ohh China

Taipei Times - archives

Having earned praise for keeping its economy chugging along at an impressive rate, China is now cause for concern because its economy may overheat.

The Chinese government seems concerned, too, having taken some steps to tighten the free flow of credit, including raising interest rates and banks’ reserve ratio.

However, the situation appears to have raced ahead of the policymakers, creating a serious danger of inflationary pressures.
http://help.funp.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/funp/tools/tools_postbtn_script.png?cache=cache

Taipei Times - archives--liar ma

Taipei Times - archivesMa should be all the more careful in drawing a clear distinction between president and chairman in his public appearances if he has any intention of honoring his pledge to be a “people’s president” (全民總統).

REd Beijing saying

Taipei Times - archivesThere is a certain pattern of events when it comes to relations with China that every US president has had to face. The first phase is characterized by working hard to create an amicable atmosphere. In the second phase, frictions appear as the US president addresses practical issues and this is where relations become more tense. The third phase is where the two sides accept their differences and find ways to work together, feeling out their counterpart’s bottom line and gradually moving into the fourth, more pragmatic phase.

political persecution

Taipei Times - archivesBoth Chen Shui-bian and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), were sentenced to life in prison on Sept. 11 last year by the Taipei District Court and fined NT$200 million (US$6.13 million) and NT$300 million respectively on several counts of corruption, including embezzling money from a discretionary state affairs fund and taking bribes from local businessmen.

How big as red china

Taipei Times - archives: "China yesterday demanded the White House cancel a meeting between US President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, warning that already strained ties between the two powers would be damaged further.

Beijing reacted angrily to the White House announcement that Obama would next week receive the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, accused by China of seeking independence for his homeland.

“We firmly oppose the Dalai Lama visiting the United States and US leaders having contact with him,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu (馬朝旭) said."

Arms sales: the right move at the right time

Taipei Times - archives

Arms sales: the right move at the right time By Nat Bellocchi 白樂崎 Tuesday, Feb 09, 2010, Page 8 The decision by the administration of US President Barack Obama to approve the sale of an additional package of arms to Taiwan comes just in the nick of time. It does show a realization on the part of the US administration that Taiwan should not be left to fend for itself, but needs both support and encouragement from the US. For too long, the people of Taiwan have had the impression that the US was too busy with issues elsewhere in the world — Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran — to be concerned with Taiwan’s drift toward China’s sphere of influence. The arms sale has changed that: It is a signal that the US will stand by its commitments under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act and may help defend Taiwan. Having said that, we may want to ask if the signal is strong enough? This depends on how much further the Obama administration is willing to go. Will it keep the door open to further packages such as the 66 F-16C/D jet fighters requested by Taipei in 2006 or the submarines that have been under discussion since at least 2001? And there might be other items required to redress the increasing imbalance in air and naval power across the Taiwan Strait. In particular, is there anything that has truly addressed the imbalance of missiles across the Strait? It is essential that the US works with Taiwan on these issues. The announcement of the sale also comes at a time of increasing belligerence and recalcitrance by Beijing on a wide array of issues: the sentencing of human rights activist Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) — author of Charter 08 — to 11 years in prison; the blocking of a meaningful accord at the global warming conference in Copenhagen; the refusal to agree on sanctions against Iran; the harsh crackdowns in Tibet and East Turkestan; cyber terrorism against Google and other Western companies and even government offices. These developments are prompting a fundamental reassessment among Western governments and companies on the nature of engagement with China. The assumption behind US and European policy toward China until now has been that economic opening would lead to political liberalization. This basic premise seems increasingly less tenable: What we see is the rise of China — both economically and politically — accompanied with increasing authoritarianism at home and a willingness to throw its weight around in support of unsavory regimes and causes. The Obama administration needs to stand firm on the basic principles of human rights and democracy. These cannot be whittled away in exchange for expediency in getting China to move a few inches on issues such as Iran or North Korea. Against this background, it is also essential that Taiwan clearly shows it wants to remain a free and democratic nation and wants to strengthen its ties with the democratic West instead of moving into the sphere of influence of an undemocratic and repressive China. All too often, economic and business interests push a government in the direction of narrow and short-term gains. Taiwan’s government needs to keep a longer-term vision of a free and democratic Taiwan in mind. It also needs to be emphasized that peace and stability in the Strait can only be achieved if Taiwan maintains strong political, economic and social ties with the many democratic countries, especially its neighbors, and keeps a healthy distance from China. The new arms sale by the Obama administration is a good beginning to help make this possible. Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own. This story has been viewed 232 times.

Advertising

Copyright © 1999-2010 The Taipei Times. All rights rese

自由電子報 - ECFA記者會 有問題

自由電子報 - ECFA記者會 有問題從「沒有綠卡」變「自動失效」卻提不出證明，您的誠信已經被人民打了個大問號。對於ＥＣＦＡ，您說過簽了 ＥＣＦＡ才能和其他國家簽ＦＴＡ，中國官員已經不只一次揭穿您的謊言；您說過世界各國沒有ＦＴＡ公投的前例，很多學者也舉例證實您說錯了！所以，請不要說 謊，誠實的告訴我們：ＥＣＦＡ為什麼不能公投？

China’s New Year gift is unpalatable

Taipei Times - archives

EDITORIAL : China’s New Year gift is unpalatable

Friday, Feb 05, 2010, Page 8

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications cried foul this week after China took advantage of Taiwan in the allocation of cross-strait flights for next week’s Lunar New Year holiday.

Of the 350 extra flights laid on for the expected increase in cross-strait travel during the holiday period, Taiwanese airlines were only allocated 98, compared with 252 flights for Chinese airlines. To add insult to injury, the departure slots awarded to Taiwanese airlines for major Chinese cities are at extremely inconvenient times.

The imbalance occurred after the Chinese rejected numerous flight requests by Taiwanese carriers on “technical” grounds, while Taiwan accepted all of China’s applications.

While the government may have expected it would be granted the same number of flights as China during this busy period, it should not be news to officials that China does not view Taiwan as its equal and will resort to almost anything to get the upper hand.

What was the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) doing while this was playing out? If it wanted to ensure flights were distributed equally, then why did it not notice a pattern developing and bring it up with its Chinese counterpart?

CAA Director-General Lee Long-wen (李龍文) may have been right on Tuesday when he said the Chinese airlines would not necessarily benefit from the extra flights as the occupation rate for Taiwanese airlines was currently much higher, but his comments smack of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, and hint at an official trying to cover up for his organization’s incompetence.

The government would be well within its rights to inform China it is canceling a certain number of flights in retaliation for the lack of fairness in distribution, but that is highly unlikely given this administration’s lack of backbone when it comes to dealing with its cross-strait adversary.

In fact, this order of affairs is fully consistent with the pattern that has developed over the last 20 months of exchanges between Taiwan and China since this government came to power.

Before any talks start, Taiwan announces its bottom line, saying the announcement will not compromise the nation’s interests or sovereignty while putting on a show for consumption by the Taiwanese public. Then, when China refuses to budge, Taiwan caves in to its demands and tries to pass off its capitulation as a show of Chinese “goodwill” that serves the best interests of Taiwan.

The pattern is all too familiar, while the outcome is always the same. China gets exactly what it wants while Taiwan ends up compromising.

And while this issue may not be that important to most people — as long as passengers get home, they probably don’t care which airline they take — it has ominous implications.

If this government and its agencies are unwilling to stand up to China on such a trivial matter as flight arrangements, there is little chance they will stand up for Taiwan’s interests and block Beijing’s trickery on more important issues.

With negotiations over an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) now under way, this is an extremely worrying prospect.
This story has been viewed 317 times.

http://help.funp.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/funp/tools/tools_postbtn_script.png?cache=cache

Taiwan ready to follow HK’s example?

Taipei Times - archives

s Taiwan ready to follow HK’s example? By Wu Hui-lin 吳惠林 Wednesday, Feb 03, 2010, Page 8 Milton Friedman, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, once said: “If you want to see capitalism in action, go to Hong Kong.” Hong Kong was handed over to China in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” principle, with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) saying it would maintain the territory’s capitalist system and way of life unchanged for 50 years. For the last 13 years, Hong Kong has, on the surface, remained unchanged, but in real terms, conditions are already changing. Based on the annual Index of Economic Freedom report compiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, while Hong Kong has kept its high level of economic freedom, the system is in fact rotten. This became more evident after Hong Kong signed the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with China in 2003. With Hong Kong’s economy falling under CCP control, the overall environment and quality of life in the territory deteriorated, the rich-poor gap widened and social problems worsened. Not long ago, a CNN feature showed 19 Hong Kong residents squeezed into a 58m² “cage-like home,” drawing a stark contrast with the territory’s astronomically expensive luxury mansions. Last October, BusinessWeek cited a report by the UN Development Program that said Hong Kong’s rich-poor gap, based on the Gini coefficient, was the widest among the world’s advanced economies. Generally, a coefficient of 0.4 is seen as a warning sign: Hong Kong already shot past this level by scoring 0.434. The report also said Hong Kong has both a large number of extremely wealthy people and the world’s biggest public housing sector. Moreover, other than foreign workers, workers in the territory do not enjoy minimum wages. Aside from the economic drop-off, political freedoms have fared even worse. General elections for chief executive and members of the Legislative Council and Executive Council have repeatedly been postponed. Hong Kong also blindly follows Beijing’s lead in issuing entry permits. For instance, six key members of the US-based Shen Yun Performing Arts (神韻藝術團) troupe were refused visas at the last moment last week, forcing the entire group to cancel seven sold-out performances. Taiwanese should pay close attention to Hong Kong as it serves an example of what could happen here if the government continued to desperately seek an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China. The current economic recovery already reflects this — a stock market awash in funds and speculation in the housing market. Taiwan’s richest 20 percent continues to be more than six times wealthier than the poorest 20 percent. Its Gini coefficient hovers between 0.34 and 0.35, unemployment is near 6 percent and wage hikes in the industrial and service sectors since 1991 have lagged significantly behind economic growth figures. Since 2000, salary growth has slowed further and even begun to drop. Aside from rising housing prices, there has also been an influx of hot money from abroad. It is hard to imagine what will happen if these problems are compounded by massive amounts of Chinese investment. More importantly, the reason Hong Kong has been able to maintain the appearance of “one country, two systems” is that Taiwan has not yet fallen into the CCP’s hands. As soon as Taiwan becomes a special administrative region like Hong Kong and Macau, the three and China will become “one system” — the CCP-controlled Chinese system. We must ask ourselves if we are willing to see this happen. Wu Hui-lin is a researcher at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research. TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON This story has been viewed 251 times.

Advertising

Copyright © 1999-2010 The Taipei Ti