, such as elections, are mentioned briefly in international pages, but the human impact — hell, the health impact — never finds its way in.

More and more it looks like the only way Taiwan can remain an independent democracy will be for the regime in Beijing to be overthrown. Anything less, given the regime’s inflexibility, will likely fail.

The rest of the world must know.

Ironically, a few hours after I made this entry the Nyasa Times, a Malawian newspaper, was reporting the following:

[Malaysian] Minister of Presidential and Parliamentary Affairs Davis Katsonga has angered President Bingu wa Mutharika who has since demanded his immediate return to Malawi and hand back the sweetener he collected from Mainland China. Kastonga is said to have pocketed the “Chinese sweetener” meant for the President for sanctioning [the Dec. 28] diplomatic switch from Taiwan to Beijing, government sources have [said].

Sources at State House said Katsonga, a close ally to Mutharika, has not remitted a substantial amount of money running into billions of Kwachas from the Chinese dragons for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 2009 general elections. "Honourable Katsonga has angered the President [Mutharika] since his return from China [,] where he signed the memorandum of understanding that established the China-Malawi diplomatic relations."

[…]

The Nation newspaper revealed that Katsonga was on the run [after] he left Malawi on January 16 for the United Kingdom through [the] Malawi-Zambia boarder [sic] […] He is believed to have boarded via Lusaka International Airport the following day.

[…]

[The Malawian] Government has downplayed […] Katsonga’s exit [,] describing it as a private holiday.

[…]

Some observers say they have warned the President and DPP officials to tread carefully in their pursuit for the fruits of the Chinese chequebook diplomacy as Katsonga can reveal damaging secrets in his defense. And [the] Mutharika cabinet has since agreed to damage control the matter, according to sources.

Beyond the kickbacks and rapprochement

The Defense News Web site dropped a bombshell of sorts this week with an article on the possible ramifications of a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) victory in Taiwan’s presidential elections in March. In it, a Taiwanese military official raises the specter of a return to the era of kickbacks — i.e., corruption — in military spending, while a former American Institute in Taiwan official is quoted as saying that rapprochement between the "pro-China" KMT and Beijing could spell the end of major US arms sale to Taipei, as Beijing would be unlikely to perceive the “friendlier” KMT regime with the same amount of animosity it has shown toward the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party government.

While these two scenarios are certainly feasible, the article leaves out a third, equally alarming, possibility: that Washington, perceiving a KMT government to be on the brink of capitulating to Beijing, should not sell Taiwan advanced military equipment lest that technology end up in the hands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). (This fear explains why the US has so far denied Taiwan more advanced aircraft like the F-35 and would instead limit sales to older-generation F16s.) In other words, even if the KMT did not intend to hand over Taiwan “on a platter,” as some analysts have put it, the perception — right or wrong — that Taiwan is headed for “peaceful” annexation via KMT rule would have dire consequences on Washington’s willingness to sell it advanced military technology or even share military intelligence — SIGINT, IMINT, COMINT — with it, something else that was left unaddressed in the Defense News article.

What this means is that even if fears of KMT capitulation turned out to be wrong (and let us pray that this is the case), Taiwan would nevertheless find itself weakened in its defenses, as the US — Taiwan’s only real source of weaponry — would be unwilling to provide it with the equipment, quantitatively and qualitatively, it needs to keep pace with the PLA’s rapid modernization.

All of this, of course, stems from the fact that the end of the Taiwan Strait crisis on Beijing’s “peaceful” terms would by no means mean that US-China competition for regional influence would disappear. Far from it. And with that in mind, the last thing Washington would want is for US-made advanced military technology, transferred from or handed over by Taiwan, to be turned against US soldiers in a future Sino-US armed conflict.

In the end, no matter how one looks at it, a KMT victory in the presidential elections would have catastrophic consequences for Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.

Beijing gains leverage on Canada

If we ever needed an example of the kind of influence Beijing has on the behavior of democratic governments, it was provided last week during Canadian Trade Minister David Emerson’s visit to China. All that trade talk — unaccompanied, of course, by any reference whatsoever to human rights or the environment — culminated when Emerson hinted at the possibility that Ottawa would go to the World Trade Organization to “force” China to allow its citizens to visit Canada as tourists.

“Hinted,” because the last thing Canada wants to do is go to the WTO court against China at a time when bilateral trade between the two countries is at its highest and when China is now tied at No. 3 with Japan as Canada’s largest export market. In making the reference to the WTO while in Beijing, Emerson was telling Beijing Canada took the tourism issue seriously and was hoping for results. But not at the WTO, please.

In other words, Canada went to China as a beggar, kneeling at the throne and willing to sacrifice something in return for a favor by Beijing. When a country threatens to do something but, in the same breath, says it would rather not do it, what it means is that leverage is possible, a weakness can be exploited — and Beijing is a past master at seizing upon such openings in one's armor.

In an article published today in the Taipei Times I explore some of the “sacrifices” Canada may be willing to make so that Beijing will reengage it on the tourism issue. I also warn against the great danger of Beijing coupling trade issues with politics in such a way that democracies risk undermining their principles in the process.

Readers can access the full article, titled “Finding Canada’s Achilles’ heel,” by clicking here

Book Review: Bernard D. Cole's Taiwan's Security

Soon after coming to power in 2000, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) launched a massive reorganization of its defense system, starting with the civilianization of the services, a reorientation of its defense posture and attempts, so far largely unsuccessful, to move from compulsory service toward an entirely volunteer army. Democratization, meanwhile, has imposed restrictions on the military — on budgets, for example — that hitherto had not existed. While in the long run these efforts will likely lead to a more professional and accountable military, the road there can be a difficult one for service members who see their budgets get cut, the number of troops dwindle and their equipment become older.

In isolation, these problems and challenges would not pause an existential threat to the nation. But in Taiwan's situation, with China accelerating the modernization of its military without the barriers set by the checks and balances of a democratic system, this period of reorganization leaves it comparatively weakened and therefore more vulnerable to an attack by China. Furthermore, Taiwan's long guarantor of security, the US, is locked in the Middle East and shows no signs of soon extricating itself from the mess it has created there. This means, among other things, that a US intervention on Taiwan's behalf cannot — and should not — be taken from granted.

All of these, and more, are explored in Bernard D. Cole's Taiwan's Security, which I reviewed in the Taipei Times today. Readers can access the full review by clicking here.

Could this be Tonkin redux in the Strait of Hormuz?

It is much too early to make a formal assessment of the incident early on Sunday in which five suspected Iranian Republican Guards Corps “attack boats” “harassed” US Navy vessels in international waters close to the Strait of Hormuz. But already, as the details trickle in, we can begin to lay out hypotheses.

One element that stands out is the lack of corroborating information and the one-sidedness of the reporting on the incident, with an anonymous source in the Pentagon, a spokesperson and CNN providing the bulk of the story. No coordinates are given to tell us whether the US vessels were clearly in international waters or sufficiently close to Iranian waters as to constitute a provocative act. Furthermore, the transcript of the communications between the Navy and the IRGC vessels — this we must take on faith, as nothing has been provided to prove that these were, indeed, of the IRGC — has not been made public, so it remains impossible to ascertain the nature of the “threatening” language (was it English?) used by the Iranians, which could very well be a mistranslation (if it wasn't English), as has often occurred with speeches by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

News coverage to date has been limited to Reuters and AFP, whose wire copy has been mostly quotes from a report on CNN. Iranian authorities have yet to comment on the matter, and major Middle Eastern media, including al-Jazeera, have nothing on the incident.

So did it really happen? Or is this just a fabrication, or a series of errors and misjudgments, just as occurred in the Gulf on Tonkin in August 1964, which provided the US with the argument it needed to attack North Vietnam? It is also interesting that such an incident would occur amid news that the US may be on the brink of recession. As history has demonstrated, states have an inclination to look abroad whenever trouble brews domestically and to deflect the attention from themselves onto an “enemy.” It is no secret, either, that Washington has for a long time now sought an argument to pound Iran — even after an US intelligence assessment argued that Tehran had long abandoned its nuclear weapons program.

All the above are but hypotheses and may yet be proven wrong as more details are made public. Conspiracy? A warning to George W. Bush as he prepares to visit the region? Fabrication? Blunder? At the moment, all are possible. But this one has all the hallmarks of a US administration that once again is asking us to trust it.

Stay tuned.

Irresponsible fearmongering at the NSB

As if the build-up to the presidential election next year were not chaotic enough, National Security Bureau (NSB) chief Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐) revealed last week that the bureau had become aware of a “threat” against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). In and of itself, there was nothing wrong with the revelation — except that it was altogether irresponsible of the NSB to make the information public before it had completed an assessment of the credibility of the threat by so-called “radical elements.”

Intelligence services the world over prepare what are formally known as “threat assessments” — reports, based on intelligence collected from various sources, that address threats to, among others, the security of the nation, its citizens at home and abroad, critical infrastructure, the economy, visiting foreign diplomats and the domestic political leadership.

Part of the responsibilities of analysts involved in the preparation of threat assessments is to sift through the daunting quantity of material that comes their way, from undigested, or “raw,” intelligence to assessments provided by agencies both domestic and foreign. The secluded world in which these analysts operate — after all, their very purpose of the unit is to think of threats — makes the task of telling signal from noise an onerous one at best.

This is why dependable threat assessments are based on “threat matrices,” which take both “threat” and “risk” into consideration, as well as whether the information regarding the threat is “single thread” — from one source alone — or has been corroborated by other means, such as human sources, signals intelligence and intercepts. The reliability of the source(s) is factored into the final evaluation, which, under their different guises, usually provide a “threat level” (e.g., a scale of one to 10, or “low,” “medium,” “high”) or an assessment of probability.

As a responsible and professional intelligence service, we can expect that the NSB goes through a similar process before it delivers a threat assessment to its customers in government. But in this instance, to openly discuss a threat in such a way that it becomes public — the news appeared in newspapers the very next day — before all the necessary steps involved in the production of a threat assessment have been made (“We are evaluating whether [the threats] are real,” Shi said on Monday) is either the result of gross incompetence or the willful utilization of fear to exacerbate tensions in an already charged political environment.

Government transparency is welcome and there should be more of it. But sensitive information such as a possible threat to assassinate a political figure should be handled with caution and should never be shared before its veracity has been ascertained. After all, threat assessment units receive, on a daily basis, dozens if not hundreds of leads, most of which turn out to be groundless, noise, and thus duly discarded.

But such malpractice is not without its precedents. For some time after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, global intelligence agencies, in their renewed sense of siege, tended to seize on every threat and to report them before their credibility had been assessed. That practice eventually tapered off as the credibility of the Cassandras broadcasting the threats to both government and the public came under question. Facing the very real risk of numbing clients to the possibility of credible threats in future, those agencies had no choice but to become a little more discerning in what they would share.

We can perhaps forgive the NSB and other security agencies for being in a heightened sense of awareness as the elections approach, but if they want to retain their utility and avoid needlessly draining finite resources, they must refrain from feeding noise to the government and the public and not cry wolf before the semblance of a howl has been heard.

The NSB wasn't at fault over '101gate'

Although security at Taipei 101 may have been put to shame by Austrian base jumper Felix Baumgartner's successful — albeit uninvited — spectacular* on Tuesday, people and the media have made too much of the event. After all, no one was hurt, Toyota received more publicity than it could ever have hoped for when it placed its circular ads on the tower, and everybody has had a good laugh. Except, perhaps, the National Security Bureau (NSB), which has been accused of failing to catch the man before he could flee the country on a flight to Hong Kong. "If the NSB can't put its fingers on an individual who commits such an ostentatious act, how can it ever unmask the much more secretive spies Beijing has dispatched to Taiwan?" they ask.

At face value, the argument would seem to be a sensible one, were it not for the fact that it bespeaks a total lack of understanding of how security intelligence actually works.

First of all, about two hours after he jumped off Taipei 101, Baumgartner was boarding an aircraft for Hong Kong. As the stunt was unannounced, the authorities had no a priori knowledge and could not possibly have mobilized their forces in time to intercept him at the airport. Like any other government institution, the NSB is not meant to react quickly to events; in other words, before it can commit to a course of action, a long and slow process of decision-making involving a number of people of different ranks has to be completed. (This may seem counterintuitive, but all the red tape is there to prevent rash decisions and provide the necessary paper trail should something go wrong during an operation.)

Following upon that is the fact that — again like any other government institution — the NSB has a finite budget and limited resources, which means that to maximize performance it must prioritize. The belief that intelligence services "see and know everything" is nothing but a myth perpetuated by US genre movies. In reality, they can be surprisingly blind when it comes to "threats" that emanate from outside their pre-selected areas of focus. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, sadly, were a deadly demonstration of that.

Now, given the regional context, it shouldn't be too difficult to imagine what the NSB's priorities would be: Chinese espionage and, perhaps, various proliferation-related issues involving North Korea and Iran. As such, a great proportion of its resources, both human and electronic, would be aimed at serving those needs.

What the NSB probably isn't looking at, however, are Austrians, who pose no threat whatsoever to the security of Taiwan — even less so the type that seeks nothing other than to wow the public and get an adrenaline rush in the process.

In light of this — a "target" of no priority and a slow chain of command inherent to government institutions — it is perfectly understandable for Baumgartner to have managed to slip through the fingers of the authorities once he had committed his stunt.

The NSB and police authorities can be faulted for a number of things, but on this one, they certainly don't deserve the criticism they have received and the nation would be in much greater danger if they did, indeed, target the Baumgartners of this world, however irresponsible their deeds might be.

* Baumgartner managed to smuggle a parachute past Taipei 101 security and jumped off the building.

The many whys behind the ‘Kitty Hawk’ incident

In “The method in Beijing’s madness,” an article I published today in the Taipei Times, I explore the number of reasons why Beijing may have decided last month to deny entry into Hong Kong harbor to a series of US sea vessels. While most of the analysis to date has either focused on Beijing seeking to send the US “a message” regarding its displeasure with Washington selling Taipei military equipment or on the leadership being somehow “irrational,” I propose that rather than the latter, Beijing’s decision was based on Realist calculations of balance of power with the ultimate aim — one it has stated repeatedly in recent years — of forcing the US out of the region.

There is no small irony in the fact that on this incident defense analysts and political pundits, all raised on Kissingerian Realism, have mostly failed to make that point in their assessments.

Readers can access the full article by clicking here

(Note: References to Taro Aso in the article should instead have read former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. My apologies for the error.)

“A blow below the belt”

The issuance on Monday of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a consensus document involving the 16 intelligence agencies in the US, arguing that, based on evidence, Tehran had very likely ended its nuclear weapon program in 2003 came as a bit of a surprise. More so, it gave one hope that the US intelligence community hasn’t entirely become politicized.

But for those who are now crossing their fingers and hoping the document will prevent sanctions or military action against Iran, cautious skepticism might be in order. Not 24 hours after its release, Israeli officials and the press were attacking the report, calling it “a blow below the belt.” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak even said that despite the findings (but providing no evidence whatsoever), Iran “has probably since revived it [its nuclear weapons program].” As deplorable was US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley’s almost immediate public interpretation of the NIE, which with Orwellian skill he managed to portray as meaning that Tehran must continue to be pressured, isolated and threatened, thus leaving the door open for further sanctions and even military action, although for the moment it would be more difficult to argue for the latter.

In an op-ed piece titled The Iranian test of possibility on Wednesday, Ha’aretz demonstrated Israel’s irrational streak whenever Iran is concerned by, among other things, dissecting the difference between the terms “high certainty” and “moderate confidence” used in the NIE and arguing that a 10 percent chance that Iran would develop an atomic weapon by 2009 may not mean much to the bigger and distant US but makes a world of a difference for smaller and more proximate Israel. The article then puts the entire US intelligence community into doubt by hinting that it once again has been deceived by Iranian “pranks.” The author uses a number of examples, including failure by the US to punish Iran for the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, to make this point. Ironically, by using this example the author underscores his own politicization of intelligence, as it has never been proven with “high certainty” that Tehran had anything to do with the bombing, which in fact intelligence organizations (including Israel's) have, depending on political needs of the time, also blamed on the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Saudi Hezbollah (not connected to the former) and al-Qaeda. It would seem that when it comes to defending oneself against accusations, Ha’aretz will lower its standards and just cannot be bothered with distinctions between “high certainty” and “moderate confidence.”

The op-ed then commends Bush for his commitment to “preventive action” and not “passive[ly] waiting for the enemy to give in.” In other words, Bush, the article says, will likely continue on his mission to isolate Iran despite the shackles of intelligence, and moreover he will receive all the help (and pressure) he needs from Israel. That pressure, in turn, will result in part from Israel’s own failure to distinguish between “threat” and “risk” assessment and to fashion its policies accordingly.

During my years at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), I had a “chance” to read many reports by the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS) and Israel's domestic agencies. In every case, the failure to weigh “threat” against “risk” always struck me. The documents would be marred by a lack of criticism that turned what should have been an apolitical product (the very nature of intelligence) into a policy statement. In other words, rather than provide the raw data upon which CSIS could make its own assessment, Mossad was prescribing action and doing so in a way that prevented critical thinking. We can expect that in the wake of the NIE, US and intelligence services worldwide will soon be bombarded by “intelligence” from Israel, which in and of itself constitutes a political statement. For those of us who have already forgotten, this is exactly what Israel did when US interest in striking Iraq prior to 2003 was perceived to be flagging; the Israel lobby shifted into high gear and the intelligence started pouring in. Immediately after the Saddam Hussein regime had fallen, Jerusalem embarked on a relentless program to pressure the US and its allies into taking action against Tehran.

By focusing on the “threat” and ignoring the diminished risk, no matter what Tehran does (or is said to have done, as the NIE just did), Jerusalem will always cry foul. If this leads to further sanctions and isolation of Tehran — or, though less likely, in independent Israeli military strikes in Iran — good behavior, rather than be encouraged by engagement and reciprocity, will instead lead to punitive action, which in the long run can only but create a self-fulfilling prophecy and compel Tehran to go down the nuclear path. No good can come out of a “damned if you don’t, damned if you do” treatment of Iran.

On condition of anonymity

In an article published in the Taipei Times today, I look at the factors behind the growing presence of "anonymous sources" in today's news — a trend that, since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, is now threatening the very foundations of newsmaking.

Tracing its origins to the Vietnam War, I find two principal themes that could explain this new phenomenon — new in the sense that its use is now customary — (a) lack of protection for government dissidents and corporate whistleblowers; and (b) a growing reliance by governments on secrecy and deniability.

I conclude by arguing that the use of secrecy, of which anonymous sources are but a new expression, is adding distance between governments and the people and making it more difficult for people to make their own informed judgments about events.

Readers can access the full article by clicking here.

Language and the Middle East 'peace' talks

Readers of this Web site are by now aware that an issue I keep revisiting is that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, partly as a result of my past profession but also because how the media reports on it epitomizes how language creates our reality, something that has long been an interest of mine. Another reason why I often come back to this particular conflict is that, as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt so aptly put it in their quite useful The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, as a purported Western democracy, Israel should be judged by higher moral standards than the supposed “radicals” and “extremists” and “terrorists” who oppose it.

The fact that it is not, that the media and the Jewish state’s Western allies continue to give it a moral carte blanche no matter what, underscores the reason why the new round of “peace” talks in Annapolis is, as the Palestinian “radicals” put it, “doomed to failure.”

The Associated Press wire agency, whose reporting I have dissected in previous postings, continues to systematically editorialize its news on the conflict. As AP is carried by newspapers the world over and its credibility assumed by most, how it represents the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bound to influence — oftentimes subconsciously — people’s understanding of the issue. AP’s bias, constant though it is, doesn’t stem from a Zionist plot or a deliberate attempt to demonize Palestinians. Rather, it is symptomatic of a Western way of storytelling, in which there must be a “good” party and a “bad” one. The latter has all the mysteriousness and irrationalism of religion and violence attached to it, the “unknown” that creates fear among the civilized “us.”

A perfect example of this can be found in AP’s coverage of the demonstrations yesterday against the Middle East "peace" conference in Annapolis. The story, datelined Gaza City, opens with “Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip demonstrated Tuesday against the Middle East peace conference in the US,” then spends the next 25 of 27 paragraphs describing Palestinian violence, threats of the “destruction of Israel” by Hamas and crowds chanting “death to America,” and so on.

Only the last two paragraphs — two out of the story’s total 28 — describe Israeli opposition to the peace talks, stating that “[m]ore than 20,000” Israelis gathered to demonstrate against the talks and that “hard-line” (a more neutral term that also conveys a sense of being part of the ‘acceptable’ political spectrum) opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu had “denounced” the conference.

The imbalance could not be any more stark. Ninety-two point five percent of the story focuses on “militants” using “vitriolic” language to attack the “peace” talks, even quoting a 37-year-old Palestinian mother of eight, “[d]ressed in a black robe and black and green headband,” (again, sustaining the image of the unknown, which otherwise does not serve any journalistic purpose) who adds that the failure of the talks “will be an advantage for the resistance.” Only 7.5 percent of AP’s report addresses Israeli opposition to the talks, and furthermore readers are given a more precise number of demonstrators — more than 20,000 — than what we are told about Palestinians, which is no more precise than in the “tens of thousands,” a convenient quantity blur that encourages the view of swarms of irrational Palestinians against the more scientific, knowable Israelis.

Why couldn’t AP open its story with a Jerusalem dateline and represent the two demonstrations with more balance, perhaps by quoting Israelis who use a language of intolerance as "radical” as that used by the Palestinians quoted in the story? By failing to do this and by disproportionately reporting on Palestinian demonstrations, the latter are once again portrayed as opposing peace. If and when the talks in Annapolis fail — for they will — it will once again be the Palestinians who are blamed, irrespective of the fact that it is quite apparent that, like all its predecessors, the Israeli leadership is coming to the negotiating table less than willing to make the concessions that would open the way for a viable Palestinian state.

‘Brothers so sorely tired’

The Red Cross and the Red Crescent estimate that 900,000 Bangladeshi families are in immediate need of humanitarian assistance and that between 5,000 and 10,000 people were killed by Cyclone Sidr last week (at this writing, the official death toll stands at above 3,000). On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI appealed for international solidarity and to “help these brothers so sorely tired.” Given the severity of the situation, one would think that Dhaka is hardly in a position to turn down assistance from anyone who offers.

And yet, that is just what it did.

It is true that numerous countries, including the US, Japan, China, Canada, Kuwait, Germany and the EU, have already either sent aid or have promised to do so, and some, like Saudi Arabia, have made well-publicized offers of not insubstantial amounts of money for relief assistance, while the Islamic Conference has called on its 57-member body to send urgent aid. All must have been welcomed with open arms by Bangladeshi authorities.

Taiwan, too, has offered aid, via its representative office in Dhaka, but Bangladeshi authorities have refused to acknowledge the offer, giving as a reason the fact that the two countries do not have official diplomatic ties — the usual euphemism for one’s reluctance to deal with Taiwan because of the likelihood that doing so would anger the backdoor bully Beijing (China has pledged US$1 million in emergency assistance to Bangladesh).

Although this time round Taiwan’s offer came via Taiwan International Health Action, a governmental organization under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, rather than through NGOs — thus making accepting the offer a little more complicated — one would think that in a time of great need such as now, capitals would put politics aside and genuinely focus on the needs of their people. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case and a wealthy country in a good position to offer immediate help when it is needed most — now, when lives can be saved — is being told to stay home.

History has taught us that pledges of humanitarian aid following a natural catastrophe rarely translate into the full sum promised, and oftentimes the bureaucratic process adds layers of red tape — and precious days — to the actual delivery of aid on the ground. In other words, the millions of dollars that countries have pledged in recent days will not all end up where they are needed, and some of that help will arrive late. As such, there is no such a thing as too much on offer, and all help should be welcome.

I’m pretty sure Bangladeshis wouldn’t mind Taiwanese money, blankets or food and would probably even risk Beijing’s "wrath" when everything around them has been turned into a devastation zone, or “a valley of death,” as one relief worker put it, with water-borne diseases and the promise of more deaths lurking just on the horizon.

Our moral nakedness: a response

Adar Primor’s piece in the Nov. 6 edition of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz does a good job analyzing the underlying strategy of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) bid to join the United Nations under the name “Taiwan.” Primor is fully aware that Chen’s chances of success in this endeavor are, at least on the surface, rather quite slim, as Taiwan is confronted to the harsh realities of Realpolitik and “international hypocrisy.”

Beyond the attempt itself, however, Primor sees a second — and perhaps even more important — bid to expose the moral nakedness of the international community, which continues to deny “the freest country in Asia” the place it deserves under the sun. Primor spares no one; the US, European countries, even Israel, the author says, have been “going with the flow,” meaning that China’s lure trumps the so-called “shared” values that, as he rightly puts it, are by no means reflected in the Chinese leadership.

Sadly, the author concludes with a flawed analogy by comparing Taiwan with Israel, “two small and effervescent ‘real democracies’ engaged in their own security-existential troubles, exposed to threats from a huge external enemy and dependent on American protection and aid.” Foreign editor at Haaretz, a newspaper with a long, enviable tradition of even-handed reporting on Israeli politics (see Amira Haas’ clear-eyed columns on Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, for example), Primor should know better than to equate Taiwan’s struggle for survival with Israel’s, as the “David of the Far East,” as he puts it, does not face “a huge external enemy” because of its long history of colonialism and military adventurism, at least not since dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) left the scene.

Unlike Israel, Taiwan does not threaten its neighbors, does not invade their airspace or bomb capital cities back to the stone age. Nor does it hold millions hostage in Apartheid-like submission — all misguided policies that (a) most Israelis do not agree with and (b) are largely responsible for that “huge external enemy” in the first place. Beijing denies the very existence of Taiwan; most Arabs do not deny Israel’s right to exist and those who do certainly do not have the means to bring about such a reality. If it wanted, Beijing could raze Taiwan to the ground (It would help if Israel stopped selling military technology to China). Conversely, given its tremendous military (largely the result of US “carte blanche” military transfers and billions in annual aid, as well as its nuclear arsenal), it is Israel, what with its unconditional support from Washington, that is in a position, if it wanted, to annihilate its enemies — not the other way around.

What this means, therefore, is that no policy “correction” on Taipei’s part would bring about a cessation of hostilities. No matter what it does, Beijing will continue to threaten it — at least as long as it struggles for sovereignty. With a corrective in how it manages its conflict both with Palestinians and its neighborhood, Israel can appease “Goliath,” fix its “security-existential struggle” and sideline the remaining lunatics who call for its destruction.

Primor’s piece is a most welcome one that shows Chen’s efforts to publicize Taiwan’s cause are not in vain. But by conflating Taiwan’s struggle with that of Israel, sadly, he undermines the power of his argument.

In fairness to the author, I subsequently learned that the “David of the Far East” analogy was picked up by Mr. Primor during his interviews with Taiwanese and, furthermore, that it is often used by Chinese-language media in Taiwan. As I argue above, this analogy not only misinterprets the roots of Israel's security challenge but, ironically, misrepresents the underlying causes of Taiwan's predicament.

To war, one step at a time

The timing of the Interpol general assembly voting on whether to put five Iranians and a Lebanese on “red” notice — the international police agency’s “most wanted” list — suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires (seen left) could not be more conspicuous, coming as it does at a time when the US and some of its allies are putting unprecedented pressure on Tehran to cease its alleged military nuclear work. Despite Interpol’s assertion that the decision to vote on the matter was not, as Tehran alleges, the result of pressure from Washington (or Israel), one wonders why the agency, which has had 13 years since the bombing, would decide to act now, knowing fully well that doing so will only add fuel to an already dangerously unstable political brew.

To its merit, Tehran decided to abandon trying to block the vote, but irrespective of that decision, the vote confronts it to a lose-lose situation, in which (a) refusal would give the impression it is trying to hide something, that it supports terrorism or is simply a “rogue” international actor, while (b) the responsibilities attendant to the “red” notices could result in pressure to arrest or hand over the suspects in Iran (although states are not obligated to do so).

Whether the decision to hold the vote (a majority suffices) was indeed the result of political pressure remains to be determined, but regardless, its timing could not have been worse. Not only will this further isolate Iran at a time when it needs to be embraced, but the sixth suspect, Imad Mugniyeh (right), also happens to have intimate ties to the Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally and sometimes proxy of Tehran. Given the instability in Lebanon — fueled by the US/Israel/Syrian power play there as well as internal sectarian fault lines — pressure on the Lebanese government to hand over Mugniyeh (although he is unlikely to be in Lebanon) or on Iran to do so would inevitably result in linkage and thereby render both the Iranian "nuclear" problem and the Lebanese one all the more unsolvable.

By accident or design, independent decision or one brought about by pressure, the decision at this specific point in time to target those six suspects takes us ever closer, down the long succession of small things adding up, to war with Iran.

Foreign nationals threatened

In a short opinion piece published today in the Taipei Times, I argue that China's insistence that health-related information from the World Health Organization (WHO) and its subsidiary agencies be relayed to Taipei via Beijing rather than directly from the WHO to Taiwan represents a threat not only to the 23 million Taiwanese whose safety, as recent events have shown, could be compromised, but also to the tens of thousands of expatriates who live in Taiwan. By giving Beijing control over health information, I argue, the WHO would simply be giving China an additional tool with which to blackmail Taiwan.

My piece is a call on foreign governments to let Beijing know, in no uncertain terms, that hostage-taking of expatriates in Taiwan — as the willful or neglectful withholding of health-related information or the failure to disseminate it in a responsible and timely fashion certainly represent — is unacceptable behavior.

Readers can read the full article by clicking here.

The turn of the screw

The Israeli government (readers will notice that I do not refer to Jerusalem to designate the state, as one would use Washington or Beijing, given that the switch of the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a few years a go has been largely successful in turning a contested geographical area into shorthand for the Jewish state and exclusion for Palestinians) has upped the ante by announcing it would cut off electricity to Gaza in increasing fashion every time Palestinian militants fire rockets into Israeli territory.

Note that in its report, the Associated Press vaguely refers to Israeli “territory,” without distinction between Israel proper and Israeli settlements.

The first cut, we are told, will last 15 minutes.

Yet again, the Israeli military will be resorting to “retaliatory” (again, AP at its best, which depicts the Palestinians as instigators without providing any background into the reasons why they feel the need to fire the rockets in the first place) measures that not only treat Palestinians like children who need to be brought into line but that punish the majority for the actions of the few, a clear violation of the laws of war. Even the usually meek UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon could not help but criticize the plan last month when it was first unveiled.

Stranger, even, is the fact that the “barrage” of rockets, which has allegedly “severely disrupted” life in the “area,” has only killed 12 Israelis in six years. That’s two Israelis killed every year killed by the supposedly dangerous Palestinian rockets. Car accidents, drinking, drugs, lightning, food poisoning, high cholesterol, attacks by dogs — all, and many more, are far deadlier everyday occurrences than those crude Palestinian rockets. And yet, cars are not being taken off the roads, alcohol and drugs are not being taken off the streets and pet dogs are not being culled. But the 1.5 million people who live in Gaza, however, will be made responsible.

Many, many more Gazans have died as a result of Israeli violence, but we don't see Palestinians cutting off energy supplies to Israel. That's because they can't, as the power dynamics in the conflict are very much in Israel's favor, with control not only over most of the electricity Gaza recives, but also water, goods, airspace, and so on.

Meanwhile, there is nothing in the AP report about how this illegal turn of the screw will “severely” disrupt the lives Palestinians, whose lives have already been severely disrupted by the fact that people have been crammed into a non-viable state whose survival is at the mercy of the Israeli state.

KMT shows its true allegiance

If anyone had doubts about the true allegiance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), those should have been dispelled yesterday when it announced it was blocking the special budget set aside for the Ministry of National Defense to develop the Hsiung Feng (“Brave Wind”) IIE missile, a multiple-platform cruise missile capable of reaching Chinese cities that would have given Taiwan retaliatory capabilities it did not possess.

Already, with the US refusing to sell critical component parts for the development of the missile, the program was facing challenges, compelling the Taiwanese government to search for other markets for the parts or to seek to develop them indigenously. But now, with the budget facing a complete freeze by the KMT, its survival is at stake.

Granted, as belligerents add offensive weapons — and the Hsiung Feng is such a weapon — to their stockpiles and start deploying them, the risks of error increase, and with them the likelihood that wars could be launched by mistake. But as I have argued before, no defense is complete without a deterrent, and this is what the Hsiung Feng would have provided.

The KMT rationalizes its decision to block the budget by saying the missile could have “provoked” Beijing — again, as always, it is Taiwan that is provoking Beijing, never the other way around — and that it was therefore safer to halt its development. But this fails to take stock of reality and starkly shows in whose camp the KMT really is. In the process, it irresponsibly puts the security of the nation at risk.

The only way the KMT could have won the “provocation” argument would be for it to set preconditions for freezing the budget. Those would be, at modicum: (a) the dismantling or de-targeting of the odd-1,000 missiles China is aiming at Taiwan and (b) the renunciation of the use of force to annex Taiwan. China’s continued — and increasing — threat to use force against Taiwan is the true provocation, and yet the KMT remains silent on that issue, a silence that tacitly acknowledges Beijing’s right to break international law by threatening the use of force against another nation.

What’s next? Perhaps the KMT, realizing that the very existence of Taiwan is “provocative” to China, should freeze agricultural, social, health and other budgets that allow for the state to exist in the first place. After all, and if we follow the party’s logic, only when a free, democratic Taiwan ceases to exist will the so-called provocation completely vanish.

A parade not for all

Last week on Oct. 10, the Republic of China (ROC) celebrated its National Day with the biggest military parade in 16 years. The practice of showcasing one’s armaments — at least to such an extent — had been abandoned in 1991 for fear it might provoke Beijing. Although the reasons for the resumption of massive military parades have yet to be known, it is not difficult to imagine that nationalism, riding the winds of Taiwan’s bid for UN membership, has something to do with it, as is the fact that this was the last such event with President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as leader of the country.

Sold on the promise of seeing a wide array of the nation’s military equipment, from an Air Force flyby to armored personnel carriers to various missiles, I, and many others, headed for the Presidential Office, in front of which said parade was to begin. It soon became evident, though, that reaching the Presidential Office proper would be impossible, as every artery leading to it had been blocked with gates, barbed wire and rows of police officers, some of whom were equipped with the body shields so prominent at WTO summits while others held long hardwood staves that, if used, promised much pain. So, like water we gathered up at the dam, vying for positions from which, we hoped, we could see some of the parade as it passed by. Around us, rows of ROC flags beat to the breeze.

And we waited. And waited.

With the parade scheduled to begin at 9:19am, many among us began showing signs of impatience when, one hour later, we still hadn’t seen or heard anything, except for the occasional shift in police deployment. Many pictures were taken of the police officers who stood impassively behind the barbed wire, many of whom appeared to be much younger than me.

At one point a woman began shouting something incomprehensible, whereupon three or four police officers, prompted into preventive action, seized her and carried her away. That was the end of the momentary disturbance. Then, walking solitarily on the boulevard, with media and a few security officials in his wake, strolled Shih Ming-teh (施明德), former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party and, since last year, the leader of an anti-Chen movement, looking very much as if he were going to a golf game. Some people near me shouted words of support, but quickly the eerie quietness — quite unusual for the usually rowdier national day celebrations I am accustomed to — descended upon us once again, with people chatting calmly, taking pictures (mostly of themselves and their friends) and placing calls on their cell phones.

Then, all of a sudden, the skies above us were pierced by rolling thunder, the crowd cheered, and the flyby began, with dozens of helicopters, followed by F-16s and Mirage-2000s, training aircraft and transport aircraft. No sooner had they shot above our heads, though, than things once again quieted down and the waiting resumed.

I approached a police officer and showed him my press card, hoping it might allow me to reach a better vantage point, but it turned out I didn’t have the proper pass. So I waited with the rest of the crowd, a mix of Japanese and Philippine tourists, Taiwanese and curious expatriates. Come 11:30am, I decided to leave, knowing by then that the parade wasn’t coming our way and confident that, once back in the office, I would have access to all the wire pictures taken during the day.

Follow-up inquiries showed that the military parade was a closed event and that people (and even there not the average Joe) who wanted to attend needed to obtain a special pass from the Government Information Office beforehand. In other words, this was not an event for public consumption — at least not one in which ordinary Taiwanese could participate. So, I wondered, aside from the dignitaries and reporters who did have the special pass, who was this massive display of military technology intended for?

The answer is fairly simple. This was a signal, sent via the media, to (a) the nation’s allies — in other words the US — who frequently have criticized Taiwan for not doing enough to defend itself, especially in the wake of the drawn-out, KMT-stalled efforts to purchase armaments from the US, and (b) China, in a flexing of muscles intended to make it think twice about embarking on a military course to gain control over Taiwan, a message that was emphasized by recent news on the development of surface-to-surface missiles capable of hitting cities in China — the first time in years Taiwan had developed offensive military technology.

So as an exercise in nationalism, the parade cannot be deemed a success, for it did not generate the “cheer on the street” and flag waving where national dreams are born. For those who viewed the parade in the news, the emotional reaction of pride, if we can characterize it as such, was more distant. One, obviously, does not obtain from an image on TV or in a newspaper the same chill one gets from experiencing the real thing.

As a signal to the US and China, it may have worked, but the effects have yet to be felt. One thing is sure, however: the Taiwan Strait conflict is getting increasingly militarized.

Whose parliament is it?

Anyone who, against all reason, had managed to retain a strand of belief that the UN Security Council — and the UN in general — was a functional body that could speak in the name of humanity must have felt like hiding in a basement in the past weeks.

Day after day, starting with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s arrogating powers that aren’t his on Taiwan’s UN membership bid, followed by a succession of heads of state achieving nothing of substance during the 62nd General Assembly meeting other than vying to see who would manage to make this year’s most unorthodox, media-grabbing diatribe against the leader of another state (to think that last year’s “sulfur” comment is already passé) and, finally, by the Council’s failing, on Tuesday, to agree on a formal condemnation of the attack on African Union troops in Darfur simply because Council members could not reach consensus on whether the attack by rebels constituted a “terrorist” attack or not — day after day, indeed, the UN has proven without doubt that its utility is waning, and fast. Oh, and one should not omit mentioning UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s visit to Myanmar, a meek, beggarly attempt (no offense, Mr. Gambari) that seems, at the most, to ask the junta to refrain from terrorizing its population too much while the envoy is in the country.

Underscoring all this, no sooner had the General Assembly closed its Babel-like exercise in futility than heads of state, from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to name but two, were making bilateral declarations whose ramifications will far outpace whatever was achieved at the UN.

Not to be unfair (and to rehash an old saying), the UN is but the sum of its constituents — member states — and some of its branches, such as the IAEA, have managed to function. But irrespective of what it is, as a decision-making body it seems to have reached a point in its history where it cannot do anything, a situation that has a lot to do with the cynical coterie of world leaders, elected and not, we have today, many of whom seem to see the body as nothing more than a podium where one slams a shoe on a table, brandishes a marijuana plant, speaks of the devil, lies about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in another country, berates the body for picking on Israel and so on, ad nauseam, until their antics are pushed off the front page as news develop elsewhere in the world. So far removed has the body become from reality that it now draws comparisons with the so-called ivory towers of academia — an unfair allusion, perhaps, as universities and think tanks come nowhere near the level of cynicism one encounters at the UN, and the destitute do not place their hopes and trust in them.

One must wonder why, aside from the recognition it would grant it, a country like Taiwan has worked so hard to obtain membership at the UN, given that it probably can achieve far more working outside that institution than it would once inside its antediluvian walls.

It would be a great loss to humanity if the UN — as a concept — were to bring about its own demise through sclerotic turpitude, and every effort should be made to ensure that this does not happen. But in its current form, its disappearance would not be of great consequence.

It is with some trepidation that I write this, as I once harbored great admiration for an institution that, sixty years ago or so, was founded on principles that should have served us all and made the world body a true parliament of man[kind]. To this day and the above notwithstanding, I remain a strong believer in the superiority of multilateralism to ameliorate the lot of humanity.

How Canadian of me.

Ahmadinejad at Columbia

Like him or hate him, there is no denying the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a master at making people uncomfortable. His presence in New York these days, where he is set to address the UN General Assembly, was accompanied by an invitation by Columbia University for him to deliver a speech, which he did last night amid high security and thousands of rowdy protesters. The invitation for the head of a so-called “state sponsor of terrorism” to visit a bastion of the country’s higher-learning institutions was not without controversy, and Columbia’s president received a fair amount of heat from US representatives and citizens for opening the university doors to a man who has been dubbed anything from a “tyrant” to “cruel dictator” to “super-terrorist.”

But the fact of the matter is, despicable or not, honest in his skepticism of the extent of the Holocaust and his messianic calls for the “destruction of Israel” or a mere political opportunist, Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia was necessary, as it came at a time of great tension between Iran and the US and within the region as a whole. Aside from the longstanding accusations by Washington and its allies that Tehran is attempting to acquire and develop nuclear weapons, in recent weeks the US has accentuated its accusations that Iran is meddling in the affairs of, and arming militants in, Iraq and Afghanistan. A great part of the saber rattling on those issues is the result of miscommunication — or worse, the absence of any communication — between the two states, something that has long characterized US-Iranian relations.

So here was the occasion, in an institution of learning, for people to hear first-hand, without media distortion, what Ahmadinejad had to say about the US, Iraq, Palestinians, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other topics. There was ample material in his speech to disagree with (including his farcical assertion that there are no homosexuals in Iran), and to be honest the former engineer lacks the charisma and moral suaveness of his predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, whose own presence in the US years ago, when he called for “dialogue between civilizations,” also sparked controversy. But all that notwithstanding, only when leaders can express their opinions without the countless filtering layers of diplomacy and biased media and exchange those ideas with students and professors, in collegial fashion, will nations that make it a tradition to talk past each other manage to see eye-to-eye. For all in attendance yesterday saw a man, faults and all, before them — not the devil some media have portrayed him as incarnating, not a nuclear-weapons wielding, religiously deranged mullah posting checks left and right to Hezbollah and the Taliban and Iraqi Shiite rebels — a man, who even smiled as his host welcomed him with a barrage of accusations.

Irrespective of whether one agrees with the content of Ahmadinejad’s speech yesterday, at the end of the day his presence at Columbia University will probably have accomplished more for Iranians and Americans than his address before the General Assembly, which like that of other leaders there, will be wordy but ultimately less than pithy.

(An aside: For reasons that are all too obvious, Ahmadinejad was prevented from visiting the World Trace Center site to pay his respects to the victims of 9/11 — this despite the fact that Iran had absolutely nothing to do with those attacks. And to those US politicians who shook with indignation at the thought that the Iranian leader could be allowed to step on US soil, well, what can one say but to point out that, after all, he is responsible for far less deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan than his US counterpart.)

So kudos to Columbia University, which took a not inconsiderable risk inviting the Iranian leader. And congratulations to those who attended — from the angry crowds to the academics — for, unlike the occasion in 2002 when former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Concordia University in Montreal, sparking such unruliness and violence by protesters that his speech had to be canceled, they greeted the controversial leader with commendable maturity.

One would hope that universities the world over would do this more often.