The dumpling soup incident

I don’t want to belabor the topic of Chinese tourists in Taiwan, but something I witnessed during lunch today compels me to revisit the subject, if only so briefly. Eating my shrimp dumpling noodle soup and absorbed in Jay Taylor’s biography of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), my attention was suddenly drawn to a trio of people — one aged man and two mid-aged women — speaking louder than usual. From his accent, I could tell that the man was from China. Had their behavior been limited to the usual loudness with which Chinese carry a conversation, I would have written them off and continued on with my meal.

The real problems started when they got up to pay. I eat at that restaurant all the time and know its staff pretty well; the waitress who process their bill is a good-natured and soft-spoken lady in her late thirties. When one of the women started raising her voice and arguing with the waitress (with the man looming not far behind), and when another young waiter joined in the discussion, I knew something was wrong. The whole scene must have lasted five minutes, whereupon the trip departed in a hurry.

When my turn came to pay, I asked the waitress the obvious — that is, whether they were Chinese, and what the problem was. As it turns out, they were Chinese and didn’t want to pay the total amount of the bill, arguing that they’d run out of Taiwanese currency. This is hard to believe, given that there were three of them and the place isn’t exactly expensive (I had lunch there with my mother and aunt a couple of weeks ago for NT$240). The likelier scenario is that the Chinese were once again showing their arrogance and treating Taiwanese like second-rate citizens — in their own country.

Rather than create a scene or call the police, the waitress played the ever-so-kind Taiwanese and paid the difference using her own money, slightly shaking her head as she closed her purse.

This is a minor, thought I’m sure not isolated incident. It makes me wonder, though, if, as cross-strait investment and economic activity intensifies through financial MOUs and an ECFA, Chinese will not also try to cheat their Taiwanese counterparts out of their money, this time on a much grander scale.

Did the DPP fall into a US beef trap?

The expediency with which the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration announced it was lifting a partial ban on US beef imports — and the predictable response this engendered from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — raises questions about the government’s intent that go well beyond food safety issues. National Security Council Secretary-General Su Chi’s (蘇起) admission that “poor communication” marred the announcement is insufficient to dispel doubts that the move by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-led executive branch was a strategy to further undermine the DPP’s already strained relations with the US.

We must remember that a major aspect of Ma’s platform during his election campaign last year was his vow to “repair” relations between Taipei and Washington, which many KMT members — including Su — said had been “damaged” by eight years of DPP administration under president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Part of that logic, which often ignores the fact that many of the so-called irritants caused by the DPP administration were the result of the KMT’s antics in the legislature, dovetails with the well-cultivated image of the KMT as “rational” and less likely to turn to populist devices such as the DPP-led anti-US beef demonstrations over the weekend.

While the protests were not solely the affair of the DPP, they have nevertheless become associated with the party, mostly as a result of DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and former presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), among others, leading them and making speeches.

The KMT’s calculations were perfect, as it knew fully well that the DPP could not pass an opportunity to turn an otherwise apolitical issue into a political one. Even if, this time around, the DPP did put food safety first in organizing the protests, its long tradition of thinking solely about the next elections is such that doubts can linger about its honesty on the matter.

The Executive Yuan has now yielded to the pressure and claims that it will recommend additional screening measures that, in theory, will make it more difficult for US beef to enter the Taiwanese market. However, despite this about-face, it will be able to turn to Washington and claim that it had no choice in the matter and that the DPP is to blame for the “unfortunate” turn of events. By dint of repetition over the years, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Steven Young clearly highlighted that US beef has political undertones and is an important issue in Washington. In fact, it may serve as a yardstick by which to gauge the quality of relations between the US and Taiwan.

Back in the US, among beef-producing states and lobby organizations that have pressured AIT directors into insisting that the ban be lifted — and where understanding of domestic politics in Taiwan is limited — the main culprit for the reversal will, expectedly, be the DPP. As a result, the opposition’s image could be further tarnished, serving as proof that the DPP is, as the KMT has claimed, against trade and always a thorn in Washington’s side.

If Washington politicizes the matter and couples US beef with other issues such as arms sales, it would be easy for the KMT to blame the negative consequences on the DPP, which could have a significant impact on the opposition’s ability to regain seats in the legislature or the presidency in 2012. With this gambit, the KMT probably rightly assessed that the domestic political cost of failing to properly communicate its intention to lift the ban on US beef would be marginal, at least when contrasted with the long-term damage that could be caused to the DPP for spearheading the anti-US beef demonstrations. Even if the KMT had no such calculation, the DPP’s long history of organizing mass rallies for political gain could come back to haunt it.

Another possible outcome, this one perhaps desired by more pro-China KMT members, is the alienation of the US and the continuation of rapprochement with Beijing. Under such a strategy, the political cost domestically and electoral considerations have far less weight than widening the wedge between the US and Taiwan and, conversely, facilitating the drift toward China’s sphere of influence. If Washington were to overreact to a reversal by punishing Taiwan in other fields (arms sales, support for membership in international organizations and so on), the next logical step would be for Taiwan to turn to its newfound ally. Should this come to pass, the KMT could argue that it was abandoned by Washington, blame the DPP for the breakup, while achieving the objectives of pro-unification elements within the party.

If indeed it was a trap, it was a well-lain one. By failing to create a buffer between itself and the anti-US beef demonstrations and by playing its usual political games, the DPP fell into it and made it easier for the KMT to portray it as a troublemaker. In such a scenario, diplomacy would be urgently needed on the DPP’s part to mitigate any damage that its association with the protests may have caused to its image in Washington.

The trap also carries a second one — one that the US must avoid falling into. To avert a political disaster, Washington must decouple the beef issue from politics and treat it solely as an economic one. Should it fail to do so by politicizing the controversy and using it as justification for punishment, Washington could inadvertently realize the objective of some conservative KMT members whose ultimate objective is to undermine the US presence in the region and accelerate rapprochement between Taipei and Beijing.

It’s only beef, but by making it a political matter, both Washington and the DPP share the blame for turning it into a potential tie-breaker.

This article was published today in the Taipei Times.

What’s next, Chinese ‘patriotic’ education in Taiwan?

The Ministry of Education confirmed today that Taiwan could recognize Chinese diplomas obtained after 1997 as early as June next year, provided that the proposal is approved by the (KMT-controlled) legislature (meaning that it will).

The ministry plans to start by recognizing diplomas from 41 top Chinese universities — those that Beijing has poured more money into since 1985. Some of those academic institutions include Peking University, Tsinghua University, Tianjin University and Fudan University. Public universities would only be able to recruit Chinese graduate students, while private universities could recruit undergraduates.

Anyone who has read the paper “National Humiliation, History Education, and the Politics of Historical Memory: Patriotic Education Campaign in China” by Zheng Wang of Seton Hall University, published in International Studies Quarterly last year, would know that extra funding by Beijing most likely means more brainwashing in school curricula. If Jian Junbo (簡軍波), one of Fudan University’s top students, is any indication, products of that system never waver from the party line, not even after long exposure abroad — even in Western universities. (This is why, to use one example, so many Chinese students in the US supported Beijing when it cracked down in Tibet prior to the Olympics last year.)

The more Jians enter the school system in Taiwan, the more difficult it will be for Taiwanese students and professors to perpetuate their own historical discourse. The mix of chauvinism and strong nationalism that characterized the Chinese academics who spoke at forums in Taipei over the weekend — where they dictated and threatened, while exhibiting a total disinterest in learning from others — would also likely be present in those students, who from very early on have been fed a strong dose of CCP ideology and little else.

Another worry is that an influx of Chinese students embracing their own ideology would eventually result in strong demand for teachers from China, which could engender a process whereby Taiwanese teachers are slowly elbowed out — especially those who espouse a pro-independence line.

As Zheng and others have argued, schools play an important role in the formation of national identity. If the Chinese discourse is allowed to grow roots in Taiwanese schools — through students, curricula and perhaps professors — then Taiwanese identity will slowly be diluted, and future generations of Taiwanese will have little access to the material that, in their formative years, informs them about, and shapes, who they are.

Of course, all of this would be a different — and less worrying — thing if Chinese who come to Taiwan were actually keen on learning different opinions and bringing those new ideas back to China, in which case exchanges would be a positive development. But this isn’t the case, and the fault lies with the tremendous efforts at educational socialization that Beijing has made, starting in 1991, with its Patriotic Education Campaign.

Taiwan is under attack on many fronts. By opening up universities to Chinese students, a new beachhead could soon be stormed.

Opposition voices absent from cross-strait forums

The government made no effort to invite voices from the opposition to a recent series of forums on cross-strait diplomacy, a former Taiwanese government official said yesterday.

Commenting on the sidelines of a forum on a cross-strait peace agreement at National Chengchi University’s Institute of International Relations (IIR), Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), former Mainland Affairs Council chairman, said agencies under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration had failed to invite academics from the pan-green camp or former government officials to the forums, at which former Chinese Communist Party officials and Chinese academics were invited to speak.

“They had to invite me [this morning] because I’m a fellow here at the IIR,” Wu, the sole pan-green voice at the forum, told the Taipei Times, adding that the situation had been similar at a pair of forums held over the weekend to mark the 60th anniversary of cross-strait relations.

“[Chinese President] Hu Jintao’s [胡錦濤] confidant Zheng Bijian [鄭必堅] can come to Taipei and claim that the Taiwanese independence movement is doomed and some retired People’s Liberation Army general can threaten us the next day, but academics from the opposition are not invited,” Wu said.

When the Democratic Progressive Party was in power, we always made sure to invite those from the other camp to such events, he said.

This one-sided debate is hardly conducive to the process that is required to build consensus on cross-strait matters, Wu said, adding that pro-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) academics had a tendency to mirror Ma’s “polite” approach to China, which involves no criticism of Beijing’s human rights record.

“Topics such as a peace agreement are very important and this is the first time that both sides discuss them openly,” Wu said.

Unfortunately, with opposition voices absent there is no plurality of voices and the Ma administration can give the impression that its policies are widely supported, he said.

Wu also said that the American Institute in Taiwan had not been informed about the forums, adding that this was reminiscent of the US government being kept in the dark during negotiations on Taiwan’s participation at the World Health Assembly earlier this year.

This story was published today in the Taipei Times.

I had lunch with Dr. Wu after the morning session of the forum at the IIR, during which we also touched on the DPP’s financial woes, which prevents its members from travelling abroad to share their views, and the government’s preventing visiting dignitaries from getting in touch with former DPP administration members or pan-green academics. Dr. Wu said that Koo Kwang-ming (辜寬敏) was setting up his own think tank, which could perhaps help the DPP make more contacts abroad.

Ultimately, however, Wu said that the only voice the Ma administration is likely to listen to is that of the US government, and he agreed with me that so far it has been easy for the KMT to ignore isolated foreign voices or the opposition in Taiwan.

Wu also mentioned that the government appeared to be scrutinizing former the finances of former DPP government officials for any financial irregularities or leaking of classified information to hang them with. “If I am not careful,” Wu said, “they could get me.”

It is always a delight to listen to Dr. Wu or to have conversation with him. His love and passion for Taiwan is undeniable, and he is very supportive of those who are willing to help out.

‘Taiwan’s friend’ James Lilley passes away aged 81

James Lilley, American Institute in Taiwan director from 1981 to 1984, died in Washington on Thursday from complications related to prostate cancer. He was 81.

In his long career with the US government, Lilley also served as US ambassador to South Korea from 1986 to 1989, and to China from 1989 to 1991. Prior to entering the diplomatic field, Lilley worked at the CIA for 27 years, which he joined in 1951. His postings at the agency included China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Laos, Taiwan, Vietnam and Hong Kong.

When the US opened its liaison office in Beijing in 1971, Lilley became the first “declared” US intelligence official in China and the CIA’s first station chief in the capital.

Lilley, who later also came to be known as Li Jieming (李潔明), was born in Qingdao, Shandong, in 1928, where his father and role model, Frank Lilley, worked as a salesman for Standard Oil.

In 2004, Lilley published his memoir China Hands, which eloquently described his formative childhood in China, his years as a CIA operative and the power struggles between China, Taiwan and the US, including his first-hand experience of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

After his ambassadorship in Beijing, Lilley became a forceful — and public — proponent of greater US support for Taiwan, efforts that he continued after being appointed assistant secretary of defense for international affairs from 1991 to 1993. He often clashed with the US Department of State over arms sales to Taiwan, arguing that it would be unwise to grant Beijing the cutoff date that it sought.

Expressing her condolences to the family on Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called him “one of our nation’s finest diplomats.”

In its obituary, the Washington Post described Lilley as “one of the most pragmatic voices on the modern Sino-American relationship.”

In a statement on Friday, former US president George H.W. Bush, who was close to Lilley, described him as “a most knowledgeable and effective ambassador who served with great honor and distinction.”

On Saturday night, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) said Lilley had made many contributions to and spoken for Taiwan’s interests.

“His death is Taiwan’s loss,” he said.

This article appeared in the Taipei Times on Nov. 15.

‘Sorry, they’re Chinese’

On the eve of my relatives returning to Canada, I took them to one of my favorite northern Chinese cuisine restaurants in my neighborhood, a place that offers great variety and succulence. No sooner had we seated ourselves than a burst of laughter and loud conversation emanated from a table behind us. So intense was the noise that all three of us turned around to look. Throughout the meal, the same ear-splitting talk would shatter the otherwise calm ambiance in the restaurant, prompting our kind waitress to apologize profusely.

When I paid the bill, the lady said, rolling her eyes: Dui bu qi, tamen shi zhongguo ren. “Sorry, they’re Chinese.”

Indeed. Loud, disrespectful and chauvinistic. In our three weeks of travel, we ran into many of them. At the National Palace Museum, making it a point to touch every object bearing a “do not touch” sign or putting their hands on the windows, forcing a poor museum employee to follow them like shadow with her cloth and Windex, often shaking her head in dismay. At Sun Moon Lake, busloads of them careening down the narrow roads, roaring as if the world belonged to them.

Before returning home this evening, my aunt wanted to go to a Duty Free shop in Minquan Road, a spot that I know is a favorite of tour operators. Sure enough, a whole group of Chinese was there, their ID cards — and thick Chinese — identifying them as such. Again, they were loud, loud as if they’d never seen a shopping mall in their lives. In their haggling with vendors, they were aloof and often impolite.

As the good taxi driver told me in Kaohsiung last week, we like their money. But what an unpleasant experience it is to be around them. Is it worth it? What will it be like if — and when — they are allowed to travel alone rather than in groups? What if, at some point, they were allowed to rent cars? Would they bring the same type of chaos to Taiwan that drives my good friend Steve crazy whenever he travels to China for business?

I have nothing against Chinese per se, no underlying aversion to their people based on genetics. Rather, my problem with many of them is their social behavior, which is very revealing of the society and system in which they are brought up.

The diplomat in me usually wins over the temptation to turn to them and scream a good Taiwan jiayou! or Yi bian, yi guo at them. I don’t. Steve would have. Maybe I will.

Control

My interest of late has been the question of whether rapprochement between Taiwan and China would result in an erosion of freedoms in Taiwan — in other words, whether “peace” would come at the price of that for which Taiwanese spilled blood and time to accomplish after 40 years of authoritarian rule. Recent experiences with Taiwanese movies partly produced with Chinese money, or the disregard that the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration has shown for different opinions regarding ties with China or the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China are indications that closer relations will come at a price, which democracy heavyweight Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) highlighted in a recent article. Increased Chinese investment in Taiwanese companies and further involvement in the cultural sector can only exacerbate this development.

It is therefore important that people in Taiwan and supporters of Taiwan as a free, democratic society fully comprehend the extent of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over information and its unflinching repression of any view that does not dovetail with its vision. As I have written before, China has little compunction in imposing its views, even in other countries, as we witnessed in Melbourne earlier this year. Still, borders serve to mitigate its actions and it will not go all out to repress opinions in countries like Australia, the US or Canada. That it sees Taiwan as part of China, however, means that this buffer of sovereignty does not exist and that it will not hesitate to exert in Taiwan the pressures it has so successfully implemented at home to control its citizens.

The China: Resilient, Sophisticated Authoritarianism report, written by Joshua Kurlantzick and Perry Link for the Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians project by Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, provides a good start in understanding the extent of the CCP’s control measures.

Simplified, empty and too close

With relatives visiting Taiwan, I had the opportunity to leave my desk — the closest thing to the ivory tower in the world of journalism — and to visit, or revisit, many parts of the country. Unable to entirely shed my political skin, even on vacation I kept an eye out for Chinese tourists, their impact, and how the locals were reacting to them. Here are some brief observations on the subject.

Sun Moon Lake is, unsurprisingly, becoming increasingly commercialized. This is the age-old double-edged sword of tourism, where a balance must be struck between attracting tourists and keeping the environment as unchanged as possible. As we went there on a week day, there weren’t too many people around, but I can imagine that weekends would be a nightmare. On my first visit there two years ago, merchants were not overly aggressive in peddling their wares, but were more so this time around. Some stores now had signs in simplified Chinese, which I found a little unsettling. Anyone who knows of the substance “Ice-nine” in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat's Cradle would know where my fear comes from.

While in Kaohsiung, we went to the Liuhe Night Market and enjoyed great food, good deals and a much-needed foot massage after all this walking. The city was stunningly quiet — even the beautiful Love River waterfront, where we rented a villa-style apartment. Again, it was a weekday, but the contrast with Taipei was disturbing. It is hard to entirely attribute the situation to the Chinese boycott of southern cities, however, for surely before Chinese first began visiting Taiwan, tourists from other countries were going to the port city. A friendly cab driver (as always, the greatest source for intelligence on what’s going on anywhere) told us that there was some friction between local vendors and Chinese tourists and that some vendors in night markets no longer bothered to open their stalls as a result. Apparently, some Chinese tourists had a habit of poking food without buying anything (anyone who knows anything about stinky tofu knows that poking a hole in the crust ruins the whole thing). Asked for people’s impression of Chinese visitors to the city, the driver could not have been more blunt: “we like their money.”

After a delightful rest at the White Hotel in Kending and two days on the beach, we took the train from Fangliao, Pingtung County, and snaked our way along the mountainous east coast to Hualien, passing by such ill-fated stations as Sanmin Village, which suffered catastrophic devastation during Typhoon Morakot. The next day, after visiting the awe-inspiring Taroko National Park, our driver took us to the beach at Chishingtan, which is famous for its marble stones and is located right next to the Hualien Air Force base. Putting myself in the shoes of a Chinese spy, I could not help but be struck by how close we were to the base — at some points less than 100 meters, and only separated by a 7-foot concrete wall. We could see the F-16s on the tarmac as they taxied before takeoff and had a perfect view as they roared above our heads. 

While the aircraft are stored in inaccessible mountains, the opportunities for espionage — or sabotage — nevertheless remain. Discussing the matter with our driver, she told me that people caught taking pictures of the base are immediately told not to do so, a line of defense that might work with ordinary tourists but that is far for sufficient to deter determined individuals trained in the art of espionage. The proximity may have been acceptable when only Taiwanese or non-belligerents were visiting the beach, but today, with thousands of Chinese coming to the area, something will have to be done to increase security and create the buffer required to prevent intelligence-gathering, intrusions, and sabotage. 

Given that in time of war the F-16s would be Taiwan’s first line of defense in ensuring air superiority in the Taiwan Strait, it is obvious that more should be done to protect the aircraft and the base. Doing so would also demonstrate to the US government that the Ministry of National Defense is serious about defending the nation and preventing advanced US technology from falling into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army through theft. Such reassurances (though in themselves not sufficient) could make it easier for Washington to continue supplying Taiwan the weapons it needs to defend itself.

Having once again the chance to visit Taiwan from north to south, west to east, I was struck by the beauty of the country, its richness of life and people and ingenuity, as well as the kindness, openness and liberty with which people carry on with their lives. From ceremonies marking the opening of an electoral office in Puli, Nantou County, to Aborigines selling traditional food and performing traditional dances in the heart of Taipei on the weekend, all reinforced my conviction that this country deserves the attention of the international community and that its sovereignty must be preserved at any cost. 

One thing is certain: As a result of everything they’ve seen on this trip and how hospitable Taiwanese have been to them, Taiwan now counts two new goodwill ambassadors who will return home to Canada with news that Taiwan is, undeniably, a magnificent place.

Investors, bankers, soldiers, spies

Following my presentation on Chinese espionage at National Chengchi University’s just-opened MacArthur Center for Security Studies on Oct. 15, a member of the audience asked a question that has stayed with me and probably deserves elaboration on the short answer I provided at the time.

“Once relations between Taiwan and China improve,” asked a young man — an undergraduate exchange student from Dongguan, Guangdong Province — “do you think Beijing might, given the importance of the relationship for the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], decrease espionage activity against Taiwan?”

My answer was that regardless of how important Beijing sees its relationship with other countries, its collecting of intelligence continues unabated. In fact, while there is no arguing that China’s most important bilateral relationship is with the US (and increasingly so), the Chinese intelligence apparatus continues to engage in Cold War-style espionage, targeting the government, the military and the high-tech sector in the US. There is, therefore, no inverse correlation between the quality of the relationship and the breadth of espionage activity.

Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation, a report released on Oct. 22 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said that the Chinese government is ratcheting up its cyberspying operations against the US, using, as the Wall Street Journal wrote the same day, “a carefully orchestrated campaign against one US company that appears to have been sponsored by Beijing.”

In Canada, the then-director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Jim Judd, told a Senate committee meeting in May 2007 that “China accounts for close to 50 percent of our counter-intelligence program.”

A former Public Security Bureau official in Shenyang, Han Guansheng (韓廣生), who defected to Canada in 2001, has stated publicly that Beijing handles informants in Canada’s Chinese community and gathers intelligence on key economic areas.

Chen Yonglin (陳用林), a former Chinese political consul who defected to Australia on June 4, 2005, told the Toronto Star in June 2007 that “China has a huge network of secret agents and it is working hard to influence governments.”

He also told Australian authorities that Beijing had been overseeing a network of more than 1,000 spies and informers in Australia.

Hao Fengjun (郝鳳軍), a second defector in Australia who is believed to have been a low-level intelligence official, has confirmed that China has more spies in Canada than in any other country.

The UK’s Daily Telegraph reported in July 2005 that a Chinese intelligence defector in Belgium, who had worked at European universities and companies for more than a decade, gave the Surete de l’Etat, Belgium’s security service, detailed information on hundreds of Chinese spies working at various levels of European industry.

Oftentimes, even private Chinese firms that engage in what is ostensibly “pure” industrial espionage are found to have links to the Chinese government, as was the case with the Shenzhen-based company Chitron, which violated US defense export regulations and engaged in money laundering. US federal authorities recently established that Chitron’s main customer was the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, which conducts research, development and manufacturing of missiles and rockets.

Apart from its reliance on traditional spies such as academics, diplomats and journalists, China appears to be using private or semi-private companies to conduct espionage abroad. Because many Chinese firms have former CCP officials on the company board or are partly financed by state-owned banks, many can serve as conduits for intelligence gathering. Back in August 2003, a report by the Asia-Pacific Post said that some 3,500 Chinese spy companies, or fronts, had been identified operating in Canada and the US alone, a number that can only have grown in the past six years.

The US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia — all are key partners in China’s economic rise. And yet the espionage continues. Despite denials by Beijing, dozens of reports by various countries show that China’s spying is not only becoming more common, but also more refined.

TAIWAN

Based on these precedents, my answer to the Chinese student — one of about 30 currently studying for one semester at Chengchi — was that warm relations or not, Chinese espionage in Taiwan would likely continue.

What I should have added was that China’s espionage in other countries, aggressive though it may be, is mitigated by considerations of sovereignty. In other words, China is aware that it is operating in countries over which it has no claim of sovereignty, and this acts as a deterrent, forcing it to limit its activity to prevent overreach.

Taiwan, on the other hand, is a different story, because Beijing claims it as its own. As such, any consideration of sovereignty that applies to countries in which China conducts espionage and which acts as a deterrent against overly aggressive intelligence collection would not, in theory, apply to Taiwan.

Put differently, as China sees Taiwan as a domestic problem like Tibet, Xinjiang or rights activists, it would have no compunction in using the full array of espionage capabilities it has at its disposal to steal economic and military secrets or collect information on “dissidents” — that is, the independence movement or those who oppose unification.

Given that Beijing’s No. 1 domestic priority is stability, it has not refrained from using the full weight of its security apparatus to monitor and repress entire groups of people, arresting dissidents, shutting down law firms, banning publications and monitoring Internet communications. All of this has accelerated under Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

Once China gets its foot in the door in Taiwan — something that is happening now that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is opening up various sectors of the economy to Chinese institutional investment and allowing Chinese firms, tourism offices and banks to open branches here — it will be far easier for the Chinese intelligence apparatus to gather intelligence in this country.

The firewall that existed in the Taiwan Strait since 1949, which up until a year ago had made it more difficult, though not impossible, for Chinese spies to gather information in Taiwan, is being dismantled. Similar walls were brought down in the past decade or so in countries like the US, Canada and Australia. As we saw, along with investment and firms came Chinese spies; industrial secrets — worth tens of billions of US dollars — were stolen, as were military secrets. (As early as 1997, CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police published a report, titled Sidewinder, on the subject, which was watered down for political reasons.)

Since Beijing considers Taiwan a domestic issue, every sector of Taiwanese society will be fair game for Chinese espionage, and whatever off-limit areas may exist in other countries targeted by China will not apply. Furthermore, while Beijing is keen on obtaining economic and military secrets from other countries, those goals pale in comparison with the CCP’s mission of “reuniting” Taiwan. That historical imperative, added to the perception of Taiwan as a “domestic” matter, bodes ill for Taiwan as a target of Chinese espionage.

If nothing is done to bolster Taiwan’s counter-espionage capabilities — and so far the signals given by the Ma administration are not promising — the fears raised in Sidewinder and other reports could read like soap novellas.

This article was published today in the Taipei Times.

Can you spot the lie?

The following letter by Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) was published today in the New York Times:

Regarding “Taiwan and China” by Philip Bowring (Views, Oct. 7): In a turnaround from the confrontational stance of the past, the government of Taiwan is pursuing negotiations with mainland China. Cross-straight relations are progressing into a new era of peaceful development that bodes well for the prosperity of people on both sides.

Most of Taiwan’s people favor the decision to bar Rebiya Kadeer, the exiled Uighur leader, from visiting Taiwan but the government has allowed her film to be shown in Taiwan. This is in accordance with the law and out of concern for Taiwan’s national security and the public interest (by protecting freedom of speech).

As for the notion that Taiwan’s government has launched a witch-hunt against members of the previous administration in the name of fighting corruption, several points require exploration. Former President Chen Shui-bian, who was suspected of involvement in several illegal acts, including corruption and money laundering, was indicted in December 2008. Since then, many of Mr. Chen’s former aides and family members that were also accused of crimes admitted to some or all of the charges against them.

I want to stress that Taiwan sees the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan as the cornerstone of peace in East Asia. Improved cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China are advantageous to all parties.

President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration is determined to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and hold to the principle of putting Taiwan first for the benefit of its people. There is no question of accepting a Hong Kong-style “one country, two systems” arrangement. We need the international community to gain a deeper and more balanced understanding of Taiwan.

‘Liberty Times’ not part of media delegation to Beijing

On Oct. 14, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported the following:

High-ranking executives of Taiwan’s media outlets will visit China from Oct. 28 through Nov. 11 for discussions on ways and means of enhancing cross-strait media cooperation, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Vice Secretary General Ma Shao-chang said on Wednesday.

Headed by SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung, the 20-member group will visit Beijing and Shanxi Province to exchange views on journalistic exchanges with their Chinese counterparts and Chinese officials in charge of the media.

Currently, Taiwan and China allow correspondents from their major media outlets to remain on assignment on the other side for a maximum of three months on a rotating basis.

However, there have been calls for a “normalization” of journalistic exchanges between Taiwan and China through the reciprocal establishment of media branches or offices on each side. The Taiwan media delegation to China will include executives and senior journalists from SET TV, Formosa TV and the Liberty Times, which in the past were deemed as having embraced a pro-Taiwan independence stance.

After asking around, senior management sources at the Liberty Times — which is one floor above that of its sister newspaper, the Taipei Times, where I work — informed me that the Liberty Times will not be part of such a delegation. It appears that the Chinese version of the same CNA report read that the SEF had invited top Liberty Times executives to be part of the delegation, an invitation that the Liberty Times turned down. As such, the passage in the English version of the report, that “The Taiwan media delegation to China will include executives and senior journalists from SET TV, Formosa TV and the Liberty Times,” is wrong.

I have also learned from a credible source at the Liberty Times that contrary to what I had been told, the Liberty Times does not have a directive barring its reporters from going to China to cover major events. In at least one instance, however, China has refused to grant a visa to a Liberty Times reporter while showing a willingness to grant one to another reporter who was “acceptable” to the Chinese authorities.

The difference is not insubstantial, as it disputes the belief that management at the Liberty Times forbids its reporters from going to China.

UPDATE

I have now learned that the Apple Daily, which had also been invited by the SEF to be part of the delegation, is not welcome in China. So much for cross-strait media liberalization — the very subject of the meeting in Beijing later this month!

Paradigm Shift: Expanded opportunities for Chinese espionage in Taiwan

The MacArthur Center for Security Studies (MCSS) at the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University (NCCU), had its grand opening today, with six panelists — including The Associate Press’ Peter Enav, Wendell Minnick of Defense News and myself — discussing national security and the Taiwan Strait. About 125 people were in attendance, including officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Council, as well as foreign diplomats (AIT Director William Stanton made an appearance but did not stay for the round table). The MCSS is sponsored by the US-based MacArthur Foundation, with an annual budget of US$550,000 for three years. Its Web site can be accessed here.

Interestingly, about a dozen Chinese exchange students (undergraduates) were also present. In my short chat with them, they told me that the process of getting visas to come to Taiwan was very complex — especially on the Chinese side. They said that about 30 students were currently at NCCU for one term, until the Spring Festival.

I presented the following paper:

Paradigm Shift: Expanded opportunities for Chinese espionage in Taiwan

Introduction

While it is too early to render judgment on whether the cross-strait policies of President Ma Ying-jeou will create long-lasting peace in the Taiwan Strait, there is growing evidence that rapprochement has not resulted in a military drawdown on the Chinese side. In fact, while Beijing has shown some diplomatic “goodwill” toward Taiwan, the Chinese military posture vis-à-vis Taiwan has remained belligerent and, in some ways, has hardened. Beijing has refused to redirect or dismantle the 1,500 ballistic missiles it targets at Taiwan, and the rapid modernization of its armed forces, though not solely directed at Taiwan, has been accomplished with a Taiwan contingency very much in mind.

Given this, we can assume that this military posture is being replicated on the espionage front. This is arguably the area where China has benefited the most since Ma assumed office in May 2008, for while the military balance in the Taiwan Strait has gradually been drifting in China’s favor, there has been no fundamental change, no paradigm shift, in Taiwan’s ability to defend itself militarily. In other words, attacking Taiwan today would be just as formidable a challenge as it was, say, five years ago.

On the intelligence front, however, a paradigm shift has occurred. We are seeing today an unprecedented influx of Chinese visitors in Taiwan. This creates opportunities for Chinese intelligence to conduct surveillance, gather information and cultivate sources, “conscious” or otherwise. The second shift has occurred in the investment sector. By opening Taiwan to Chinese institutional investment, the Ma administration is exposing various sectors of the economy to economic espionage, technology transfer and cyber attack. In other words, while investment could be beneficial economically, we must not forget that China is not an ordinary investor and that it may have ulterior motives.

The threat assessment can be summed up with the following: While China’s intent and capabilities have remained stable in military terms, on the espionage front its capabilities have been greatly enhanced by Taiwan’s rapid opening to Chinese tourism and investment.

Tourists, or spies?

In late May this year, a Chinese tourist named Ma Zhongfei was caught taking pictures in a restricted area at the Armed Forces Recruitment Center in Taipei. We will probably never know whether Ma was simply curious, had improvised himself as a spy, or was acting on orders from the Chinese government. What is certain is that his actions were clumsy, overt, and not the work of a professional intelligence officer. This case nevertheless highlights the greater potential for spying by the Chinese intelligence apparatus.

Beijing has retained a tight grip on the Chinese who are allowed to visit Taiwan. By controlling the spigot, China is in an ideal position to insert agents posing as tourists or businesspeople, or to ask ordinary citizens to do something for the state, either for patriotic reasons or through blackmail. Given Taiwan’s relative lack of intelligence about ordinary Chinese, screening potential spies before they enter Taiwan will be a formidable, if not insurmountable, task. It will be even more difficult to keep tabs on Chinese visitors in Taiwan once restrictions on their movement are relaxed, which the Ma administration has said it would do. Clumsy Ma Zhongfei was caught, but for every one that is caught, many intelligence-gathering operations may have succeeded and gone unnoticed. As I have argued elsewhere, it is also possible that Ma Zhongfei was part of campaign to overload Taiwan’s security intelligence apparatus with a series pinprick “attacks.” By creating “info glut,” Chinese agents could generate so much noise that it becomes virtually impossible for Taiwan’s finite intelligence resources to tell credible threats from false ones.

For the past 60 years, strict rules on Chinese visitors to Taiwan meant that its borders were relatively secure from human intelligence (HUMINT) operations on its soil by Chinese agents. As a result, little effort was made to protect critical infrastructure, airports, telecommunication nodes, government offices and military bases from espionage. The sudden influx of Chinese in Taiwan, however, caught everybody by surprise, with the consequence that most of that infrastructure is now relatively accessible to anyone with an intent to conduct espionage. In some cases, “spies” do not even have to be highly professional to collect actionable intelligence.

Chinese media

The Ma administration has also shown its willingness to allow more Chinese media to operate in Taiwan and to water down restrictions on the duration of postings. Given the state’s control of most Chinese media, and in Xinhua news agency’s case its close ties with the Chinese intelligence apparatus, Chinese reporters also represent a real espionage threat to Taiwan. While there is a long history of journalism acting as a cover for intelligence officers — not only by China but also the US and the UK, among many others — Xinhua distinguishes itself by being seen by most Western intelligence agencies as an espionage threat. In fact, my former employer, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), always assumed that whoever was sent to Canada by Xinhua was an intelligence officer. In light of the situation in the Taiwan Strait and the high stakes involved, we can assume that whoever Chinese media deploy to Taiwan will not only be more aggressive in their intelligence collection, but also far more professional. By virtue of the greater access that the profession gives them, such agents could develop high-level sources, gather information on dissidents and members of the media, and provide a variety of actionable data on government, the military and critical infrastructure.

Chinese investment

After embracing market reform during the Deng Xiaoping era, China under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao appears to have backtracked on economic reform, with the state gaining more, rather than relinquishing, control over the private sector. While some critical companies (in the energy and communications sectors, for example) are fully owned by the state, the great majority of firms are semi-private or only private on paper, with funding coming from state-owned banks.

Many boards of directors and chief executive officers at such companies are retired Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. For example, China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou is a CCP official who has occupied various posts in government, while Zhang Qingwei, the chairman of the board at Commercial Aircraft Co of China, or COMAC, is chairman of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense of the People’s Republic of China.

With this in mind, the Ma administration’s decision to open various sectors of Taiwan to Chinese institutional investment is troublesome. While critical sectors, such as telecommunications, defense, semiconductors and LCD, remain off-limit or restricted for the time being, many others, such as real estate, banking, electronics and construction, are now — or will soon be — open to Chinese investment. One that door has been opened, little by little the Chinese could whittle away at Taiwan’s restrictions on investment, while Taiwanese firms may pressure Taipei to accelerate the pace of opening or lift restrictions altogether, until we reach a point where no sector is off-limit to Chinese investment.

Already, we have seen attempts by China Mobile to buy a 12 percent stake in Far EasTone Telecommunications (FET), Taiwan’s second-largest telecommunications operator, while the Taiwanese government-owned Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC), which among other things designs the Ching Kuo Indigenous Defense Fighter, has proposed cooperating with COMAC to co-assemble commercial airplanes.

As with tourists and journalists, the more contact there is between Chinese and Taiwanese, the greater will be the opportunities for Chinese individuals to collect intelligence, cultivate sources, conduct blackmail, set “honey traps” and so on. Furthermore, institutional contact will involve creating data links between Taiwanese and Chinese parties to facilitate the sharing of information. The consequences of Chinese investment in the banking and telecommunications sector could be dire for Taiwanese, as Chinese intelligence could far more easily gain access to personal and credit information at the source (e.g. theft, malware, etc), or by conducting intercepts on electronic conversations, transactions and so on. Aside from purely economic espionage, the principal targets of such activity could be government and military officials, as well as the Taiwan Independence movement, members of the opposition, and its supporters. Creating an in-depth profile of such individuals and drawing a link network (i.e., who knows who) would therefore be far easier than it has been in the past.

Implications

All this is contingent on the Taiwanese government’s assessment of the threat. Previous Taiwanese administrations also opened certain sectors of Taiwan to Chinese investment, or allowed Chinese to visit Taiwan. But as their threat perceptions was far more cautious than that of the Ma administration, they set quantitative and qualitative limits to ensure that national security would not be undermined. The Ma administration, however, seems to live under the premise that its still testy cross-strait initiative has resulted in an immediate change of posture in Beijing. In fact, in the wake of Typhoon Morakot, Ma was arguing that nature, rather than China, was the nation’s greatest enemy. There are indications as well that the National Security Bureau (NSB) under secretary-general Su Chi has adopted a more China-friendly attitude, which implies that its threat perception may have changed. A close reading of Chinese elite views on Taiwan,[vi] however, or an assessment of its Order of Battle (ORBAT), shows that cross-strait dialogue has not been accompanied by goodwill in terms of the behavior of the Chinese military and intelligence apparatus. The kind of assistance, if any, that the Taiwanese government provides to the industry to help it protect itself against Chinese espionage will be a good indication of whether Taipei takes the threat seriously or not.

Lastly, while there is no knowing what will happen in cross-strait dialogue, as the two sides start addressing more contentious aspects of the relationship — political issues, sovereignty and so on — frictions are bound to arise, not only in the dialogue itself, but from within Taiwanese society, which could threaten to derail Ma’s plans through electoral retribution in 2012. Should Beijing fear a return of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the Presidential Office in 2012, it could decide that force is the only option and could do so in concert with aggressive intelligence operations in Taiwan. Given the paradigm shift that has occurred since Ma came into office, Beijing would be in a far better position to target Taiwanese society, critical infrastructure, government buildings, and military bases — the direct result of the intelligence collected by Chinese agents while Taiwan slept.

Government keeps mum after alleged missile test

By J. Michael Cole
STAFF REPORTER, WITH AFP, TAIPEI

Taiwan has carried out a major missile exercise less than a fortnight after China showed off advanced ballistic weaponry in a massive National Day parade in Beijing, local Chinese-language newspapers reported yesterday. The Presidential Office, however, declined to confirm or deny the reports.

Missiles capable of striking major Chinese cities were launched on Tuesday from the tightly guarded Jioupeng (九鵬) base in Pingtung County, both the pro-opposition Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) and the pro-government United Daily News reported.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who has been accused of being too friendly with China, was among the observers of the exercise, the papers said, citing a “reliable military source.”

Both Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and the Ministry of National Defense yesterday declined to comment on the reports.

The Apply Daily yesterday quoted anonymous military sources as saying that Ma was “very satisfied” with the missile test.

The missiles tested included the Hsiung-Feng 2E (HF-2E), which has a range of around 600km and has not yet officially entered the military’s inventory, the media reports said.

The missile is intended for launch from both land and sea and would be capable of striking airports and missile bases in southeast China, as well as cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, military experts say.

In the annual presidential address on Double Ten National Day, Ma said Taiwan would “never ignore the other side’s military threat despite significant improvements in cross-strait ties.”

China celebrated 60 years of Communist rule on Oct. 1 by parading high-tech weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, through the streets of Beijing.

Asked for comment yesterday, Wendell Minnick of the Defense News global weekly said: “I am skeptical there was a test of the HF-2E cruise missile. For one, we are only a couple weeks away from the first economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] meeting with China and I do not believe Ma would do anything to upset that meeting.”

“Second, [Taiwan’s] budget for Hsiung-Feng 2E was cut last year,” Minnick said. “Third, if there was a missile test, it was for the Hsiung-Feng 3 anti-ship missile or the Tien Kung 3 air defense missile, but that is a big maybe.”

Developed under extreme secrecy at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology in Taiwan, the Hsiung-Feng 2E missile program has run into difficulties over the years. Defense News reported in October 2007 that the US State Department had been pressuring Taipei to cancel the program because of its offensive nature.

The US defense establishment is also reported to have refused to provide Taiwan with terrain- mapping data necessary for the missile’s guidance system, although sources say such systems could have been obtained from a third party.

While the Taiwanese government has pledged to only develop and acquire defensive weapons, pressure mounted under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration to develop a deterrent capability.

Link to article.

Security Prison 21

It was a cool evening in Phnom Penh, the low-lying French colonial houses in the capital slowly fading into the bluish darkness as I gazed from the rooftop of the Chinese-owned Golden Gate Hotel, situated in the posh diplomatic neighborhood. It was also surprisingly silent — nothing like the constant roar of cars, buses, MRTs and motorcycles in Taipei or other big Asian cities. As night fell, my thoughts turned to the city’s past — three decades ago, to be precise, when a nightmare of unprecedented evil would descend upon the city, force everybody out, and reset the clock to zero in an orgy of bloodletting. From my vantage point, I could almost see families being forced from their homes; men, women and children, at first not comprehending what was happening, being murdered in the streets by the Khmer Rouge, or taken away to the Killing Fields, where more than 2 million Cambodians were slaughtered.

Before being taken to one of the 800 mass graves discovered so far in Cambodia, many Cambodians were held at the infamous S-21, which prior to being turned into a prison had been the Chao Ponhea Yat High School. Today, the site is known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, which I visited on Saturday.

In a mere four years (from 1975-1979), an estimated 20,000 Cambodians are believed to have been held at S-21, which consists of a few concrete complexes surrounded by barbed wire and a few desolate trees. Even as a school, the buildings must have been grim. Reconfigured by the Khmer Rouge as a prison and mostly left the way it was found when the Vietnamese liberated the capital in 1979, the buildings have retained an aura that can only be explained as lingering evil. The moment one approaches them, one is visited by the uncomfortable feeling that something not right, almost inhuman, happened here. Decades have failed to completely wash that sticky darkness away.

One three-story-high building is filled with row upon row of pictures of Cambodians — men, women and children — who at one point were detained there. A few are smiling, suggesting that the pictures were taken when the revolution was still young and news had yet to spread about what was going on. Many looked defiant, others terrified. The great majority — even the children — had the eyes of grown-ups who had seen their share of atrocities. Other pictures showed the narrow wooden chair on which prisoners were ordered to sit while their picture was taken, a vise-like device holding the head straight from behind. One picture has a young woman sitting on such a chair. She is holding a baby. Thousands of pictures. All of them were massacred. The “fortunate” ones were taken to one of the Killing Fields nearby and killed there, usually with farming equipment so that the precious bullets could be spared to fight the Vietnamese. The less “lucky” ones — former government officials, the educated class — were subjected to torture so evil in nature that the act cannot be reconciled with the need to extract information. In fact, there is only one way to explain what went on there: the torturers took delight in inflicting horrendous, sadistic pain on their victims. In other words, torture was not a means to an end, but was rather the end in itself, evil unleashed for no purpose.

The next building shows us what happened. Climb a few stairs and you find yourself on a balcony surrounded by barbed wire, designed in such a way that while it would prevent inmates from running away, the wounds inflicted would never be severe enough to make suicide an option (some, however, were able to put their hands on knives or pistols and managed to do so). The rooms on the ground floor are fairly large, perhaps five by seven meters. There is nothing in them, aside from an iron bed frame in the center. On one wall, a black-and-white picture shows the state the room was in when it was discovered in 1979: human remains shackled to the bed, twisted like insects, their banged-in faces frozen in agony and a pool of dark blood underneath the bed. Here again, various agricultural instruments were used: axes, shovels, knives, pincers. Room after room, the spectacle of horror is the same. Only the victims differ, and the manner in which they were tortured and finally murdered. It is easy to imagine oneself in such a room, or the cries that must have emanated from them, even if special glass windows were used to dampen the sound.

Another building has the holding cells, their size depending on which floor they are located. Some were meant for groups, while others were individual cells, about one-by-one meter. The separations are made of red brick and the narrow wooden door has a small window at the center. The hours spent locked in those rooms must have been interminable and harrowing.

After S-21, a one-hour bus ride will take you to Choeung Ek, one of the Killing Fields on the outskirts of the city. The name itself has an ominous ring to it. There, among the grassy knolls and ancient trees, thousands were eliminated and thrown into mass graves. As one walks around the area, bone remains, pieces of clothing still dapple the ground, left untouched as monuments to what happened here. “Here lie the remains of about 100 women,” a wooden placard reads, just above a small pond filled with murky water. Here lie about 150 corpses, reads another. Then there is the “magic tree,” which was used to hang loudspeakers that blasted loud noises to drown out the moans of people who were being executed. As many as 20,000 Khmers are believed to have been murdered there. At the center, a simple shrine has been erected, which contains the skulls of about 8,000 Cambodians. May the souls of the dead rest in piece, reads a card left behind by visitors from the Japanese Red Cross. Underneath the skulls, clothes have been piled up, ostensibly belonging to the many victims. All over the county, similar shrines, their bellies filled with skulls and bones, can be found, reminding us that the nightmare spared no one. City dwellers and peasants alike were all fair game in Pol Pot’s infernal revolution.

I visited S-21 and Choeung Ek with a group of students from Taipei American School. Sadly, most didn’t seem to fully grasp the significance of those locations, or simply couldn’t relate to them. One or two didn’t want to visit, but we made them. Horrible though these places may be, they serve as reminders of man’s potential for inhumanity — an extreme, granted, in Cambodia’s case — and of the fact that these things can happen again. Fifteen years after the liberation of Cambodia, about 800,000 Rwandans were being killed in genocide. Never again are empty words, mere slogans, if we fail to learn from the past, whcih is why I found it unfortunate that the children I was with did not seem interested. Some of them are descendants of victims of the 228 Massacre in Taiwan, where as many as 20,000 people were massacred by the KMT regime. Taiwan had its very own S-21, which was located on Green Island. The horrors there were of a different degree, granted, but no less real for that. Other students were from South Korea and will soon have to do their military service. Their home country faces an unstable enemy that, in a matter of hours, could incinerate Seoul and kill tens of thousands, if not more. 

It can touch them. It can touch all of us. We cannot afford to ignore these things, or believe that we are exceptional in that somehow history would spare us. It spares no one.

Life, however, goes on, and Cambodians are healing, however slow and painful the process may be. A handful of surviving Khmer Rouge officials, including the director of S-21, are now in the dock and awaiting trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. Justice was never served to Pol Pot, who passed away before he could be apprehended (for many years, top Khmer Rouge figures were allowed to walk freely, while others fled overseas or across the border into Thailand). Lower Khmer Rouge militants, for their part, faced immediate justice after the Vietnamese came in: they were sent to the wall and executed.

All things in balance. The principal reason for the trip was to build houses for 10 families who, because of their deeds in the previous year, had been selected by villagers. The site was a mere hour’s drive outside Phnom Penh and was striking for its poverty (as a local reporter told me, there’s Phnom Penh, and then there’s Cambodia). The contrast with the capital, what with its diplomatic compounds, bars, restaurants and SUVs, could not have been more obvious. Entire families lived on next to nothing, proof that whatever money is being made has yet to trickle down to ordinary Cambodians, who make the great majority of the population. Only a small corrupt clique, fed by diplomats, NGOs and international aid (China and the US are fighting it off for influence, the same local reporter told me), as well as the proceeds from illegal logging, mining, prostitution, and sheer corruption, is benefiting and prospering. In that injustice, I fear, may lie the seeds of the next revolution, which could reopen old, terrible wounds and unleash yet another round of bloodletting. Looking at the beautiful, brown-skinned children who found joy with a mere soccer ball, I hoped against hope that unlike previous generations, they would be allowed to prosper and not be visited by some new iteration of the Khmer Rouge demons.

Interview with Martin Jacques, Part Two

Part Two of my interview with Martin Jacques, author of When China Rules the World, was published today in the Taipei Times. In it, Jacques turns to the notion of “contested modernity,” Taiwanese independence, Western reactions to his theory and the possibility of a trade war between the US and China.

From this interview, and the great amount of material that was generated during our discussion but didn’t make it into the final text, my sense is that Mr Jacques equates “modernity” with brand new airports, skyscrapers and double-digit GDP growth and that the cost to the environment and personal freedoms is only of secondary importance. This definition of modernity, in my view, is rather narrow, as it does not encompass more novel notions of modernity such as environmental protection — which sometimes acts as a brake on industrial development — and personal freedoms. Based on his definition of the term, big Chinese cities, pollution and repression notwithstanding, are more “modern” than, say, Taipei, whose development may have been less striking in the past decade (of course, rapid development will be more impressive when it starts from nothing, which wasn’t the case with Taipei, whose development began much earlier). The same holds for GDP growth; gone are the times when Taiwan will experience the same rapid pace of growth that developing economies like China and India have seen, simply because Taiwan is already a developed economy, and rapid growth cannot be sustained indefinitely.

Jacques was a very agreeable person to be with and he seemed to appreciate being challenged on some of his assumptions. While readers are likely to find much to disagree with in Jacques’ book, there nevertheless is value in our own assumptions being challenged by a work that — in Jacques’ own words — was geared more towards Chinese readers than those in the West. Sadly, making his work “acceptable” in China, an issue that is raised in the interview, may have come at the cost of a rosier picture of the Chinese Communist Party than was warranted. In one instance, for example, Jacques claims that the communists played a prominent role in the resistance against the Japanese during World War II, a view that has now largely been discredited (I raised the matter with him, to which he replied that he had yet to be convinced by the “evidence” his detractors had shown him, adding that such questions were a matter of opinion rather than facts).

BOOK REVIEW: Su Chi’s ‘Taiwan’s Relations with Mainland China’

Su Chi, sometime government official, sometime academic, shows his political colors in his treatise on cross-strait ties under Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian

The problem with academics who are also politicians is that they tend to say one thing when in office, and something quite different when they’re in academia. This certainly applies to National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Su Chi (蘇起), who is both an academic and has a long history of involvement in government under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and in the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration, and served as a legislator for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for a good part of Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) presidency. Su the political animal has a weakness for hyperbole, such as when, in October 2007, he claimed that Taiwan was developing nuclear weapons, which was false.

A consequence of this is that Su the academic must be approached with caution. That being said, this does not mean Taiwan’s Relations with Mainland China: A Tail Wagging Two Dogs is a bad book. In fact, it’s a fairly good book — at least when Su manages to restrain his political Mr Hyde.

Su’s book covers the period from 1988 through 2004, which includes tentative efforts to open diplomatic talks across the Taiwan Strait all the way to the end of Chen’s first term as president.

My review of Su’s book, published today in the Taipei Times, is available in HTML and PDF.

INTERVIEW: China to ‘rule the world,’ British author says

Published earlier this year, British author Martin Jacques’ book When China Rules the World argues that the global environment is being reconfigured as a result of the re-emergence of China, a ‘civilization state’ with such a long and complex history that Western concepts of modernity cannot fully account for its significance. Jacques sat down with Taipei Times staff reporter J. Michael Cole on Tuesday to discuss this development.

Part One of my interview 1-hour, 46-minute interview with Martin Jacques during his two-day passage in Taiwan as part of his Asia book tour, is available here. Part Two will be published in the Monday edition of the Taipei Times.

Let’s turn the wire crap filter on — again

Good old Agence-France Presse (AFP) has done it again. This time, reporter Amber Wang, or whoever edited the piece afterwards, managed to bring their reporting to a new low not only by misrepresenting developments, but clearly getting the facts wrong. Let’s dissect:

China plans to sign a key financial pact with Taiwan later this month as a reward for the island barring a visit by Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, a report [by the Commercial Times] said Thursday … [citing] remarks by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office officials to Taiwanese businessmen in Beijing ahead of the mainland’s Oct. 1 National Day. The arrangement was made after Taiwan decided last week to prevent exiled Kadeer, branded a “criminal” in Beijing, from making a trip to the island, the paper said. [my italics]

Here’s the facts: Taiwan and China have been discussing the financial pact for months, and even before Kadeer was invited to Taiwan it was expected that the agreement would be signed later this year (with an ECFA following early next year). It is therefore misleading to portray the signing of the pact as a “reward” for the Taiwanese government’s decision not to allow Kadeer to visit. To be fair, the Commercial Times may be the originator of that lie, which AFP simply would be perpetuating.

For different reasons, financial pacts are important for both Taiwan and China — perhaps even more so for China, given the political implications of further tying Taiwan’s economy to China’s. Given this, and since abandoning the pact would go counter to Beijing’s interests, it is downright incorrect to refer to China as “rewarding” Taiwan for something. It also encourages the distorted notion that Taiwan is embracing Beijing’s ideology (on Uighurs) and as a consequence reaping the economic rewards, while providing the image of a father figure (China) rewarding its child (Taiwan) when it “behaves.” Kadeer or no Kadeer, visit or not, that pact was to be signed, period.

AFP continues:

The opposition Democratic Progressive Party will show Kadeer’s film and a documentary on alleged Chinese repression in Tibet later Thursday to demonstrate Taiwan’s support for freedom and democracy, it said. [my italics]

There is nothing alleged about repression in Tibet — it’s a fact. Truth be told, the very person who made the documentary has been jailed by Chinese authorities for making it. There is documentation, eyewitness reports, photographs and various electronic recordings of Chinese repression in Tibet, from 1951 onwards. If stark facts such as Chinese repression can be made light of, what other fundamental aspects of our world is AFP not taking seriously, realities easily discarded or conveniently ignored when doing so coincides with the rising untouchable giant?

China’s ‘terrorists’ are now Taiwan’s

It is the prerogative of governments to decide who can and cannot enter their borders based on national interest considerations. In that regard, the Taiwanese government was entirely within its rights when it said on Friday that it would not give an entry visa to Uighur leader Rebeiya Kadeer if she applied for one following an invitation by Taiwanese groups for her to visit the country.

Had Taipei limited itself to saying that a visit by Kadeer it this point in time would be “inappropriate,” that it risked “damaging” relations between Taiwan and China — or even that it was not in the “national interest” — the denial could have been bearable, however begrudgingly.

In rationalizing its decision, however, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) entirely undermined its credibility by adding that the World Uyghur Congress is related to “a terrorist organization” — ostensibly the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). “We are trying to prevent terrorism from overshadowing Taiwan,” Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) told the legislature on Friday.

Terrorism overshadowing Taiwan? Based on whose assessment — that of Taiwanese intelligence agencies? US? Or Chinese? Furthermore, even if, as it sought Chinese acquiescence prior to its invasion of Iraq in 2003, Washington agreed to list ETIM as a terrorist entity (a decision that is now being questioned), it never recognized Kadeer as a terrorist, as doing so would have constituted guilt by association (in fact, after being sent into exile from China, Kadeer received asylum in the US).

It now appears that Taiwan’s assessment of who can and cannot be allowed in the country, and of what constitutes terrorism, is dictated by Beijing. In fact, the Taiwanese government never listed ETIM as a terrorist entity. It was unnecessary for the MOI to add the reference to terrorism, unless it felt the need to signal, to Beijing and the rest of the world, that Taiwan under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) now sides with China on issues of self-determination, seeing “splittism” as coterminous with terrorism.

In many online forums and comments posted on Chinese newspaper Web sites, Taipei’s decision is being feted by overtly xenophobic and racist readers as “wise.” If wisdom means mirroring the views of a murderous authoritarian government, then the government under Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is indeed becoming wiser.

Mobilize — now!

I’ve long been a believer in retributive democracy — in other words, using election to “punish” governments for their misdeeds. But the way things are going right now, with the judiciary acting in a way that is reminiscent of Garrison Command in Taiwan and using the “law” to target a widening circle of pro-independence officials from the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration (while dropping cases involving members of the pan-blue camp), would waiting until 2012 to achieve this too long a wait? Some other form of mobilization is direly needed, both in Taiwan and abroad among its supporters, but I’m just not seeing it! I see many bystanders shaking their head, but some odd (if not inexplicable) sense of powerlessness seems to prevent them from acting. I find this hard to explain and welcome my Taiwanese readers to share their views on this: What they think is the cause of this, and means by which this could be remedied.

I’ve written many pieces calling on Taiwanese to get “angrier” and to not act like sheep — all well received — but this led nowhere. Someone with gravitas in Taiwan (and this has to be a Taiwanese) will have to rise up and say enough is enough. The Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration, and now the judiciary, are just not listening. I increasingly wonder if the tool of democracy might not be unsuited for a situation like this, when one side in the “conflict” simply acts in an undemocratic manner.

Thoughts on the 10 Conditions

On a related subject, it is interesting to see how often Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese officials accuse the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of trying to “cause trouble” or “derail” cross-strait talks through shenanigans such as inviting the Dalai Lama and presenting The 10 Conditions of Love, the film about Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. What the KMT doesn’t seem to understand is that the DPP, along with the opposition writ large, feels powerless, mostly because of the KMT’s quasi-total control of the executive and legislative branches and its refusal to listen to public apprehensions and to explain its policies. It blames the opposition for acting “irrationally” — a term long favored by the KMT when describing the DPP — but does not realize that the fear of the unknown that drives this type of behavior is of its own making. Seeing little alternatives to be heard, of course the opposition will politicize visits and movies, and try to “derail” cross-strait talks. What else can they do when the legislature is a one-sided street while the executive acts in an increasingly authoritarian manner, a reality that can only be exacerbated when Ma becomes KMT chairman. People are cornered and they will do whatever they can to be heard.

Another factor behind this tactic is that it serves to reaffirm Taiwan’s values while determining whether remains possible, on Taiwanese soil, to invite whoever we want to invite, or show whichever movie we want whenever we want. Under a fully democratic system, these used to be taken for granted. It seems we can no longer make that assumption.

Reactions

I encourage readers to read the following article in the Global Times about reactions to the screening of the Kadeer documentary. It’s that bad. Note, for one, that Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is referred to as “Taiwan ‘Premier,’” and that Xinhua news agency refers to Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) as “Chen Shui-bian the second.” A so-called Chinese expert, meanwhile, claims that “The separatists [sic] in Taiwan are being marginalized, and their political power has been compressed [sic] … They have to collude with the separatists in Xinjiang and Tibet to make their own voices heard.”

Note, too, the transparent attempt by Chinese media to split Taiwan into two bickering entities — Taipei, which like Beijing “criticizes” Chen Chu, and Kaohsiung, in the south, which is filled with “separatists.” The fact is, “Taipei” — that is, the central government — did not criticize the move; only some KMT legislators did (in fact, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin 郝龍斌 has just announced that he welcomed the documentary being shown in Taipei, adding, however, that the city government would not sponsor it). This is an overt attempt to portray Taiwanese “separatists” as isolated and without appeal in northern cities.