CSIS Public Report 2007-2008: A feeling of déjà vu

My former employer, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), released this week its 2007-2008 Public Report, in which, as it does every year, it provides an assessment of the threat environment and the organization’s priorities. As with every annual release, the report is an exercise in vagueness, and aside from the message from the director, Jim Judd, section, is almost verbatim what had been provided in previous reports from 2001 on. Given that CSIS tends to recycle and rehash information in not only its operational reports, but also in court affidavits and Federal Court warrants, it is no surprise that the unclassified annual report would fail to give new information.

As always, we are told that terrorism was the No. 1 investigative priority, followed by espionage and proliferation. Naturally, the report spends quite a bit of time on terrorism, mentioning the principal actors and countries where, since 9/11, terrorist attacks have been committed, while repeating, for the 6th year in a row, that al-Qaeda has singled Canada as an “important ally of the U.S. and is therefore deemed a legitimate target by the group.” It also writes that because of its participation in Afghanistan, Canada may appear as a legitimate target for attacks. While no Canadians have been targeted in recent years, the report tells us, it does not mean that the threat is any less, which, absent details, the reader must take on faith. Not a single reference is made to specific counterterrorism cases in Canada, except for the brief mention of the detonation of an explosive device outside a Jewish community center in Montreal in April 2007, which caused damage but no injuries. Including this incident in the terrorism section is actually misleading (and shows how little CSIS has to offer), as — to quote the Gazette newspaper — “The pair [of suspects] were arrested Thursday morning and questioned. The investigation did not turn up links to any terrorist or hate groups, said Constable Christian Emond, of the Montreal police fraud and arson squad.”

Stretching the definition of terrorism even further, the report continues:

Terrorism, however, remains a real threat to the safety and security of Canadians. Since the 9/11 attacks in the U.S (in which 24 Canadians were among those killed), there continue to be major terrorist acts committed across the globe. In Afghanistan, 301 Canadian soldiers were killed in 2007-08, most of them victims of improvised explosive devices … or roadside bombs.

Sad as the deaths of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan are, they did not fall at the hands of terrorists, as they are a foreign military occupying another country. To refer to the deaths of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan in its terrorism section is misleading and either underscores a lack of understanding of terrorism by the authors of the report, or a desire to muddy the water by making the threat of terrorism against Canadians seem more serious than it actually is.

The rest of the report is equally thin on specifics and does not provide anything new. In the espionage and foreign interference section, the usual intelligence-gathering activities of foreign powers — industrial espionage, cyber attacks, etc — are mentioned, but none of the principal suspects (China, Russia) are mentioned. Not even once. Nor are we given any information on actual foreign activities on Canadian soil. Instead, the report once again repeats the old “Canada as an ally of the US,” “Canada as an advanced industrialized country,” “Canada as a NATO member” as reasons why it is being targeted — with more sophistication and aggressiveness, the report claims.

The rest of the report is equally uninformative, with statistics on number of employees, gender representation, budget (C$389 million for FY2007-08), and donations to charity. A brief mention of the need for more review and accountability is made, but nothing is said about what CSIS or monitoring bodies, such as the Inspector General and SIRC, have done to ensure more transparency — except for CSIS’ outreach program, which is more an exercise in PR targeting academia and the media rather than a real means to ensure that CSIS act with honesty.

In all, with a few minor exceptions, someone who reads the 2007-08 report will not be learning anything new. I remembering memorizing, almost to the letter, the 2002-03 report during the many months I was involved in the hiring/screening process to become an intelligence officer at CSIS. Five years on, very little has changed …

Wang Jin-pyng addresses the TFCC

Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) met the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club (TFCC) at the Thompson Reuters office in Taipei today to discuss, among other things, plans by Taiwan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.

Wang, a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), gave a 20-minute presentation — mostly on the ECFA talks — before taking questions from the audience. Unfortunately, as there were only eight earpieces for simultaneous translation to be shared among a roomful of correspondents, a lot of time was wasted translating questions into English or Chinese, which were then followed by translations of Mr. Wang’s responses.

In the opening question, Mr. Wang was asked to talk about the planned purchase of weapons from the US, to which the legislative speaker responded with the standard: Taiwan’s fleet of Mirage 2000 and F-16A/B aircraft is aging; newer aircraft (i.e., F-16C/Ds) as well as PAC-3 missile batteries are required to maintain the military balance in the Taiwan Strait; and the Legislative Yuan has approved the budgets to obtain them.

The rest of the questions skirted around ECFA and Taiwan’s bid to gain observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body at the World Health Organization. On the latter, Wang said that while he did not know under which name Taipei would seek to gain entry, the preferred name would be (1) Republic of China and (2) Taiwan. He said that while the bid may appear straightforward, in reality it is very complex, involving many players in the international community — the US, Japan, and of course China and Taiwan. Wang expressed hope for a final resolution to the nation’s entry into the WHA rather than one that would have to be renewed annually. He said he could not speak for the executive on how to approach the negotiations, or under which name to do so, adding he was certain “the executive had developed a good strategy,”without elaborating.

Asked if unofficial exchanges between the KMT and the Chinese Nationalist Party (CCP) had already been made on an ECFA, Wang said he could neither confirm nor deny the rumors, adding that it was not his position, as legislative speaker, to address matters pertaining to the executive. He mentioned that he had been promised, by either the KMT or the executive, that once the details of an agreement are fleshed out, they would be submitted to the legislature — not for ratification, mind you, but more as a courtesy.

Asked, if somewhat indirectly, if the KMT, which according to certain polls is increasingly perceived as “pro-China” rather than “pro-Taiwan,” can be trusted to represent the interests of Taiwan in negotiations with China, Wang said that a majority of card-carrying KMT members were against unification and preferred maintaining the “status quo,” adding that even among pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members, the majority also supported maintaining the “status quo.” After admitting that under the previous government, the DPP’s controlling the executive and the KMT the legislature was “not necessarily a bad thing,” Wang said that despite the KMT now controlling both the executive and having a majority in the legislature, there was no such thing as total control, as every bill has to be approved by legislators, who are elected by the people and act as their representative in monitoring the activities of the executive. Unexpectedly, here Wang was ever the champion of the legislative system (which, it must be said, he has made great contributions to over the years).

This somewhat skirted the question and represented a bit of a contradiction, as he had previously said that documents pertaining to an ECFA with China would only be submitted to the legislature for reference, which would mean that the executive would remain unchecked, as happened with previous cross-strait agreements with China. Wang nevertheless mentioned that according to Interpretation 520 of the Council of Grand Justices, matters pertaining to the future of the state (as an ECFA surely is) should be debated, and clearly stated that the contents of the agreement should be deliberated on in the legislature and altered if needed. He also admitted that while some sectors would benefit from an ECFA, others would suffer, which the government would seek to mitigate. (It would be interesting to see if the sectors that stand to benefit also happen to be predominantly controlled by KMT-affiliated individuals, a question that wasn’t asked.)

Also not asked was Mr. Wang’s level of confidence on whether the KMT would inform the legislature of the full details of an ECFA, given that he himself, as speaker, has been left in the dark (or claims that he has) as to whether meetings have already taken place between the KMT and the CCP. This also raises the question as to whether the small, unaccountable groups of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait that have held dialogue on various agreements also reflect Wang’s contention that the majority of KMT members favor the “status quo” — especially when China has made no secret that it sees an ECFA and other agreements as stepping stones toward unification. Whether there might be conflict of interests, or deals we are unaware of, remains a mystery, albeit a distinct possibility. It would have been interesting to hear Mr. Wang’s comments on such musings, but time restrictions made it impossible to raise them at the meeting.

Lastly, asked if Mr. Wang would respond favorably to invitations for him to visit China, he said that he would only do so if four conditions were met: dignity, equality, reciprocity and consent. While hinting that a visit would have been possible when the DPP was in power (though the conditions were clearly not met), he seemed to say that at present it would not be a good time to do so.

In all, the session did not deliver surprises or any information that wasn’t already known. Unfortunately, Mr. Wang far too often relied on the “I cannot speak for the executive” argument to deflect questions, which was not unexpected. We can suspect that, on certain questions, he knew far more than he let on, but given his position — and the KMT contingent in the room — he had to toe the party line and not contradict the executive.

Canada’s new brand of ‘terrorists’ — British MPs

During my 14 weeks of training as an intelligence officer at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) a few years ago, I spent countless hours memorizing what, according to the law, constitutes terrorism — a definition that was somewhat altered following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. There were those who had committed terrorist attacks, those who were planning to commit a terrorist attack, and those who abetted, or helped, others in the commission of, or planning for, a terrorist attack.

The main difference in how the law interpreted what constitutes terrorism was that prior to 9/11, an individual, or group, needed to have committed an act of terrorism to face charges of terrorism, whereas after the legal changes (promulgated in Bill C-36), intent and support were now sufficient to investigate and prosecute someone on terrorism charges. What this meant was that someone who donated money to a terrorist organization, raised funds for it or provided material support, could now be accused of engaging in terrorism, provided, of course, that a proper investigation by intelligence agencies determined that one had indeed engaged in such activities. At an extreme, the new law meant that the more than 100 Canadians who in recent weeks have chipped in to purchase a plane ticket for terror suspect Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Sudan-born Canadian national who has been stranded in Sudan since 2002, could technically be accused of aiding a terrorist. (Abdelrazik has been cleared of terrorism charges by Canadian and Sudanese authorities, but remains on the 1267 UN watch list, which targets individuals associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and Ottawa has yet to provide him with a passport).

Pushing the definition of what constitutes terrorism one step further, the Canadia Border Services Agency (CBSA) in early March barred British MP George Galloway, an outspoken critic of the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, from entering Canada, on grounds that he represents “a threat to national security” — a decision that was not overruled by a Federal Court judge on Monday.

The main fault of Mr Galloway, who was scheduled to give a speech at a “Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar” forum in Toronto on Monday, was that on March 11 he, along with about 50 British and Scottish volunteers, delivered money, humanitarian aid and vehicles to war-torn Gaza directly rather than through a recognized international aid agency or the UN. By doing so, Galloway sought to demonstrate that it was possible, despite the Israeli/Egyptian blockade imposed since 2006 — which the UN and aid organizations say has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the territory — to deliver aid. In other words, he refused to abide by a state-sponsored system that has ensured that, despite Israel’s claims to the contrary, Palestinians remain in a state of destitution.

In a letter dated March 20, Ottawa said that during his visit to Gaza, Galloway gave Hamas — listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the European Union and Canada, among others — US$45,000.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that those who support, promote and help terrorist organizations should not be allowed to come to Canada.

The problem with the CBSA and the Federal Court’s decision is that Galloway has denied the charges that he supports, promotes and helps terrorist organizations, and no investigation has been launched by CSIS or other Canadian intelligence agencies to prove him right or wrong. In other words, beyond the questionable wisdom of branding Hamas a terrorist entity, an assumption of guilt underlies the Canadian government’s decision to bar him entry, which contravenes the presumption of innocence that lies at the core of the Canadian legal system. Based on my experience at CSIS, if there is any intelligence supporting the claim that Galloway gave money directly to Hamas, it came from a single-thread, or “uncorroborated,” Israeli source of questionable credibility — which sadly is often enough to convince allied agencies to act.

It is therefore quite feasible that Mr Galloway was denied entry into Canada not because he is a terror suspect or, risibly, poses a threat to national security, but rather because he has been a supporter of the Palestinian cause, has been critical of Israel, and opposed the neo-imperialistic interventions in Iraq — which Ottawa ostensibly opposed — and Afghanistan, where more than 2,000 Canadian soldiers have been deployed since 2001. The decision is also reflective of the position the Conservative Stephen Harper administration (as has the Liberal opposition leader, Michael Ignatieff) has taken on Israeli aggression against Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in December and January, which was overwhelmingly supportive of Jerusalem’s actions.

By twisting anti-terror legislation and disregarding the process by which an individual can be accused of engaging in terrorist activity, the Canadian government has with Mr Galloway’s case entered the realm of preventing free speech and once again shown its disregard, if not contempt, for the fate of ordinary Palestinians.

He said it'd be OK to kill my wife

We met when I worked as an intelligence officer in Canada, part of an organization that at times risked making racism and hatred for the “other” — in that case, mostly Arabs and Muslims — a normal policy. After nearly three years in that suffocating environment, whose siege mentality I could no longer bear, I resigned, choosing to abide by the values of humanity and inclusiveness that I cherished and believed defined me as a Canadian.

Throughout the long, difficult months that preceded my decision, my partner, a Taiwanese, was always supportive and helped me in uncountable ways, as did other members of her family.

Soon afterwards, we left Canada — her adopted homeland — and moved to Taiwan, where I sought to build a new life and write a book about what I had gone through at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

What immediately struck me in Taiwan was the warmth, friendliness, selflessness and generosity of its people, at a level I had possibly only encountered in Cuba on my two visits there [...]

Op-ed on Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), hatred, ethnic divisions and the series of vitriolic articles he wrote under the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽), continues here.

Book Review: It's war in the Taiwan Strait

The year is 2012. In Taiwan, a charismatic new leader named Yo Tuan occupies the Presidential Office — and he is filled with ambition to make his county independent. Across the strait, president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has been replaced by Wei Ching-chun, an inexperienced and somewhat stoic leader whose ability to steer the Chinese Community Party (CCP) remains unproven. In Washington, President Jocelyn Adams, an African-American woman, succeeded George W. Bush in 2008 and is seeking re-election in a country weighed down by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and severe water shortages that are threatening to create domestic instability.

For my review of William E. Cooper's novel Flashpoint China, published today in the Taipei Times, click here. (.pdf format).

Education key to future of China’s economic ‘miracle’

China’s economic “miracle” has pulled 200 million people out of poverty in the past two decades, a feat largely generated by the “necessary evil” of migratory workers. But as the birthrate — pulled down by the “one child” policy and women entering the workforce in larger numbers — drops, China will soon face a series of new challenges: higher salaries, greater demand, and fewer workers. To deal with this, Beijing will have to turn to one often overlooked spoke in the great development wheel: education.

Despite its “rise,” China’s education system — especially in rural areas — remains mostly primitive, underfunded and weighed down by rampant poor health. And yet, the government does not appear to be making the investments and adjustments that will allow future generations of Chinese workers to maintain the country's industrial competitiveness.

Stanford University’s Dr. Scott Rozelle, a specialist on agriculture and rural development in China, was in Taiwan to address Academia Sinica and National Taiwan University on the above challenges. He also spoke at Taipei American School, which I covered for the Taipei Times. The article can be accessed here.

‘Ultranationalists’ versus ‘terrorists’

News broke out on Tuesday that Israeli prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking to strengthen the position of his minority Likud party in parliament, had brought into his “unity government” Yisrael Beitenu’s Avigdor Lieberman, who, in Reuters’ words, is “a far-right politician whose policies have raised Arab ire and international concern.”

In its coverage, Agence France-Presse referred to the future Israeli foreign minister Lieberman — who among other things supports continued illegal settlements in the West Bank (he is himself a resident of one, Nokdim) as well as law that would force Arab Israelis to sign an oath of loyalty to Israel or lose their citizenship — as an “ultranationalist,” a “controversial firebrand” and, quoting his detractors, a “racist.” The Associated Press, for its part, also used the designation “ultranationalist” and “racism” in describing him, while the Guardian newspaper called him an “outspoken far-right Israeli politician” and “unashamed hardliner, adding that the former nightclub bouncer from Moldova had resigned from the government in protest at the resumption of peace talks with Palestinians.

The New York Times, meanwhile, referred to Lieberman as a “nationalist” and “often indelicate and outspoken politician whose threatening language aimed at Arabs arouses suspicion and some trepidation abroad.”

Five news organizations. One “ultranationalist” whose party — which would also handle the internal security, infrastructure, tourism and integration of new immigrants portfolios in the “unity government” — undeniably stands against peace. The question is, what kind of adjectives would the same five news organizations have used if the individual in question, rather than be an Israeli politician, had been a new member in the Palestinian Cabinet advocating the same policies? Would he have been an “unashamed hardliner,” an “ultranationalist,” a “firebrand” or a “racist”? Of course not. He would have been characterized as an “extremist” and “terrorist.”

This is not to say that the news organizations sampled above did not do a good job raising questions about Lieberman’s political stance (in fact, the Guardian did a pretty decent job). But they still couldn’t bring themselves to use language with the kind of even-handedness one would expect from professional and supposedly “impartial” media. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that had any one of those organizations catalogued Lieberman as an “extremist” or “terrorist,” the Anti-Defamation League and other Israeli lobby organizations would have screamed “anti-Semitism.”

Where the f*** is ‘Chinese Taipei’ anyway? [UPDATED]

As I was searching the Web for data on Taiwan’s accomplishments for a book I am working on — provisionally titled Democracy in Peril: Taiwan’s struggle for survival from Chen Shui-bian to Ma Ying-jeou — I came upon the following passage:

Gender Equality in Chinese Taipei

It is perhaps easiest to consider the situation of women in Chinese Taipei in comparison with that of women in mainland China (PRC). While Chinese Taipei has adopted a Western civil and capitalist legal system over the past century, its Civil Code retains strong paternal characteristics whereas PRC legislation upholds the principle of gender equality …

The site, Wikigender.org, shows the Nationalist flag with the caption “flag of Chinese Taipei.” The About page informs us that Wikigender is a project initiated by the OECD Development Centre to “to facilitate the exchange and improve the knowledge on gender-related issues around the world.” One listed source, APEC Gender in Chinese Taipei, Chinese Taipei Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC, links to http://gender.wrp.org.tw, a page on the Framework for the Integration of Women in APEC, which also refers to Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei.”

Given China’s weight at APEC and its bullying of member states on the question of Taiwan, it is not surprising that the designation “Chinese Taipei” would be used, and it is in fact the name under which Taiwan has participated at its meetings. But at a project initiated by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development? (It should be noted that while China is not an OECD member, it is what is called an “enhanced engagement country.”)

This bodes ill. Little by little, the name Taiwan (or even Republic of China) is being effaced and replaced with the name “Chinese Taipei.” The global commons of free information is being exploited to cultivate future generations of people who will have no clue that there once was this place called Taiwan. On the gender equality question, which I wanted supportive data on, the great accomplishments that the people of Taiwan have made on that front — Taiwan is second to Japan in all of Asia — are being ignored by the designers of the Wikigender site and the OECD. The Taiwanese architects of that great success are being replaced by people in that odd place that doesn’t exist called “Chinese Taipei,” as if Taiwanese didn’t even have a right to be proud of what they’ve achieved. By rebound, this creates the impression that China — or part of China, as “Chinese Taipei” must be — would be capable, under the current government there, of such social accomplishments.

I have written to the designers of the Wikigender site to complain. As always, if they bother to respond (or, less likely, correct the error), I will keep readers informed.

[UPDATE] Wikigender responded today in a short e-mail: “Based on OECD agreements with the Chinese Authorities, the Development Centre (as the creator of Wikigender) is equally obliged to follow this denomination.

After filing an application for observer status at the OECD in September 2003, Taiwan was granted “ad hoc observer status” in December 2004 under the name … “Chinese Taipei.” OECD sources at the time, however, said the designation was a “temporary arrangement” rather than a “formal status.” Regardless of whether the deal was made with Taipei or Beijing, it coincides with China’s strategy of removing the name “Taiwan” from international institutions. Four-and-a-half years on and with presumed pressure from Beijing (the so-called Chinese Authorities mentioned in Wikigender's reply to me, presumably), the “temporary” arrangement risks congealing into something more permanent; in other words, it is turning more into a “status.” All OECD documents and publications, it should be noted, refer to Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei.”

Not a time for a nation of sheep

Since dialogue between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was initiated following President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) taking office in May, Beijing has made no secret of its ultimate intentions regarding Taiwan. In speech after speech, the Chinese leadership — including President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) on the proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) — has been surprisingly transparent about the fact that cross-strait talks and various agreements are a means to an end, the stepping stones toward the great goal of “reunification.”

It is puzzling, therefore, that the Ma administration would continue to argue that an ECFA and other pacts with China are nonpolitical and will not undermine the sovereignty of the nation. And yet, despite the unequivocal signals from Beijing, this is what the administration keeps harping about, vaunting the economic benefits of closer ties with China and the alleged security benefits attendant to cross-strait dialogue.

Op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

A professional military by 2014? A pipe dream

On Monday, the Ministry of National Defense said that starting in 2011, the Taiwanese military would start replacing military conscripts with professional soldiers at a rate of at least 10 percent annually, with conscript measures ending in 2014. At present, all men above the age of 20 are required to do one year of military service.

The idea of a professional army is not a creation of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), nor is it the result of supposed reduced tensions in the Taiwan Strait. In fact, plans to create an all-volunteer or “partial” all-volunteer military were first floated during the first term of the Democratic Progressive Party administration.

Given the increasingly sophisticated weapons systems soldiers have to operate in a modern combat environment and the relatively short period of training conscripts receive during their one-year compulsory service, attracting motivated career soldiers who can be fully trained and upgraded as systems and concepts change makes perfect sense. In fact, under the current conscription system, one could be excused for doubting that young Taiwanese fresh out of compulsory service would be able to defend the nation if China attacked. Aside from the month or so they spend in boot camp, the great majority of conscripts spend time pushing paper in a stuffy office and cannot wait to resume their civilian life.

The problem with the ministry’s announcement on Monday, however, is that it comes amid cuts in the military budget by the KMT government, which has used the illusion of warmer ties with Beijing to justify the reduction. Taiwan’s overall defense budget for 2009 is US$10.17 billion, or NT$10.4 billion (US$301.4 million) lower than the 2008 level.

As studies have shown, creating a fully professional army is a costly endeavor. One initial estimate, mentioned in Bernard D. Cole’s Taiwan’s Security, was more than US$4 billion, or NT$138 billion, while the initial cost for a “partial” professional army was set at US$400 million. To put things in perspective, creating a fully professional army would cost Taiwan about one third of its overall defense budget for 2009. Even if this is spread over a five-year period, the project represents a major investment.

Without an increase in defense spending or special budget allocations, the creation of a fully professional army by 2014 will be financially impossible. And yet, when the ministry made the announcement on Monday, it did not mention any increases in defense spending. Nor has it said anything about raising soldiers’ salaries (about US$1,000 a month presently) to make the military an attractive employer for young Taiwanese. Absent career opportunities and remuneration that can compete with what is offered in the private sector, or even in academia, there is no way the military will manage to attract the talent, in large enough a quantity, it needs to meet its requirements.

What this means is that either the professional military will be anything but — a botched job — or the number of professional soldiers that current budgets allow for would be so low as to make Taiwan’s military unable to defend the nation. Either way, this bodes ill for Taiwan’s future ability to defend itself.

A Beijing conveniently forgetful

As I wrote in my article “A parade to end all parades,” published today in the Taipei Times, China is in a celebratory mood this year, what with the upcoming 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet next month and, in October, the 60th anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Another key date that Beijing has been conspicuously silent about, however, is Feb. 17, 1979, which is when Chinese forces invaded Vietnam in response to the latter’s invasion of Cambodia to oust the Khmer Rouge regime.

Today in China, not a single state-run newspaper carried news of the 30th anniversary, while a Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman limited himself to comments to the effect that the past should be left alone and that “China and Vietnam had an unhappy period in history.”

Unhappy indeed, as the People’s Liberation Army invasion, which led to low-intensity warfare through most of the 1980s, resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both side. To this day, study of the conflict is banned in Chinese schools.

This refusal to acknowledge the past may have something to do with the fact that there was no clear-cut outcome to the costly war, which for the PLA in effect became a smaller version of the US’ own debacle in Vietnam, or that of the Soviets in Afghanistan around the same time. Defeat simply has no room in PRC history books, especially in times of economic crisis when the state hopes to maintain the illusion of Communism’s great achievements. Through this filter, the invasion of Tibet is refashioned as a “liberation,” while the birth of the PRC, which came on the heels of the defeat of Nationalist forces, conveniently omits mentioning the years of devastating civil war that preceded it. Like everything else in China, negatives are twisted into positives, and when doing so is impossible, things are just ignored.

At a time when Beijing faces accusations, mostly from the West, that its massive, no-questions-asked investments abroad are propping up repressive and genocidal regimes (Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, North Korea, to name a few), CCP cadres would probably also want us to forget that 30 years ago, Beijing was an ally of the homicidal Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who killed millions of his own people.

China’s parade to end all parades*

Amid news that millions of migrant workers are roaming the Chinese countryside unemployed, a severe drought affecting eight breadbasket provinces and state authorities admitting that 2009 could be a year of unprecedented social unrest, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials must be looking left and right these days for ways to retain their grip on power. After all, much of the CCP’s legitimacy rests on its ability to promote economic growth and pull millions of Chinese out of poverty, which in the past two decades or so it has managed to accomplish with some success.

However, failure to sustain such growth, the pessimistic theory has it, could result in serious social unrest, rebellion and, in the worst-case scenario, the fragmentation of the country.

Op-ed, published on Tuesday in the Taipei Times, continues here.

* Unfortunately the article refers to the 60th anniversary next month of the Tibetan uprising. In reality, it will be the 50th anniversary of the March 1959 uprising. Apologies for the error.

Book review: ‘Bob of Arabia’ explores the ills of our troubled times

How does one review a book by a man who has spent the past three decades reporting on the world’s bloodiest conflicts, who has interviewed Osama bin Laden and who, by Air France calculations, travels more frequently than any Air France crew member? Robert Fisk’s journalistic resume is impressive, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to Israel’s own invasion of Lebanon, Iran after the overthrow of the Shah to the US-led invasion of Iraq, as well as the killing fields of Algeria, Syria, the Occupied Territories and other trouble spots in the Arab world.

Book review of Robert Fisk’s The Age of the Warrior continues here.

Some Tibetan lessons for Taiwan

Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of the “liberation” of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As Beijing — and purportedly all Tibetans — ready themselves to rejoice in the festivities surrounding “Serf Emancipation Day” on March 28, people in Taiwan would be well advised to turn to the history books.

For starters, the so-called liberation of Tibet did not occur in 1959, but rather nine years earlier, when the PLA made its first incursion into Tibet. Along with thousands of soldiers, the liberators brought the Seventeen-Point Agreement, a document that was purportedly intended as a blueprint for the “modernization” of “backward” and “barbaric” Tibet by a benevolent China and which called for the ouster of “reactionary governments” and “imperialist” forces that had thrown Tibet “into the depths of enslavement and suffering.”

Op-ed, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.

O Canada, land of double standards

In recent weeks, Ottawa has sounded as if its speeches were written by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League or B’nai Brith, a Canadian Jewish advocacy organization. First, during Israel’s bombing of Gaza in December and January, Junior Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Kent said that the escalating number of Palestinian being killed was solely Hamas’ fault. Then it was Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff, who on Jan. 8 also blamed Hamas for everything, as if Israel — which was killing more than 100 Palestinians for every Israeli killed in the one-sided war, and was using weapons, such as phosphorus shells, in violation of international law — did not share at least part of the blame for the bloody catastrophe or for creating the conditions that led to it.

On Feb. 3, Kent justly condemned vandalism against the Mariperez Synagogue, the main synagogue in Caracas, Venezuela, calling the “act of anti-Semitic vandalism … an assault on the freedoms that Canada and all democratic nations cherish.”

“The scourge of hate-filled bigotry must be confronted and rejected whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Canada denounces this act of anti-Semitism and all acts of anti-Semitism around the world,” Kent said, calling on Caracas to launch an investigation.

About fifteen people broke into the synagogue on Friday night, tying the security guards, destroying scriptures and spraying graffiti, which among others included references to former US president George W. Bush, the Star of David and the Swastika.

As a multicultural country that takes pride in its ideals of justice, Canada and its government should always, in the bluntest terms, deplore acts of hatred targeting a people for their ethnicity or religion, and in that regard Kent’s outrage was perfectly justified.

The problem, however, is that when similar acts are committed against non-Jewish religious centers, Kent and Ottawa tend to remain silent. To wit, as the Observer newspaper reported on Jan. 4, the 12 Palestinians killed — six of them children — when an Israeli missile struck the entrance to the Ibrahim al-Maqadna mosque in Beit Lahiya, Gaza.

“The Israeli military has destroyed several mosques during its week-long offensive in Gaza,” the British newspaper reported at the time. In all, McClatchy Newspapers wrote on Jan. 23, Israel damaged or destroyed 23 mosques during the 22-day war.

Not once did Kent, Ignatieff or other Canadian politicians who ostensibly oppose “the scourge of hate-filled bigotry” react to the destruction of Muslim religious institutions in Gaza. In Ottawa’s political book, graffiti inside a synagogue is blasphemy that warrants strong condemnation. But when bombs and missiles, rather than spray paint, deface or altogether vaporize a mosque, all we get is silence, even when, unlike the sad incident in Caracas, people — innocents — are killed in the act.

If Canada really stood by its vaunted ideals, Kent’s comments would have read as follows: “… act of racist and discriminatory vandalism … an assault on the freedoms that Canada and all democratic nations cherish … The scourge of hate-filled bigotry must be confronted and rejected whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. Canada denounces this act of racism and discrimination and all acts of racism and discrimination around the world.”

Perhaps this goes beyond Kent’s ability to see clearly, but deploring discrimination only when it affects a specific group while ignoring it when it concerns another is, in and of itself, racist — in this case, anti-Muslim. Surely this goes against the Canadian values of freedom and justice.

Hamas is responsible, but …

Outgoing, corruption-haunted and altogether discredited Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed on Sunday that Israel would respond “disproportionately” to the continuing, albeit sporadic, firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip. In the long, sad and bloody history of disproportionate responses by Israel, Olmert’s comment may actually set a precedent, in that the Israeli leader no longer even attempted to hide the fact that his country’s military is breaking international law. Put through the political doublespeak filter, what Olmert essentially said was “we shall break international law.”

Two additional ironies marked the warning.

First, despite an intense 19-day bombing campaign in Gaza to “end” the firing of rockets into Israeli territory, causing about US$2 billion in damage to the Gaza infrastructure, killing 1,300 Palestinians and injuring thousands, rockets are still being fired, a humiliation of Israel’s military that is reminiscent of similar adventurism in Lebanon in 2006.

Second, while Jerusalem and its shrinking list of equally discredited supporters have blamed Hamas for the rocket attacks and, with odd logic, the devastating response by Israel, the latest rocket attacks (which caused no damage or injuries) were claimed by a wing of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group belonging to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction. In Israel’s book (and likely in US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton’s, as well as special envoy’s George Mitchell’s), Hamas are the bad guys, while Fatah (or at least Abbas) are the “moderate” Palestinians, the ones that “peace” can be negotiated with.

Now that the “good” guys — the “good Arabs” of the non-“terrorist” sort — are also firing rockets into Israel, who will Israel talk to? Quite the quandary, indeed. Could it be that Olmert’s latest disproportionate response in Gaza in December and January managed to anger even the portion of Palestinians it thought it could deal with? Could this mean that Israel’s US-backed blunt approach to peacemaking is finally backfiring, proving that “peace” at the end of a cannon, “peace” that isn’t accompanied by justice and respect for international law, can turn even one’s “friends” into enemies?

Can Obama’s shift on terror succeed?

But a few days in office and already US President Barack Obama has moved to undo some of the most nefarious monsters former president George W. Bush unleashed in his “war on terrorism.” This included, on Thursday, the signing of executive orders calling for the closure, within no more than a year, of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facilities and other secret prisons, an end to questionable interrogation techniques used by the CIA (such as “waterboarding”) and a rapid drawdown of US forces from Iraq.

These early moves are cause for celebration and optimism, and Obama should be commended for making them so early after entering the White House. He promised change, and so far seems to mean it.

Full article, published in CounterPunch, continues here.

Lies, lies, lies (Part II)

I find it heartening to see that in recent weeks demonstrations against Israel’s military aggression in Gaza have been held in countries with little history of caring about the issue. Such demonstrations were not only held across the Muslim world, where thy are expected, or in Europe and the US, but also in Japan and South Korea. Even Taiwan, which as far as I know has no history of such protests, has held its own.

After protests on Friday (pictured above), a second, smaller one was held on Tuesday in front of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), where about 70 demonstrators called for an immediate end to US weapons sales to Israel and a complete pullout of Israeli troops from Gaza. Shoes, now a global symbol of resistance, were also lobbed at a poster of an outgoing US president George W. Bush donning the Hitler mustache.

In response, the Israeli representative to Taipei, Raphael Gamzou, justified his government’s actions by saying that Israel had “abided to a policy of restraint in the last eight years while Hamas, a fundamentalist Muslim terrorist group, relentlessly sought to destroy Israel.”

Restraint? I wouldn’t call the killing of more than 1,200 people — about half of whom were civilians — restraint, nor has this been the only instance of “restraint” on Israel’s part in the past eight years. As for Hamas’ “relentless” efforts to “destroy” Israel, while its leadership uses that ill-advised and disgusting rhetoric, the group’s performance defending Gaza in the past three weeks — with 10 Israeli soldiers killed altogether, some by Israeli soldiers — should put at ease those who still believe Hamas has the ability to do so. Note, too, the inevitable addition of “terrorist” by Gamzou.

AIT officials, meanwhile, couldn’t be bothered to come out, but in an e-mail statement, AIT spokesman Thomas Hodges had this to say:

Hamas has held the people of Gaza hostage ever since their illegal coup against the forces of President Mahmoud Abbas, the legitimate president of the Palestinian people. We strongly condemn the repeated rocket and mortar attacks against innocent Israeli civilians and hold Hamas fully responsible for breaking the ceasefire and for the renewal of violence in Gaza.

A few things about Hodges’ comments. First, Hamas did not hold an “illegal coup.” It was elected on Jan. 26, 2006, winning 74 seats (to Fatah’s — Abbas’ party — 45). Secondly, Abbas is no longer a“legitimate” Palestinian president, as his pro-Western, capitulation-leaning party has long been reviled for its corruption, which largely contributed to Hamas’ electoral victory (although to be fair, a government — Hamas — that claims “victory”after more than 1,200 of its own people are killed and the civilian infrastructure destroyed also has no claim to legitimacy). Lastly, while Hodges fully blames Hamas for the bloodbath in Gaza, he gets his facts wrong, as it has been documented that it was Israel — on two occasions (on Nov. 4 and Nov. 17) — that broke the ceasefire.

Sadly, without the necessary caveats, those official comments risk being mistaken for facts and those brave demonstrators (including at least one Jewish expatriate, who asked to remain anonymous) who defied the rain and gathered in front of AIT today will likely be seen as troublemakers, or friends of “terrorist” Hamas. Kudos to them, shame on the officials.

Lies, lies, lies

Bloomberg today carried a piece headlined “China Security Improved in 2008 With Taiwan Ties,” a headline that on its own should have left anyone who knows anything about the situation in the Taiwan Strait feeling high on some hallucinogenic drug. The story opens with the following paragraph:

Security improved in 2008 as relations across the Taiwan Strait warmed, a [Chinese] Ministry of National Defense spokesman said, as the government released a report showing the slowest defense budget annual growth in three years … “Relations across the Taiwan Strait have seen unprecedented and tremendous changes,” Defense Ministry spokesman Senior Colonel Hu Changming [胡昌明] told reporters at a press conference in Beijing.

Now of course Bloomberg is doing what any good Confucian would do and uncritically regurgitated whatever the authorities said at the press conference. More responsible journalism, however, would have qualified the spokesman’s statement, which creates (sadly not for the first time) a false moral equivalent in the Taiwan Strait.

Let me clarify this. When it comes to China’s security in the 21st century, improved ties with Taiwan are not a variable, as unlike the period from 1949 until the 1980s Taiwan does not threaten China militarily, neither with its posture nor with the type of military hardware that it possesses. The US — Taiwan’s almost sole source of weapons — only sells Taiwan weapons that are defensive in nature and has exerted pressure on Taipei whenever it sought to acquire or develop offensive weapons. The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense’s announcement this weekend that it was considering troop cutbacks also has no incidence on the threat level for China, as those troops are also part of a defensive posture.

Furthermore, improved ties with Taiwan does not lessen the threat to China from Taiwan’s main ally, the US, as Washington has made it clear that it would only consider using force in the Taiwan Strait to help Taiwan defend itself from aggression. In other words, the US military posture in the Asia-Pacific region is a non-threatening one to China.

The conclusion that China was “safer” last year as a result of improved ties with Taiwan, therefore, is an altogether misleading one. Ironically, while the Chinese defense ministry (and Bloomberg) wax enthusiastically about a “safer” China, the threat to Taiwan remains undiminished — despite the warming relations between Taipei and Beijing. We have seen no troop reduction across the Strait, no removal of the 1,300-plus missiles the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) points at Taiwan (which to its credit Bloomberg mentions), and no change in Beijing’s plan to use force should Taiwan attempt to change the so-called “status quo” or allow its people to decide their own future. Anyone familiar with the brief “honeymoon” that followed the PLA’s “liberation” (read invasion) of Tibet knows that Beijing niceties and “peace” notwithstanding, the knife is ever drawn behind its back and ready to come slashing down.

By linking Chinese security with Taiwan, Beijing (and Bloomberg) are providing a false depiction of the dynamics in the Taiwan Strait and portraying Taiwan as an aggressor rather than a victim of aggression. There simply is no moral equivalence in the Taiwan Strait, period.

Only fools wouldn’t see a developing pattern

Not once, not twice, but on three occasions calendars meant for distribution by government offices across the country included Chinese holidays such as Reunification Day and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) birthday, or substituted the Republic of China (ROC) flag with that of the blood-drenched People’s Republic of China (PRC). Every time, government officials blamed printing companies or, in an insult to our intelligence, black-and-white samples that had ostensibly prevented proofreaders from seeing clearly, for the mishaps.

Now, anyone who has worked in publishing or ever pored over black-and-white proofs could be excused for recoiling in shock at such asinine explanations. Black-and-white or in color, the ROC and PRC flags certainly do not look the same — unless, of course, the printing company used so much black ink that it should be sued for environmental damage. And let’s be honest — black-and-white or color, the anniversary date of a mass murderer who starved millions of his own people is exactly the same.

Op-ed continued here.