Book Review: Those who helped break the oppressors’ back

For many who, for one reason or another, choose to make it their home, Taiwan is part opportunity and part love affair. From its weather, natural beauty, history, culture, food and wonderful people to the cross-strait reflection of what it chose not to be, Taiwan is a muse that over the years has transformed many a transitory visitor into a permanent friend fully committed to protecting it from the many ills — environmental, political — that threaten its existence. While the principal threat to Taiwan today is China’s designs upon it and Beijing’s political isolation of Taiwan on the international scene, not so long ago enemy No. 1 was at home, under the form of the Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) regimes, both supported financially, politically and militarily by the US in their repression of Taiwanese as part of Washington’s crusade against communism.

Then as now, many expatriates who came to Taiwan chose not to remain silent and did what they could to help give Taiwanese a voice. A Borrowed Voice: Taiwan human rights through international networks, 1960-1980, which I review in today’s issue of the Taipei Times, is their story. Readers can access the full article, titled "Those who helped break the oppressors' back," by clicking here (Features pages are now available in .pdf for original print format).

Why the US does not want a nuclear Iran

While almost every day we are told that the US, the UN and the West in general oppose a nuclear Iran because of the belief that Tehran could use enrichment to turn a peaceful nuclear energy plan into a nuclear weapons program, or that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is defying the international community on the matter because he is irrational, seeks confrontation or wants to “destroy” Israel,* the real reasons why the West opposes Iran’s nuclear ambitions rather lie in economics. In fact, we must look back to the 1970s to find the seeds of the current crisis, when powerful US and British oil and banking interests launched a campaign to increase the price of oil while, through funding to environmental groups and security think tanks, seeking to discredit nuclear energy as a safe, clean source of energy and creating fears of nuclear proliferation (the bid worked, as our continued reliance on the black gold shows us). Later on, Western powers used the UN Security Council to block certain states from going nuclear while allowing allies to pass the threshold, even when those states were not signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), such as Israel and India.

When it comes to oil-rich Iran, the US and its allies have argued that it makes no sense — aside from nuclear weapons ambitions — for Tehran to seek nuclear energy precisely because it has so much oil. What this rationalization fails to consider, however, is that Iran, just like any other country, seeks to maximize its oil profits by exporting it rather than reserving it for domestic consumption, all the more so when prices are so high. If Iran managed to produce enough nuclear fuel to feed its reactors, a mere 1-gigawatt reactor would produce enough power to accommodate an industrial city of 1 million people. Add a few of those and Iran could soon be self-sufficient and therefore in a position to export more oil and use the money to develop its infrastructure.

But this the US will not allow. Why? Because it has long been Washington’s policy (and before it, London’s) to keep oil-producing states in the Middle East relatively weak so that they will never be able to challenge Western interests. While Tehran’s supposed intransigence on the issue is used by the West and its media mouthpieces to explain the lack of progress in talks and the attendant series of economic sanctions, the truth is that the West does not want a nuclear Iran and will continue to move the goal posts to stall the process indefinitely (this would explain the US’ refusal to even consider closely monitored minimal uranium enrichment in Iran as an alternative to full-cycle enrichment, while Western support for the proposal that Russia provide Iran with nuclear fuel now looks dead in the water, given the strained relations between the West and Russia following the latter’s invasion of Georgia earlier this month).

“Lack of transparence” on Tehran’s part is currently the reason given to justify sanctions and Western opposition. However, even if tomorrow Tehran were to become the epitome of transparency, nuclear power would still remain beyond its reach and new reasons would be found to account for the lack of developments, from enmity with Israel to support for terrorism (Hezbollah, Hamas) to meddling in Iraq or Afghanistan and so on.

As in the past, a lot can be explained by looking at who’s behind declarations and which institutions are funding whom in the battle of ideas. From think tanks to oil companies to big banks to publishing houses, many have an interest in ensuring that Iran remains relatively weak.

* Ahmadinejad’s supposed calls for the “destruction” of Israel are hotly contested and are probably more the result of mistranslation or manipulation than a heartfelt wish for the Jewish state’s destruction, which in any case would inevitably result in the annihilation of Iran by either Israel (which has nuclear weapons) or the US. Ahmadinejad and his cabinet do not have a death wish, nor is Ahmadinejad in a position where he can make unilateral decisions that would affect the future of his state. Ahmadinejad is a populist in the same mold as Mohammed Mossadegh, whom the US and British intelligence helped overthrow in 1953 (again mostly over oil).

Now the real games begin

Despite the unfortunate stabbing of a US national on day one, a few questions about possibly under-aged Chinese divers and the occasional pro-Tibet demonstrations and subsequent arrests, it could be said that Beijing successfully weathered the Olympic storm that, as many had claimed, would take the Chinese leadership to the mat. None of Beijing’s predictions of Uighur or Tibetan “terrorists” attacking Olympic venues materialized, while the world’s response to its failure to allow the media to act freely and for protests to be held at a predetermined venue was conspicuous in its meekness.

Maybe the twin security-charm offensive paid dividends, managing to hold dangerous elements at bay while dazzling the world with proof of China’s economic development. All in all, Beijing must be delighted with the outcome.

But as the air clears of canon powder and the athletes start returning home, China finds itself with challenges of Olympian proportions — the interplay between a cooling economy and continued social discontent. Reports have it that during the Games, the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) met daily to discuss the economy and that a meeting is scheduled next month to discuss means to address growing unemployment and an exports sector — the core of its economy — that is threatened by a global economic slowdown.

Locked in a feedback loop with threats to the economy is people’s resistance to forced evictions, corruption and environmental catastrophes, none of which will have disappeared despite the illusion of modernity the Games may have created. In fact, cognizant of the amount of money Beijing spent on the event, people all over China whose needs for employment and security are not met may be justified in turning their criticism of the CPP up one notch — especially if, as analysts have predicted, the economy takes a turn for the worst.

Expect to see the first showdowns in parts of China where the twin factors of a weak economy and ethnic tensions are prevalent. Xinjiang, where most minority Muslim Uighurs reside and which remains one of the poorest provinces in the country (it falls in the “impoverished” category in Business Week’s survey of Chinese per capita income), could soon turn into the greatest threat to China’s stability. In fact, last week Chinese authorities were hinting at the need to deal swiftly with what they perceive as an existential threat to China in Xinjiang (separatism), which for Uighurs could mean mass preventive detentions and, in the extreme, more bloodshed.

The Olympics were all about illusion and reality-defying human feats of determination. But ultimately this was a bubble, and once that bubble has deflated, reality quickly creeps in to fill the vacuum. While Beijing staked its international reputation on them, it will soon realize that well-coordinated ceremonies that leave the audience breathless did not immunize it from having to address pressing socioeconomic challenges.

Despite the image of modernity and unity that China sought to broadcast to the world by hosting the Games and the tremendous financial expenditure that went into ensuring such an outcome, China is no better off today and it continues to face the very challenge it faced before the Games opened earlier this month, that of maintaining social stability.

This time around, however, the restraints on its behavior created by the world’s attention in the lead-up to the Games no longer exist and carrots and sticks will not as readily dissuade the CCP from choosing the path of violence to deal with domestic problems.

Beggars and choosers

In light of his track record on the US-led “war on terrorism” and conservative policies in general, it is rather unusual for me to defend Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. By further involving Canadian troops in the deadly Afghan quagmire and bending over backwards to display Ottawa’s subservience to the US and Israel, Harper and his Cabinet have damaged Canada’s hard-earned image abroad as a peace-loving, law-abiding country worthy of emulation.

One area where Harper deserves some praise, however, is in his policies vis-à-vis China, with whom he has taken a “strong” stance on human rights — at least when compared with his position on allied human rights violators, such as the US and Israel. Harper’s criticism of Beijing’s track record on human rights culminated (or so it seems) with his decision not to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing, which many world leaders had also threatened to boycott amid a crackdown by Chinese security forces in Tibet this summer. While most heads of state have since come back on that decision and ended up attending the Olympics, Harper chose not to, claiming, if perhaps unconvincingly, that he had a “busy” schedule. Given the magnitude of the event and the fact that we have known for years that the Games would be held in August this year, it would have been easy for Harper to make time for Beijing. His decision not to do so cannot but have been meant to send a political message to Beijing.

While the leadership in Beijing has its hands full ensuring the success of the Olympics, the attack on Harper came from unexpected quarters — former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien, who during his long tenure did his utmost to cozy up to China and reap the financial benefits.

Harper’s “snub,” the former leader said from Quebec City, had damaged Sino-Canadian relations, and by breaking the “bridge” ostensibly built between Ottawa and Beijing when the Liberals were in power, he had put Canadian firms seeking to do business in China at a disadvantage. “We are [now] at the bottom of the ladder in terms of having any influence with China,” he said. “Ask any businessman who has been to China [of late] and he will tell you the same thing.”

Chretien then said that “We do business with Saudi Arabia and they’re not a big democracy,” which rather incongruously implies that Harper’s refusal to attend the Games meant the same thing as not wanting to do business with China.

The problem with his salvo, however, is that while Chretien claims to understand how the Chinese think — “You know, they have a collective memory there that is very important” — it is based on a complete misreading of the Chinese leadership, the Chinese business sector, as well as the ability of world leaders to distinguish between politics and business. If trade relations between countries were predicated on warm political relations, then very few countries nowadays would be doing business with the US, or Israel, Russia or Pakistan — or even China, for that matter. In fact, even the absence of official diplomatic relations, as is the idiosyncratic case of Taiwan, has not prevented it from doing business with others, or from other countries to seek trade relations with it.

While Beijing continues to wield the political stick, the fact remains that it is not about to end trade relations with a G8 country over a prime minister’s failure to show up at a sports event. At most, Beijing will bark, perhaps recall an official in retaliation, but the long-term consequences will, as always, be inconsequential, because China just cannot afford to make them bite. Furthermore, while the Chinese private sector is not entirely independent of the Chinese Communist Party, in recent years it has increasingly gained a voice of its own, and if establishing new business partnerships with Canadian firms is in the best interest of the private sector, company chiefs are not about to abandon those for the sake of politics or allow the CCP to dictate business decisions. Chretien’s understanding of the Chinese business sector is at least 30 years out of date and harkens back to a time when the CCP had complete control over every aspect of the country, including international trade.

In the end, it all boils down to this: The hypocrisy that taints relations between the world and China works both ways. While critics of China’s human rights record can be accused of undermining their argument by continuing to do business with it, China suffers from the same myopia and continues to do business with its critics, even with the US and Taiwan. What this means, therefore, is that the argument that Canada could somehow “lose out” in the Chinese market over “undiplomatic” criticism of Beijing’s domestic policies — as Chretien made clear on Tuesday — has no credibility whatsoever, as I am sure “the businessman who has been to China” in recent years would tell us.

At best, this was Chretien playing politics ahead of a possible election call. At worst, this was a former prime minister who couldn’t even be bothered to criticize a gross violator of human rights, even when he knows that doing so carries little risk.

Why South Ossetia matters to Taiwan

As the world holds its breath and awaits confirmation that Russian troops have pulled out of Georgia, it is becoming clear that Europe has entered a new era of big power competition, with Russia trying to salvage what is left of its influence and the US/NATO continuing to fill the vacuum left following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But while the hostilities over South Ossetia seem to have ceased, the underlying factors — US hegemony and Russia’s counterbalancing strategy, oil, separatism — remain and will continue to threaten the region. With the US set to sign a missile defense site deal with Poland on Wednesday and Russia seeking to establish a permanent military base in South Ossetia, the likelihood of a flare-up remains high.

Beyond this are the risks to international stability that Russia’s massive response in Georgia engendered, especially when it comes to Beijing’s stance on the Taiwan issue. In "The wider implications of Georgia," published today in the Taipei Times, I argue that the precedent set by Moscow — an increasingly close ally of the People’s Republic of China — in Georgia could have serious implications for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The ugly illusion

For those who live far away from China or who do not focus on its domestic politics on a regular basis, China seems to be coterminous with “rise,” an economy growing in the double digits, and the center of gravity of the future. All the media hype about Asia’s “new miracle” — exacerbated in recent weeks by TV and magazine features about its rich history and gigantic cities — could give the uneducated mind the impression that all is well in China.

But it’s all illusion. Away from the media — which Chinese authorities continue to hound, despite promises to open up for the Olympics — is a state that, for some China watchers, barely hangs by a thread and could collapse on its own weight at any moment. Poverty is rampant and discontent widespread, as entire groups of people are uprooted by force or evicted for mega construction projects, millions work in subhuman conditions in factories, and ethnic groups, from Tibetans to Mongols to Uighurs, are crushed under the heel of a state that will not recognize their identity or religious beliefs. All of this the Chinese authorities do not want you to see. Worse, Mao Zedong (毛澤東), responsible for the death of tens of millions of Chinese, remains an icon, his portrait omnipresent in key areas, his crimes beyond scrutiny, a taboo subject, as if even the ills of the past cannot bear scrutiny.

For the more optimistic analysts, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has things under control, but this comes at a price: Repression of dissidents, pervasive censorship, double-speak and propaganda. In other words, a police state. For visitors to China — especially diplomats — CCP minders ensure that the guests are only allowed to see what the state wants them to see (call this the “Gorbachev detour,” after his drive from the airport in 1989 was rerouted so he would not see the demonstrations and, later on, the massacre at Tiananmen Square). As a result, visitors to China usually return home with flattering stories about how well China is doing and how developed it has become. But it's a lie.

Though seemingly innocuous, Beijing’s latest illusion epitomizes everything that is wrong with China.

Her name is Yang Peiyi (杨沛宜), whose voice was heard by hundreds of millions of people all over the world during the Olympic Games opening ceremonies. Perfect looking, the essence of a beautiful Chinese child with an angel-like voice. The problem is that while little Peiyi’s voice moved us, the beautiful child we were fawning over wasn’t her and didn’t sing a single note. As it turns out, during a rehearsal, CCP officials ruled that Peiyi wasn’t good-looking enough for the nation; her lips were crooked and she was a little chubby (pictured right, with Lin Miaoke, her stand-in, on the left). So, like everything else in China, the state served the world an illusion to mask its true self.

When a government deems a talented child unworthy because of her physical appearance (and she is a perfectly fine looking child), there is something terribly wrong with it indeed. And it begs the question: If it can stoop so low, how could we ever believe it when it promises a “peaceful rise,” or “peace” across the Taiwan Strait? Or that it will act responsibly as it sells weapons to murderous regimes, from Sudan to Zimbabwe to Myanmar? Or that, come the next epidemic, it will do what it must to ensure global health? Or do its part on global warming?

In Memoriam: Anthony Russo

There were many occasions during my long struggle to complete Smokescreen, my expose of Canadian security intelligence follies and incompetence, when I almost gave up, believing that the project was either impossible or, worse, that publishing the verboten would land me into trouble with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), my former employer.

But whenever I found myself on the brink of giving up and flushing the manuscript down the toilet, something would happen (call it fate, or just plain luck) that would convince me that I shouldn’t. Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the arrest of 17 individuals in Toronto in June of that year over an alleged terrorist plot, Canadian soldiers killing and getting killed in Afghanistan, and the long march, inch by inch, to war with Iran — all intensified the chorus inside my head telling me that my book had to see the light of day, that what I had to say as a former intelligence officer and individual of conscience mattered.

Another thing that encouraged me to bring this painful project to fruition was reading Daniel Ellsberg’s book Secrets: A memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers, which depicts the intellectual and emotional journey of an earnest Cold Warrior in Vietnam. After returning from Southeast Asia on a fact-finding mission, Ellsberg went back to work as an analyst for RAND Corporation, a think-tank with ties to the US Air Force, where he had been employed in the early 1960s. Soon afterwards, then-US secretary of defense Robert McNamara commissioned a study of the conduct of the Vietnam War, to which Ellsberg participated. Completed in 1968, the documents came to be known as the Pentagon Papers.

A year later, Ellsberg had become convinced that the Vietnam War not only couldn’t be won, but that it was wrong, and that the entire adventure was built on layer upon of layer of lies to the American public. Over time, and as Ellsberg befriended anti-war protesters, he reached the conclusion that it was his duty, as someone from the "inside," to do everything he could to end the war, risking his career — and the safety of his family — in the process. After failed attempts to gain the ear of sympathetic US senators, Ellsberg’s quest culminated in his decision to leak the Pentagon Papers, all of 7,000 pages, to the New York Times.

One person who helped him in the process, and who also risked his career, was Anthony Russo (pictured right), also at RAND. Soon after the first excerpts were published, the US government took the Times to court in an attempt to embargo publication. The paper ultimately won the case (New York Times Co. v. United States) and publication of the Papers continued, prompting the Nixon administration to target Ellsberg via the FBI, wiretap his conversations, break into his psychiatrist’s office and, in 1973, Ellsberg’s and Russo’s trial. Given the subsequent exposure of gross government misconduct, all charges against the duo were eventually dropped. The rest is history, with Nixon soon forced out of office and the entire Vietnam War discredited.

Anthony Russo, whom Ellsberg called a “courageous collaborator” and who defied the all-powerful defense apparatus and system of silence of which he was part to expose the truth about an unjust war, died in Suffolk on Wednesday. He was 71. His name may have been unknown to most, and his death unnoticed by many, but we all owe him a debt of gratitude. I know I do, as it is people like him who gave me the strength and courage to complete what would become my own version of the Pentagon Papers (minus the classified material) and to keep striving to tell truth to power. May others carry on.

It’s the Cold War all over again

Anyone who has followed (even if only remotely) developments in Eastern Europe in the past few years would have seen it coming. In fact, no sooner had the Iron Curtain crumbled than US policymakers were planting the seeds of a future in Europe that could not but lead to the violence that exploded between Russian and Georgia over the breakaway province of South Ossetia on Friday, which as of Sunday evening had reportedly claimed as many as 2,000 lives — mostly civilians — and forced as many as 30,000 people to leave their homes.

Not that any of this was inevitable, mind you. In fact, there is reason to believe that on their own, ethnic and political tensions within Georgia could likely have been managed, and large-scale violence avoided. What happened, however, is that Georgia became caught in a Cold-War-like battle of influence between the “West” — the US plus NATO — and Russia, which for good reasons has in recent years felt increasingly isolated, following the creeping expansion of NATO into areas, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, that historically had been in Russia’s sphere of influence. To which we might add Washington’s plans to implement a nuclear-defense system in Russia’s backyard. US claims that the system only targets “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea has failed to attenuate Moscow’s protestations and prompted it to seek to counterbalance US expansionism by striking alliances with Beijing and Tehran, blocking resolutions at the UN and, as recently as last week, proposing an ominous return to the Cold War by seeking the reinvigorate its ties with Havana, which could include military assistance. Moscow did not even attempt to mask the fact that its most recent overture to its old ally in the Caribbean was in response to NATO/US activity in its neighborhood.

Within this context, it is not surprising that Moscow would interpret the “Velvet Revolution” of 2003 in Georgia as having been backed, if not altogether orchestrated, by the US and its allies (a view shared by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing). Given Georgia’s strategic location as a major pipeline for Caspian oil to the Mediterranean and the US’ designs on energy sources, it is easy to understand Moscow’s paranoia and why it would construe Georgia’s decade-old move to distance itself from Moscow as an outright land grab by the US. This was highlighted by the US’ and the West’s immediate support for Georgia in the current conflict, while the blame was lain fully on Moscow, which has supported separatists in South Ossetia since a civil war in the early 1990s created the de-facto enclave. A more nuanced reaction by the West could have help mitigate Moscow’s apprehensions.

To demonstrate how a seemingly localized conflict had its roots in (and in turn influences) the international system, Israel, a staunch ally of the US and clearly in the Western camp, was announcing yesterday that it could cease all weapons sales to Georgia lest its continuance prompt Moscow to increase its support for Syria and Iran. Ukraine, meanwhile, which has plans to join NATO, announced on Sunday night that it could prevent Russian warships involved in the Georgia operation from returning to port in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.

The current crisis in Georgia is only a symptom of things to come, as the pressure cooker of the post-Cold War system had reached a point where it needed to let out some steam. Sadly for the victims in Georgia, it did not have to come to this. The fall of the Berlin Wall had presented us with a golden opportunity to start anew and erase the long-standing divisions that for half a century had held the world hostage to nuclear war, in which even the most local of conflicts — Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Vietnam, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, to name a few — were subsumed into the ideological/economic clash between the East and the West. While there is no doubt that Russia has retained some of its past imperialist reflexes and, as it fell back on its feet, sought to regain some of what it had “lost” following the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was mostly the US’ thirst for hegemony that prompted countries like Russia, China and Iran to seek to counterbalance it and led to the renewed East/West divide that now appears to be upon us yet again today. As every political scientist in the realist camp would tell you, a unipolar world does not remain so for very long, as other states or groups of state will seek to tie it down a la Gulliver. The US had its uniploar moment, but that could be ending soon.

What does this mean for the future? Chances are that conflicts everywhere will once again be regionalized or internationalized, and thus rendered more difficult to resolve as they are inextricably involved in the power plays between the US/NATO and the Russo-Sino axis, with swing states in between.

It took humanity 18 years. Welcome to the past, to Cold War 2.0.

Right words, wrong person

US President George W. Bush has “deep concerns” about the human rights situation in China, and he intends to say just that during a speech in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday, just before he arrives in China for the Olympic Games starting on Friday. “America stands in firm opposition to China’s detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists,” Bush is expected to say, based on transcripts of his speech released by the White House on Wednesday. “We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights … because trusting [Chinese] people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential.”

This is all nice and well, except for one thing: Bush is the one making the speech. Given his own atrocious track record on respecting human rights both at home and abroad — to wit, the imprisonment of thousands of Muslims, the great majority of whom were innocent, in the US following 9/11, domestic antiterrorism laws that have seriously undermined the liberties and freedoms of US citizens and people transiting through the US, the Guantanamo Bay prison system, the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program, the illegal invasion of Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the normalization of torture — Bush is hardly the right person to lecture the Chinese Community Party (CCP) on freedoms and liberties.

This is not to say that China does not have a huge human rights mess on its hands — it certainly does — and the entire global community should be saying similar things to the CPP leadership. The problem with Bush’s plea it that it will fall on deaf ears, as he has no credibility whatsoever and no one in Beijing will take him seriously, just as Pakistani President (or dictator) Pervez Musharraf, or Uzbek President (or dictator) Islam Karimov, to name just two of the US’ allies in the “war on terror,” continue to ignore Bush’s lectures on democracy while his government continues to give them billions in military aid. It is akin to a mass murderer telling a prison cell mate “Thou shalt not kill,” or a bank robber telling a car thief that the latter’s chosen profession is reprehensible.

The Associated Press may editorialize that Bush’s speech is likely to “anger” China, and Beijing will likely oblige by expressing that “anger” and continue claiming that China’s behavior domestically is no one’s business, but in the end this is all shadow boxing, the games cynics — democratically elected and authoritarian alike — play over the heads of enfeebled populations.

The speech is fine. The lecturer is a fraud.

Condi’s prescription for failure

One can almost feel the static in the air around academics whenever Foreign Affairs magazine is set to publish a major article by a top US government official or renowned expert, a tradition that goes back to George Kennan’s famous "X" article, “The sources of Soviet conduct,” in 1947. Weeks are spent in anticipation, with barrages of e-mails speculating on the expected breakthroughs or enlightened paradigm shifts that are to be found in the piece. Such excitement may have preceded the publication of soon-to-be national security adviser Condoleezza Rice’s article in 2000, and certainly did before she recidivated in the current issue of the influential magazine. Sadly, however, Rice’s “Rethinking the national interest” does very little rethinking and instead advocates more of the same foreign policies that turned the George W. Bush administration into a synonym for calamity.

Readers can access my long response to Rice’s article in "Condoleezza Rice's prescription for a future of disaster and chaos," published today in the Taipei Times.

Taking a step back on the ‘arms freeze’

Followers of developments in the Taiwan Strait have all been in suspense as they wait to see whether the US arms package (which includes the P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft, seen left) sale to Taipei will proceed or not. Absent clear signals from Washington, pundits, in the US and elsewhere, have come up with a number of theories as to why the administration of George W. Bush would choose to go against the spirit of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and “freeze” already approved arms sales to Taiwan, from a desire to appease an increasingly influential China in Washington to fear that the arms package could disrupt ongoing “peace” efforts between Taipei and Beijing. What the great majority of op-ed pieces and talking heads have failed to take into account, however, is US grand strategy, realism as a guiding principle, as well as the history of the US “empire,” which, in Europe as well as in Asia, provides clues as to what may be behind the current “freeze.”

In "Hegemonism behind arms 'freeze,'" published today in the Taipei Times, I attempt to kick-start debate in that direction and argue that US policy on preventing the emergence of multipolarity in the international system is what is preventing the arms sale from materializing. It also provides, I hope, a key to reading future US arms sales to the region.

China's newest problem?

“Through this blessed jihad in Yunnan, the Turkestan Islamic Party warns China one more time … Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics. We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed.” Thus spoke Commander Seyfullah, the purported leader of the Turkistan Islamic Party, after claiming responsibility in a video last week for three bus bombings in Yunnan earlier this month, along with previous attacks in Shanghai, Wenzhou and Guangzhou.

While there is little information about Seyfullah, the Turkistan Islamic Party is an offshoot of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which intelligence sources say was based in Afghanistan before the US invasion in 2001 and whose leader was killed in 2003. Analysts claim that members of the Turkistan Islamic Party (the group as a whole reportedly has no more than 100 members) may have received training at al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan’s North Western Frontier Province and/or Tribal Areas abutting Afghanistan. Based on the little information available about him to date, Seyfullah appears to be mimicking the tactics of terror group leaders such as the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, with a reliance on recordings to instill fear and attract retaliation — the more indiscriminate the better.

Since the release of the Seyfullah video, Chinese authorities have gone to great lengths to discredit the claims of responsibility, ascribing the blasts to a lone disgruntled gambler and an oil fire. While the credibility of both Seyfullah and Chinese media remains equally in doubt, what really matters is that a “terrorist” organization is seeking to lure Chinese authorities at a time when it is most sensitive, with the Olympic Games just around the corner.

In "Much suffering in store for Uighurs," published today in the Taipei Times, I explore the ramifications this new development will have for ethnic Uighur Chinese.

Canada’s child soldier

I have long meant to write about the Omar Khadr case, but somehow never got around to doing it, perhaps because I didn’t know which angle to approach the subject from. With demonstrations in major Canadian cities planned for this week and after calls by some readers that I tackle the subject, it is perhaps time that I make a few comments. What also prompted me to write about this was the revelation, a few weeks ago, that a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) official had interrogated Khadr at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003. It wasn’t the visit itself that grabbed me, but rather the callousness allegedly displayed by the official as the young Khadr displayed wounds, mental and physical, that bore all the hallmarks of torture. As a former intelligence officer at CSIS, I could not remain indifferent.

First, a bit of history. The Toronto-born son of Ahmed Said Khadr, an alleged al-Qaeda financier, Omar was raised in Afghanistan and in 2002 — then aged 15 — was captured by US forces following a firefight in Ayub Kheyl. Omar has been accused of lobbing a grenade that killed a US soldier, though information subsequently released puts that into doubt and fails to provide any evidence of his involvement. Still, Omar his since been held at Guantanamo Bay — the only Western citizen left at the base and the youngest detainee — on accusations of war crimes and supporting terrorism. Despite the lack of evidence and the uniqueness of the case, the Canadian government has refused to seek his extradition, a decision that has earned Ottawa widespread condemnation from rights activists and many Canadians. (For a full account of the case, readers are encouraged to turn to Michelle Shephard’s Guantanamo’s Child: The untold story of Omar Khadr.)

Three things stand out in the case against Khadr, and all three support the claim that he should, at minimum, be repatriated to Canada.

First, by their nature, military trials are stacked against the defendants and make it nigh impossible for them to challenge the accusations against them. As we have seen, the evidence against Khadr is less than airtight, but absent the means to mount an appropriate defense (to which we can add his young age), Khadr has been unable to make his case — a phenomenon that has become all too frequent in the “war on terrorism,” not only in the US but elsewhere, including Canada (e.g., Security Certificates, or the seventeen individuals arrested in Toronto in 2006).

Second, Khadr was a minor when he was captured and should therefore have been treated as such. By failing to treat him — at the very least — as a child soldier, the US, and by rebound the Canadian government, is violating UN conventions, but has relied on the exceptional clause of “terrorism” — which has no legal basis — to defy international law and the Geneva Convention. A case could also be made that as a result of his upbringing in Afghanistan among sympathizers of al-Qaeda, the young Khadr was not acting of his own free will, or that he had been “brainwashed,” two elements that argue in favor of his being treated as a child soldier rather than a soldier, a militant, a “terrorist,” or a war criminal.

Third is the nature of the accusations against him. Regardless of whether Khadr threw the grenade or not, or participated in battle or not, by international law attacking invading or occupying military forces does not constitute a war crime, nor does it imply supporting terrorism. While countries such as Israel and the US (among others) often refer to attacks against their military as “terrorism” (e.g., Palestinians resisting occupying forces, Hezbollah defending Lebanese territory or Iraqi insurgents targeting US forces), by definition terrorism only applies to indiscriminate use of massive violence against undefended civilian targets to bring about political change. Lobbing a grenade at US special forces obviously does not meet those criterion.

Another element that mitigates against the case is evidence that Khadr has been subjected to torture, which, if true, would break other conventions. Khadr’s best chance in that regard would have been for visiting Canadian officials to raise the matter with their masters in Ottawa. However, based on my previous experience at CSIS, there is little doubt that the officer who interrogated him in 2003 had been desensitized enough by his professional environment (a subject of Smokescreen, my book on CSIS published earlier this year) as to have prevented the empathy needed to raise the matter with CSIS headquarters, Foreign Affairs or the Prime Minister’s Office. In fact, a combination of hatred, racism, emotional isolationism and ideological brainwashing likely made it impossible for the agent to care. Cry as he might and profound though his wounds may have been, Khadr was facing an individual who was unable to make the necessary emotional connection. Khadr was the enemy, a case number, a dehumanized being, or “scum,” as I often heard targets referred to.

Sadly, in spite of all these factors, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper maintains that Ottawa will not request that Khadr be sent back to Canada, where he would have a better chance of getting a fair (or fairer) trial. By failing to do so, the Canadian government is complicit in a series of crimes committed by the US government and gives ammunition to those who argue that Canada should be a target of terrorism. Not only are Canadian troops in Afghanistan becoming increasingly active militarily and therefore seen as occupying forces, or agents of US imperialism, but Ottawa cannot even be bothered to care for its own — especially when the latter are Muslim.

Meeting the velociraptor

The man comes with some heavy baggage. US ambassador to Indonesia from 1986 to 1989, undersecretary of defense for policy from 1989 to 1993, deputy secretary of defense from 2001 until 2005 and president of the World bank from 2005 until 2007, Paul Wolfowitz — now at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council — has had a long, eventful career in the US government. He is perhaps better known as a prominent neoconservative and principal architect of the disastrous US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Wolfowitz was in Taipei this week to give a speech to the American Chamber of Commerce, which the media was invited to cover. One could be of two minds about attending a speech by an individual who has played such a prominent role in the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq — or, for that matter, for having fleshed out, over the past fifteen years or so, a US policy underpinned by military preemption and hegemonistic ambitions that has resulted in the loss of so many lives worldwide. Still, others would argue that Wolfowitz, as he himself describes himself, is a “true friend of Taiwan,” having played a role, among others, in the George H.W. Bush administration’s decision to sell Taipei F-16 aircraft in the early 1990s, as well as remaining a proponent of providing Taiwan with the military capabilities it needs to defend itself. From Taiwan’s point of view, one could therefore twist the old saying by pointing out that he may be a neocon, but he’s our (Taiwan’s) neocon.

One interesting fact about Wolfowitz’s speech was the total absence of security at the Shangri-la Hotel. Anyone could just have walked in, grabbed a sandwich and a seat in the “media” section, or come within touching distance of the man during the question-and-answer session following his speech. No credentials or business cards were asked of us. While Mr. Wolfowitz is no longer a government official, one would nevertheless assume that his responsibility in the Iraq War and close involvement on defense matters would warrant a modicum of security. My suspicion is that when in Taiwan, Wolfowitz and other US officials, active or retired, feel they are “among friends.” The same probably couldn’t be said of any country with a Muslim population.

Now, to the speech. After an unfortunate slip in his opening remark, where he said that the American Chamber of Commerce was looking forward to promoting relations between the US and China, Wolfowitz was all praise for Taiwan’s accomplishments, first on the economic side as one of the “Asian Tigers” and later as it embarked on the road to democracy — two successes that he claims have also had an impact in China as well as on the international stage. Taiwan’s democratization, he said, put the lie to the old belief that there is such a thing as “Asian values,” often a shorthand for the antidemocratic, authoritarian style of government epitomized by, but not limited to, Singapore. Wolfowitz also lauded the ability of Taiwanese to turn challenges into opportunities, which he said could be a byproduct of their country’s having the (mis)fortune of being located in a region of great strategic importance. Taiwanese always worry, they always need to fix something, he said, which perhaps makes them a nation of “warriors,” or “worriers.”

Throughout his speech and the question-and-answer session that followed, Wolfowitz made clear his view that the administration of Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) opening to China and conflict resolution drive across the Taiwan Strait had “lowered the temperature” and was a good thing, while hinting that the previous administration of Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) — whom he didn’t specifically name — may have created “unnecessary” problems. In the end, he said, closer ties between Taipei and Beijing are in the US’ interest, adding, however, that China’s military posture in the wake of warmer cross-strait ties remained an unknown and would play a significant role in how the US-China relationship develops.

Amid the new developments in the region, Wolfowitz said, Taiwan should strive to turn itself into a regional economic hub, much as Ireland did in the late 1980s. “If you set your mind to it, a lot of things can be done,” he said. He also looked favorably upon Taiwan’s revamping the rules on business investment in China and called on Taipei to move away from restrictions on sensitive technological investment, such as in the semiconductor sector.

His position on Taiwan gaining access to multilateral organizations was somewhat vague, although he seemed in favor of Taiwan joining the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization. Nevertheless, his emphasis on creating more international space for Taiwan did not seem to imply that joining official organizations was necessarily a prerequisite. Rather, he said that educating the world about Taiwan could be “a form of security expenditure.”

Regarding the likelihood that the US would move to strike a free-trade deal with Taiwan, he said he was pessimistic about the next congress’s willingness to move in that direction, given that regardless of which presidential candidate came into office, the composition of congress would not be as favorable to FTAs (in other words, Republicans are good for trade, while the Democrats aren’t).

Given his close past involvement in defense matters, it came as no surprise that the majority of questions asked by the media focused on that sector, especially the uncertainty that has surrounded the US$11 billion arms package to Taiwan. While distancing himself from comments by Admiral Timothy Keating, head of US Pacific Command (PACOM), last week that seemed to confirm that Washington had indeterminable “frozen” arms sales to Taiwan and adding that in his opinion Keating was in no position to officially represent Washington decisionmaking on the matter, Wolfowitz said that President Bush is a man who sticks to his commitments and that he would be surprised if, before his term expires, Bush did not honor that pledge. Asked about the impact of a longer-term “freeze,” Wolfowitz said he would not speculate on something that is unlikely to occur. (According to a source well-connected to the defense industry, nearly half of the items included in the arms package have either been delivered or will soon.) In other words, beyond US strategic interests in the region, congressional pressure, and notwithstanding the commitments included in the Taiwan Relations Act, Wolfowitz was saying that whether the full package of weapons gets delivered or not was contingent on whether Bush and the executive would stick to their word. (Depending on how it is played by the media, this remark could make waves in Beijing and Washington, as it either dares Bush to live up to his reputation or hints that the arms package will indeed pass before the end of Bush’s term.)

All in all, there wasn’t much to Wolfowitz’s speech that hadn’t been said already, and he kept the tough questions on defense at arm’s length by emphasizing that he no longer is a government official. Whether his new role in Taiwan affairs will be to Taiwan’s benefit or not remains to be seen, but my fear is that his track record will not go unnoticed in Beijing, which could over-interpret his role as meaning that the neocons are consolidating their grip on the Taiwan issue while reaching the conclusion that his appointment is part of a US grand strategy to encircle China in its own backyard. Whether Beijing would be right to believe this or not, labels do stick — especially when they were affixed at great human cost.

A different way in?

Repeated attempts by Taiwan to gain access to the UN and the WHO have all been shot down, and despite “thawing” relations between Taipei and Beijing (the principal reason behind Taiwan’s repeated failures at the UN) it is unlikely that situation will change any time soon. Beyond participation, as a full member or observer, at various UN bodies, Taiwanese reporters have also been barred entry, as UN media accreditation is contingent on UN membership, which in turn has as a precondition official statehood recognized by the international community. What this means is that at such events as the World Health Assembly in Geneva in May, Taiwanese reporters are not allowed to enter the building to report on deliberations — even when the topic under discussion might be Taiwan’s application to join the body, or its diplomatic allies’ call that Taiwan’s application be considered.

Continuing to seek entry via regular channels, or awaiting media accreditation from an organization that is beholden to Beijing, will not bring Taiwanese the advantages they seek, and will leave it in the dark. A new strategy is therefore in order.

In "Acting with ingenuity at the UN," published today in the Taipei Times, I propose an alternative that could give Taiwanese media a way in.

The Associated Press’ take on China

Language, language, how it shapes our perception of reality, especially when it is used by supposed “reliable” news organizations. I came upon a beautiful series of pictures taken in Taiwan yesterday of members of the country’s Amnesty International branch arranging their bodies to spell out 自由 “ziyou,” or “freedom,” in denunciation of human rights violations in China (see cover of the Taipei Times, July 13, 2008).

What readers of the Taipei Times will not see, however, is the original AP photo caption, which read “… as they denounce the Chinese government for allegedly violating human rights” (italics added).

“Allegedly? There is nothing “alleged” about human rights violations in China; rather, they are known and widespread. This is either sloppy journalism on AP’s part or an unconscionable attempt to demonstrate so-called journalistic neutrality to a degree that blinds it to reality. Did AP reporters in Rwanda in 1994 refer to an “alleged” genocide? Was a Palestinian family “allegedly” killed by an Israeli tank shell? Were Israelis eating at a pizzeria “allegedly” killed when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself at the entrance of the restaurant? Why the special treatment for China, as it arrests its citizens, executes more prisoners in a year than anyone else and murders demonstrators and dissidents?

Such language is dangerous, as it could numb the mind to the amplitude of Beijing’s repression of its people. By dint of using terms that question the validity of what is (or should) otherwise be universally agreed upon, less-informed readers could eventually reach the conclusion that Chinese do not face human rights violations, at which point Beijing wins, and the people lose.

Or perhaps newspapers should add caveats of their own when the use AP wire stories. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” Ms. Stein told the allegedly credible AP.

The great disconnect

The reports we see every night about the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan, could not be more aggravating. As the planet heats up and everybody from the middle class down feels the pain of rising food, oil and commodity prices, the leaders of the world’s richest countries are carousing with each other and feasting on meals that select Japanese chefs have reportedly been practicing for six months. One such meal probably contains more calories than a poor child in Africa will absorb in a week. And yet, those leaders have the gall to pretend to be seeking solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. While we swallow advice on how to reduce gas consumption, cut down on meals, remove ties in the office and forsake the car for the city bus or the bicycle, G8 leaders and their spouses are flown from all over the world for meetings that appear more hedonistic than constructive, and from whose outcome we can expect very little results. Continued ...

Bush and Fukuda in La-la Land

US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda officially announced yesterday that they would attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8. The reason the two leaders gave for deciding to attend, despite pressure that they refrain from doing so, were somewhat interchangeable — they did not want to “offend” the Chinese people (note the parroting of the oft-used term by Chinese officials) and China had made “some progress, at least in the talks with [Tibetan spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama and “they’re now making an effort.”

What an odd thing to say, given that the same day representatives of the Dalai Lama who have been in talks with Beijing since the deadly crackdown in March were expressing frustration at how little progress has been made, with Chinese officials seen as stonewalling and lacking serious commitment to the process.

Maybe Bush and Fukuda had their geography wrong and meant other developments, such as media freedom, which Beijing had committed to when it made its bid to host the Games.

Not according to the latest Human Rights Watch report on the matter, which says that media control in China has become worse in the past year and that Beijing has failed to lift restrictions on foreign correspondents — especially in the wake of the protests in Tibet in March. From January last year through April this year, more than 200 cases of officials interfering with reporting by foreign correspondents have been reported, HRW said, citing the Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents Club of China.

So things have not improved for foreign correspondents. What about Chinese dissidents and rights activists? As recently as the Sichuan earthquake, a number of activists were locked up for seeking to gain access to “restricted” areas or for criticizing how the government has handled the matter. Some were thrown in jail for trying to help families or for pointing out that a disproportionate number of victims were children who were crushed when the unsafe buildings (mostly schools) they were in at the time of the quake collapsed. Even as the Chinese government was applauded globally for its supposed “openness” during the emergency, it continued to harass and jail individuals who sought to tell a different story.

The search for the “improvements” and “efforts” continues.

As there are no perceivable signs of improvement on the Sudan/Darfur issue, perhaps the positive developments lie in the Taiwan Strait, where since Taiwan’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government came to power on May 20, tensions have lowered, culminating with the July 4 cross-strait charter flights and the arrival in Taiwan of hundreds of Chinese tourists. Surely Bush and Fukuda are elated at the possibility of peace in one of the world’s hottest “hot spots” for the past half-century, with the two sides finally talking to each other and committing to rapprochement.

But the problem is, that commitment appears to be one-sided. As Taipei gives and gives and gives, distancing itself from its traditional allies to please Beijing and opening its civilian airports — some critical to its military — to Chinese aircraft, Beijing has not done anything which would indicate that it is abandoning its plan to annex Taiwan, by force if necessary. In other words, despite Taiwan’s overtures, Beijing has retained the part of its policy on Taiwan that Washington has long characterized as a red line that cannot be crossed. In fact, not only has China not relinquished the military option, but it has continued to modernize its forces, conducted military drills involving civilian aircraft and airborne paratroopers that bore an ominous resemblance to an operation designed to occupy an airport and, as late as last week, it was reportedly deploying modern versions of Russia-made surface-to-air missiles that now brought Taiwanese airspace within range.

Tibet? Strike. Media freedom? Strike. Human rights? Strike. Sudan? Strike. Taiwan? Strike. Which begs the question: What improvements were Bush and Fukuda referring to? Either the leaders have the worst national security teams in the history of international relations, or, more likely, they simply chose to ignore reality to please Beijing, as everybody else does. Soon enough, other world leaders who in the past months have faced pressure from various groups to shun the Games in light of Beijing’s irresponsible behavior domestically and abroad, will have to decide where they want to be on August 8. Chances are, most will be in Beijing, cheering for the wolves in disguise.

Taipei’s deflecting strategy

With the Taiwanese stock exchange in a freefall and signs that Beijing may not be as indulgent on Taiwan as its negotiators had hoped, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is in a bind. A little more than one month into the presidency, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his Cabinet have proven incapable — or unwilling — to implement policies that under such circumstances could appease an increasingly restive population. While the global economic downturn, which is hitting Taiwan hard, cannot be blamed on the KMT government, the latter should nevertheless do more than simply call on Taiwanese to have “faith” — faith that things will get better, that the surge in Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan starting on July 4 will help improve the economy, and that better relations with Beijing will somehow make things right.

But in politics, faith is a dangerous commodity which can get depleted very rapidly — especially when people start losing millions of NT dollars in the stock market and when ordinary families start feeling the brunt of rising commodity prices and see that no action is being taken to help assuage the pain.

Seemingly without a clear strategy and uncomfortably dependent on the vagaries of the regime in Beijing, chances are that the full set of promises the KMT made during the presidential election will soon sound like a rhyme meant to put children to sleep. When that awakening occurs, and when discontent with the administration starts taking a shape other than dropping popularity polls, the government will either have to shift gear — and do so rapidly — or deflect attention elsewhere.

In an article titled "The oldest political trick in the book," published today in the Taipei Times, I explore the KMT’s possible use of that tactic, its historical precedents, and what this may mean for the nation’s future diplomacy.

Terrorism against Iran gets a boost

Renown investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has an important piece in this week’s edition of The New Yorker magazine titled “Preparing the Battlefield,” in which he exposes a recent increase in clandestine operations by the CIA and US special forces in Iran. While it is a long, rich piece of reporting that deserves to be read in its entirety, three main items stand out:

(a) While a Presidential Finding granting increased budgets for covert operations against the regime in Tehran ostensibly aims to legalize — and therefore provide appropriate oversight for — the activities of the CIA, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which falls under the military, is not bound by the limitations set in the Findings and therefore falls outside its ambit, which pauses serious questions about accountability and represents nothing less than a break in the chain of command.

(b) Preparations for the Findings and the extra budget it set aside were made around the same time as — and in spite of — findings in a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that downplayed the threat of the Iranian nuclear program, which the US and much of the international community suspect may conceal a weapons program. In other words, the conclusions reached in the NIE — a consensus view of the US intelligence community — were either insufficient to effect a change in policy, or, as was the case with the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, were simply ignored by the White House and the presidential advisers who are calling for military intervention against Iran.

(c) Part of the clandestine operations include funding organizations that oppose the Islamic regime in Iran, some of which, analysts say, are comprised of extreme Sunni elements with proven ties — brace yourselves — to al-Qaeda and who have committed acts of terrorism not only in Iran but also Turkey, a US ally and a member of NATO. Washington's paying one faction against another risks alienating regional allies of the US and, ironically, could very likely bring Baghdad and Tehran closer together.

Hersh’s piece is worrying, to say the least, as it shows how opponents to what increasingly looks like an inexorable march to war against Tehran within the US defense establishment (and in Israel) have been cast aside, much as happened during the Vietnam War and, more recently, in the Iraq fiaso. What’s also alarming is the fact that, in the words of one source interviewed by Hersh, regardless of which presidential candidate wins in the November elections, ongoing covert operations would continue for another year, with no apparent means to stop them.