If I do nothing, nothing will change: Dr. Orbinski

A few days ago, I was at a dental office, taking my child there for treatment. While waiting there, I picked up a magazine and read an excellent article. I copied down the name of the character featured in the article, and came home, searched the internet and found the on-line version of the same article I read, and a quote contained in this article which moved my heart. The character featured in this article is Dr. James Orbinski.

At the end of the 9th paragraph of the above linked article is the quote, a message for us all (my note: in the magazine, this quote is shown in a very big & blue-colored font whereas in the on-line version it has to be looked carefully):

I can’t know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can’t know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change.

Unlike most doctors who simply work for personal profits, and unlike the WHO that puts politics above its missions (i.e. promoted the fake meaningful participation without membership for Taiwan but secretly signed MOU with China to adopt the policy of apartheid against Taiwanese), Dr. James Orbinski is a humanitarian doctor who has served in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. He was the international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) from 1998 to 2001, and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on the organization’s behalf in 1999.

Over the past quarter-century, Dr. Orbinski has worked in places such as Somalia during the famine and civil war; in the refugee camps in Jalalabad, Afghanistan; and at the Kosovo Macedonia border during the NATO bombings in 1999.

His quote, so simple yet so profound, deserves our special mention at this holiday season in today’s lack-of-humanitarianism world among political leaders and health professionals, and it also serves as an encouragement to the people of Taiwan who aren’t taking any actions or participating in activities that may direct the destiny of their country, such as the upcoming demonstration in Taichung.

And for me, although I’d prefer spending more time with my family, but if I don’t blog, some truth will simply be covered-up by some mainstream media’s China-friendly propaganda. "If I do nothing, nothing will change" is a precious lesson for us all.

Ma's apology, empty words or transitional justice?

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recently bowed and apologized to political dissidents and their families for the abuses of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government during the White Terror era.

Many readers may have noticed by now that Ma likes to say one thing in public but do exactly the opposite when people are not paying much attention, and here is what happened this year under his administration.

The opposition lawmakers and human rights activists in March this year slammed the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau for dumping confidential files and body parts of deceased political prisoners incarcerated during the authoritarian period of Kuomintang rule in an abandoned building and demanded that the materials be promptly transferred to the National Archives Administration.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) accused President Ma in July this year of insincerity in promoting reconciliation with victims of political persecution. Ma’s paying tribute to dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and changing the name of the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall back to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall showed that the Ma government has never reviewed the massacre conducted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

The replacement of the plaque began at about 8:10am on July 20, 2009 after some 300 police officers secured the hall with barricades overnight (like thieves that are most active at night!) and put up an official document stating that the hall would be closed for 24 hours for “official business.” Workers cut the granite plaque bearing the title “National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall” that hung over the main building into pieces. The removal was completed by noon, after which workers proceeded to reinstate the Chiang plaque. The replacement project cost NT$1.1 million (US$33,000) according to the Ministry of Education, which is in charge of the restoration.

For Ma, bowing his head didn’t cost anything, but restoring the Liberty Square’s hall back to the dead dictator’s name cost every taxpayer money.

This past spring when Ma announced it would reinvestigate two of the remaining unsolved murder cases from 1980 and 1981, many people hoped that new information would be found. The murder of the mother and twin daughters of then-imprisoned provincial assemblyman Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄) on Feb. 28, 1980, and the death and apparent murder of Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成), a Taiwanese professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, on July 3, 1981, following his interrogation by the Taiwan Garrison Command created great concern in Taiwan.

On March 13, 2009, the chief prosecutor brought together Taipei prosecutors, the police, the Bureau of Investigation, forensic experts and detective bureaus to begin the new investigation.

Unfortunately, the recently released 50-page report reveals almost nothing new.

Instead, the report repeated the old line that “Lin’s neighbors identified him as going twice to Lin’s house at noon on the day of the case ... Thus, Bruce Jacobs became the first object of suspicion of the special investigation team. But Bruce Jacobs denied he went to the Lin family house at noon on that day and pressed the door bell. Furthermore, the police had searched his home and did not discover any evidence.

Dr. Bruce Jacobs, a professor at Monash University in Australia was in Taipei at the time of the murder and was held in detention by the police for several months as the chief murder suspect in order to deflect attention from the KMT and from how a murderer could enter, kill these people, and leave in broad daylight while the house was under 24-hour KMT surveillance. One does not have to read between the lines to see how this gives the lie to Ma's alleged concern for rectifying the past.

Bruce Jacobs still believes that in order to examine the record properly, the files of the many security agencies need a complete re-examination. Only then can Taiwan begin the genuine Truth and Reconciliation process necessary to heal the wounds from the past.

Where have the files of Taiwan’s White Terror victims gone? Wang Hsi-ling 汪希苓 is one of those KMT top guys who may have some of the answers if the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau hasn’t dumped away all the files.

Under the KMT’s administration, Taiwan’s transitional justice still has a long way to go.

Ma is good in displaying his “sorrow” for KMT’s brutality during the White terror, but his administration has only empty words and no actions despite his “sincere” apology.

Let’s examine Ma’s role during Taiwan’s White Terror era, was Ma Ying-jeou a “professional student” spying on Taiwan’s students in US? The following 6 links provide some clues.

Paper of Ma talking about his activities in KMT’s monthly campus magazine “Boston Communique”

哈佛教授指證 馬英九是校園間諜 (My comment: I hope this law professor can stand up for justice now, otherwise he might as well quit teaching law)

DPP lawmakers demand apology from `Ma the spy'

「職業學生」馬英九的「自供」

Ma Ying-jeou, Professional Student?

Editorial: Ma Ying-jeou's moment of truth

and

Comment left by a former MIT’s Taiwan graduate student at this article, Fallout from Chen Shui-Bian's Dramatic Arrest:

Posted By: liuchen_ly (November 21, 2008 at 2:33 PM)

Thank you, Ms. Liu, for an excellent article. What Ma administration did to Taiwanese is despicable and extremely disappointing, but hardly surprising. I was a graduate student at MIT when Ma was studying in Harvard. It was well known among the students from Taiwan that Ma was paid by the KMT to spy on pro-Taiwan independence students and to report to the KMT government. Such activities created “white terror” even in the land for the free. Many people were blacklisted and were prohibited from returning to Taiwan. He also published Boston Communiqué which acted as a KMT mouthpiece. His lack of respect for freedom, rule of law and basic human rights was evident then. During the presidential campaign, he said all the right things, but his deeds are in total contrast to his words. I sincerely hope that the fragile democracy in Taiwan can endure and survive his brutal assault.

So, is Ma sincere about reconciliation? You be the judge.

Reference:

White Terror documents cause uproar

The March 20, 2009 post of The View from Taiwan

Why 'terror' files are important to Taiwan

The murder of Henry Liu and 國安局長汪敬煦洩密給FBI

Death because the judge decided so?!

I side track little from my usual topic of Taiwan’s politics for this post today because I am always interested in promoting justice. I am going to bring this case to the attention of my readers all over the world so you can get a glimpse of Taiwan’s judicial system. And I hope this post will bring about some reforms.

Two days ago, the Taipei Times reported the case of a defendant sentenced to death for the eighth time.

As this dragging case is not the only one since the Amnesty International’s Taiwan watch list included another case in which a defendant had been retained for 21 years and was awaiting for the 11th retrial, although I didn’t follow-up on this AI case’s latest development, nevertheless, it showed another example of the flawed system.

For the 1st case I mentioned above, the Taipei Times reported:

Hsu Tsu-chiang’s lawyers say his conviction was based solely on the confessions of two codefendants, one of whom recanted the testimony.

….

Prosecutors say the evidence against Hsu is solid, citing the fact that one of the suspects (who left the country and was never caught) stayed at Hsu’s home around the time of the crime and that a car rented by him was one of several cars used for the crime.

Defense lawyers dismiss these arguments as circumstantial and add that all the other cars used for the crime were stolen, and it was therefore extremely doubtful that the perpetrators would have been careless enough to rent one of the cars under one of their own names. Hsu was tricked into renting a car for his “friends,” who didn’t have one and said they needed it for the day, his lawyers say.

The Control Yuan agreed that prosecutors’ arguments were “illogical.” It also said prosecutors ignored testimony indicating that Hsu was not at the scene of the crime.

Before the judgment was announced, as Chen waited in the hallway for guards to arrive with her son from Taipei Detention Center, she said Hsu no longer believed he would ever be free.

“They only have the confessions to go on,” she told the Taipei Times. “How can that be justice?”

The following is my observations and comments from reading the news:

All I can conclude from reading the news is that the defendant did some favor for a friend (or tricked by a "friend") by renting a car and letting his friend stay at his home. Whether the defendant knew or not about what his friend did at the time he provided the two favors should not convict him to death. Is the defendant’s DNA sample found at the crime scene? Since there is testimony that the defendant was not at the scene of the crime, why did the judge choose to ignore this testimony but rely his decision solely on the confession of one of the two codefendants?

Why don’t Taiwan’s law enforcement officers attempt to seek foreign assistance to trace and catch this suspect that had left the country, and why should a friend be sentenced to death because the police didn’t catch the suspect in time and let him escaped out of the country?

Why does it depend on the decision or perhaps the mood of a judge that day?

Why doesn’t Taiwan’s justice system have the option of trial by jury to decide the guilty or non-guilty verdict of a defendant (I mean isn’t it time to introduce the jury trial system in Taiwan and let the criminal defendant choose between a bench trial or a jury trial?)

My knowledge of law is restricted to taxation in the past and blank in criminal, and I am not a trained lawyer, but I do hope this post will bring about some judicial reforms in Taiwan so that human dignity is upheld.

Reviewing UN’s founding mission on Human Rights Day

Today is Human Rights Day 2009 and also the 30th anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident which started Taiwan's gradual transformation into democracy.

Embrace diversity, end discrimination is clearly written on the UN's HR Day promotional poster. But, instead of protecting human rights, the UN prejudices against the people of Taiwan.

The UN discriminates the people born in Taiwan for its employment recruitments.

Plus it excludes Taiwanese from all kinds of universal rights such as health rights, and the WHO has no ways of implementing Taiwan’s meaningful participation without being a full member, nevertheless it continues to retain an advisor for the Director General who has no medical or public health background whatsoever.

The UN also facilitates to extinct the traditional writing form of Chinese.

I hope UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message is not only for window dressing.

"Discrimination targets individuals and groups that are vulnerable to attack: the disabled, women and girls, the poor, migrants, minorities, and all those who are perceived as different.

... But these victims of discrimination are not alone. The United Nations is standing with them, committed to defending the rights of all, and particularly the most vulnerable. That is our identity and our mission."

Therefore, there is a need to remind the UN officials the founding principles of the UN. Career diplomats should not just do lip service to dictators and the Chinese bully.

So, let me review the UN charter together with all the UN diplomats before they attempt to make their speeches.

Chapter I of the United Nations Charter lays out the purposes and principles of the United Nations organization. These principles include the equality and self-determination of nations and the obligation of member countries to obey the Charter, to cooperate with the UN Security Council and to use peaceful means to resolve conflicts.

The excerpt of Chapter I:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace

I support the concept of Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, who advocates greater roles for human rights activists in UN’s Human Rights Council. Human rights should be respected on the day-to-day operations of the UN, and not just honored on a special occasion.

Will Ma protect citizens abroad or only trample civil rights at home?

Lawmakers across party lines yesterday urged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lodge a protest against China over reports that a Taiwanese student in South Korea was harassed by a group of Chinese students for displaying a Republic of China (ROC) flag.

The Taipei Times from the above link:

What the Chinese students did was indirectly permitted by Ma.

And that’s why we should review Ma’s police policy a year ago and look forwards for a fresh new policy in the upcoming Taichung reunion of Chen Yunlin陳雲林 and Chiang Pin-kung江丙坤.

Watch this picture of an injured finger of a lady who struggled with the police while trying to uphold the ROC flag in her own country per this post.

Watch this video at 1:15 point, the PRC flag is allowed to be paraded with respect while this protester is taken into custody. This obviously demonstrated double standard by the police authority.

The measures employed by police to ensure the safety of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) have drawn criticism from several lawyers and nongovernmental organizations that question whether the police were acting within the bounds of the law and the Constitution.

The efforts to protect China’s Chen Yunlin exceeded those of Chen Shui-bian’s inauguration in 2004 when 15 countries presidents were present.

During Chen Yunlin’s visit, the government had deployed 10,000 security officers, and according to Amnesty International USA branch’s public statement, 149 police officers and 200-300 individuals were injured; 18 were arrested. Many confrontations and injuries could have been avoided if the police let the citizens freely express their opinions.

Was there an apology from the Ma government for the police’s violence? Now a year later, who from the Ma government has come forward and apologized? And the answer is here and even worse laying charges to protesters demanding an apology.

Let’s see if the Martial Law comes back in real life but not in paper again this month for the KMT-CCP reunion in Taichung.

And it is time for the young generation Taiwanese regardless of when their parents or ancestors became settlers in this land to examine in-depth why it is so controversial to uphold the ROC “national” flag (a derivative of the KMT’s party flag). If they want to have continuous freedom and democracy for Taiwan, they should neither vote for the KMT nor uphold its symbol.

And for the parents who discouraged their children from participating in the Wild Strawberries student movement last year to re-think why inaction when facing government suppression is a problem for their children’s future survival. The KMT is learning from the CCP how to trample over its own citizens!

And if our own government doesn’t even care about safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty, why should the citizens of any other country respect Taiwan?

Let’s see if the Ma government will lodge a protest to protect its citizens abroad in this incident that happened in Korea, or this government exists just to harass its own citizens domestically.

Reference:

You Tube video showed that some confrontation was due to Taiwan’s police under Ma Ying-jeou’s order grabbed and destroyed ROC’s own flag.

唱片行播台灣之歌，警方闖入要求停播關門 (You Tube video: the police trespassed a private record shop, shut off the music, confronted the people there, and closed the shop in order for Chen Yunlin to not to hear the Taiwanese music)

台北戒嚴了？from 2008 11 03大話新聞 (Martial Law reappeared in Taipei? Da-huwa Talk Show of Nov. 3 2008)

Don’t vote the KMT in today’s county election: a Greek’s perspective

A while ago, Harry Adamopoulos wrote to Johnny Neihu of the Taipei Times:

I would hope that some Taiwanese could see the perspective of us dabizi (大鼻子)!

The only way I can help, Johnny, is by reminding voters to punish the KMT in the year-end elections.

He also reminded the Ma administration in an earlier mail that:

Taking down your national flag when foreigners (note: he meant Chinese officials!) are in town is so degrading. This nonsense has got to stop.

Additionally, Yuan Hongbing, a Chinese law professor now in exile, told us how China planned to annex Taiwan, through a book he wrote, Taiwan Disaster, released on Nov. 17 in Taipei.

In a press conference on November 25^th, Yuan revealed a summary of his book on the steps of Beijing's strategies to control Taiwan by 2012, and among them is this:

Erode political platforms from within: Another key strategy of the regime is to erode Taiwan’s politico-economic factions from within. To accomplish this, the regime will focus on corrupting the Kuomintang (KMT) leaders and marginalizing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP.)

In order to further strengthen democracy in Taiwan, I urge the voters in Taiwan neither to vote for the KMT candidates nor for the candidates failing the KMT nominations and are running as independents.

Have you ever seen a party registered in an enemy country participating in the elections of the country in question? Yes, there is only one in the world! Only in Taiwan will you find a Chinese Nationalist Party (aka as the KMT) candidate participating in a Taiwan’s election. Not even between friendly nations will you find a Canadian Liberal party candidate participating in an US election!

The Chinese Nationalist Party is a Chinese party that should not participate in Taiwan’s elections if Taiwan were a normal country.

Since the KMT will not disappear from Taiwan’s elections, nor will the one who brought us the KMT to Taiwan do anything or say anything about the unfair financial advantages they have made the KMT become through decades of dictatorship and one-party rule, the only thing the Taiwan’s voters can do is to diminish the KMT’s local influence by not supporting its candidates each time there is election.

If you continue to vote for the KMT, there may be no more chances to vote in the near future because the administrators will simply be appointed from your enemy country.

The ever-changing “status quo”

To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are, but when it comes to describing the situation in the Taiwan Strait, the “status quo” is never equilibrium, it is indeed a hoax.

“Strategic ambiguity” is a term widely used by the US government officials to describe Taiwan’s legal status. On page 4 of this CRS report dated Feb. 2006 on Taiwan’s Political Status, it has detailed description of the “strategic ambiguity”. As a matter of fact, the “status quo” as interpreted by the US is based upon its policy of strategic ambiguity. Following this policy, Taiwan’s UN referendum was heavily criticized, but China’s every hostile move to annex Taiwan was condoned.

The policy makers in the US State Department think that by keeping Taiwan’s legal status ambiguous, it has served the purpose of preserving peace in the Taiwan Strait, but this policy has totally trampled the basic rights of Taiwanese to participate in international organizations, such as the WHO (the most crucial health rights), and in the meantime ignored China’s gradual annexation of Taiwan through unilateral declaration of territorial rights on international organizations’ documents, example below (click the Cached link as Taiwan’s MAC office under Ma Ying-jeou's leadership is trying to appease China by self-censoring these type of documents)

MAC: The United States should respect and understand that the ...China presumptuously includes Taiwan's ports under its territorial ... where China included some of Taiwan's ports in the list of its domestic ports, ...www.mac.gov.tw/english/english/news/07117.htm - Cached - Similar

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on its website the list of qualified ports under the International Health Regulations (IHR), where China included some of Taiwan's ports in the list of its domestic ports, which fully revealed that the political oppression and interference that China has imposed onTaiwan's international space and sovereign status has reached an extreme level. In response to this, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has strongly expressed its dissatisfaction and condemnation.

Further, the WHO’s apartheid against Taiwanese caused many problems, the immediate effect of this was evidenced by Taiwan not being able to receive prompt assistance from the WHO’s health authority to control the SARS epidemics in 2003, the delay of assistance (while the WHO contemplating for China’s approval?!) caused many unnecessary deaths.

Later the secret Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between China and the WHO’s officials further damaged Taiwan’s autonomy by allowing China to “manage” the procedures in which how WHO should or should not interact with Taiwan, instead of its initial intent of allowing Taiwan’s meaningful participation in health meetings and international cooperation tasks without Taiwan being an actual member.

Facing China’s suppression of Taiwan’s international space (a must read link), the so-called meaningful participation was replaced by all kinds of Chinese tactics to prevent the participation by Taiwanese delegations. Tactics used include Taiwanese officials were informed at the last minute for health meetings that they either missed the deadline of registration for the event or could not prepare themselves properly for the event; in many instances, the event host countries, after being pressured by Chinese authority, simply didn’t grant visas to Taiwanese delegations. If Taiwanese delegations were allowed to participate in an event, China would designate their choice by picking their preferred candidates to represent Taiwan for the event.

The participation of Taiwan in the WHA meeting as an observer this past June was simply a plot, a political victory for China. Participation in a week’s meeting as an observer does not in reality protect Taiwanese universal health rights because only with Beijing's approval could Taiwan observe the WHA meeting. The fact that Taiwan must re-apply each year for its WHA observer status implies that Beijing wants to hold leverage on future Taiwanese leaders depending on their stance towards Beijing.

The strategic ambiguity is a total failure in terms of protecting the basic universal rights of Taiwanese.

If a person was born in Taiwan, he or she cannot work for any UN or its sub organizations even if he or she holds any other country’s passport.

I will give an example:

A friend of mine was born in Taiwan to a missionary couple stationed there. My friend does not live in Taiwan anymore. When she was applying for a humanitarian job from some UN sub organization, on the application form she had to choose, among the pre-entered choices, the country of her birth. She was born in Taiwan but because the country “Taiwan” was simply not included in the choices, she didn’t know what to do. Immediately she faced the problem of leaving this question blank (but it was a required entry), or just picked any arbitrary country on the form (that would be lying against her passport entry), or abandoned the application? Why shouldn’t Taiwan be included in the choices, is Taiwan an entity in the outer space? Does the strategic ambiguity address this problem? No!

There is no need to mention those Taiwanese people born in Taiwan and carry a ROC passport who wish to contribute their talent in the UN or its sub-organizations because no matter how gifted or how distinguished they may be, they are doomed to be excluded from working for the UN. And Taiwan does have the technical know-how and many talented people who could contribute their expertise.

Other problems:

Taiwanese want a locally-designed constitution to consolidate domestic democracy replacing the imposed ROC constitution, but the US opposed because that would be a change of the status quo.

Taiwanese have no rights to a nationality of their choice, holding a passport called ROC, an occupying authority that double as Chinese exile government with only a few countries recognizing it.

If Taiwanese do not challenge these unequal treatments, how can they obtain the basic rights inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Similarly, if there were no abolishment of slavery and no civil rights movement from the predecessors, I wonder if president Obama would enjoy the status he enjoys today?

The status-quo is shifting bit by bit, tilting in favor of China because the US executive branch allows it to happen, it never stays at equilibrium.

The most recent omission of the Taiwan Relations Act on the written statement in Beijing by president Obama coupled with his indecision on the F-16 C/D jet sales are an indication of another shift, which may have been pre-negotiated by Secretary of State H. Clinton back in her February visit to China. Is this the 3rd round of betrayal after 1947 and 1979?

Due to US’s other domestic and global interests in which China’s cooperation are being sought, Taiwan is being bargained away little by little leaving the rights of Taiwanese citizens unprotected.

Why do the US government officials make foreign policies that often trample the human rights of citizens of other countries? While I don’t agree with innocent US citizens being held as hostages on many confrontational situations abroad, but how can anyone help when their government officials designed foreign policies to invite danger for its citizens?

And for Taiwanese who believe in the choice of keeping the status quo, this post is a reminder for them to review what has happened from keeping the so called “status quo”.

Why does AP always speak from the POV of China?

Update: AP has a corrected version to my first complain of biased reporting.

I don't know why, and I would like to remind AP of their mission statement.

...providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed.

AP reported:

President Barack Obama says he sees no need to change Washington's "one-China" policy, which views Taiwan as part of China.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. Beijing continues to claim the island as part of its territory and threatens to attack if Taiwan moves to formalize its de facto independence.

AP, please read the 2^nd paragraph of the beginning summary of the Congressional Report dated August 17, 2009 China/Taiwan: Evolution of the "One China" Policy -- Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei before filing your inaccurate report to spread rumors around the globe.

It says:

The United States did not explicitly state the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three U.S.-PRC Joint Communiques of 1972, 1979, and 1982. The United States “acknowledged” the “one China” position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait. U.S. policy has not recognized the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan; has not recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country; and has considered Taiwan’s status as undetermined. (my note: in other word, strategic ambiguity)

And, please read my blog right-hand side’s “ATTENTION! MAINSTREAM JOURNALISTS” about the brief Chinese history and the illogical invention of the sentence “Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949.”

Fact:

The sentence would likely mislead uninformed readers to think that Taiwan and China have been together all the time and split in 1949 due to a civil war in which Taiwan was part of the battlefield.

However, the fact is that Taiwan was under Japanese rule since 1895 due to the Treaty of Shimonoseki signed between Japan and the Qing Dynasty in which Taiwan was given away perpetually, and therefore Taiwan was under Japanese jurisdiction when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 replacing the Qing Dynasty. When the ROC constitution was drafted in 1925, Taiwan, since was under Japanese jurisdiction, was not included in the list of individually-listed provinces of the territory of ROC. When the ROC constitution was promulgated in 1946, Taiwan had not been brought into the territory of the ROC.

Further, it was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that fought against each other in China's civil war. After being defeated in China, the KMT fled to Taiwan to take refuge on the island as an exile Chinese government and it therefore extended its temporary stay and doubled its role as a post-WWII administrator of Taiwan on behalf of the Allied Forces per General Order No.1.

On November 9, 2009, AP reported (the last 2 paragraphs right before the end):

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to claim the island as part of its territory. Relations between the sides have improved significantly after Ma took office last May.

Ma has vowed to reduce tensions across the 100-mile (160-kilometer) -wide Taiwan Strait, but he has also said Taipei and Beijing should work on improving trade relations first before moving on to sensitive political and security issues.

Great recognition of improvement of relations that has tensions! It's like describing a couple having honeymoon relationship but with tensions, kind of strange isn't it? The words just don't make much sense to appear together.

If it is true that the relations are so good after Ma took office, why does Ma have to vow to reduce tensions? It's simply not logical when one sentence appears after another!

With China's 1500 missiles still pointing at Taiwan, similar to a situation in which a hostage is being forced at gun point to make love with the hostage taker, Ma seems willing to perform such an insulting role while on-lookers applaud instead of offering assistance.

The phenomenon of improved relations is an illusion created by western media and politicians, but certainly is not being observed the same way from Taiwanese POV.

Former chairman of AIT speaks up

Nat Bellocchi, a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, appeared in today's Taipei Times with this op-ed, Pitfalls and possibilities in Obama’s Taiwan line.

He expressed his opinion about how the global community (especially US and China) should interact with Taiwan in order to foster true peace and stability in the region, his remarks really made my day:

From an international perspective, Taiwan is an example of a successful transition to democracy. The most rational and reasonable outcome of Taiwan’s normalization of relations with China would be acceptance of this young democracy in the international family of nations. This is a process that will need cooperation from all sides; for its part, China will need to see that it is in its own interests to come to terms with a small and democratic neighbor with which it can live in peace.

Remember, Taiwanese never threaten nor challenge the existence of China. It was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) who had fought against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the past. It is the CCP who has continuously threatened Taiwanese with weapons. And it is the US officials who have continuously ignored the rights and wills of the Taiwanese people in pursuit of some US politicians' own business interests, example. A search on the internet with the combination of words like "Kissinger and China and business" will lead you to a dozen of related entries, including his recent visit to China in October 2009. Kissinger is China's favorite guest!

It is not fair to blame all the presidents, like Clinton, who followed the groundwork laid by Kissinger. However, it is up to the American people to address the issue of conflict of interest involving government officials and / or advisors and their foreign venture consulting businesses as it is beyond the scope of this post. The US foreign relations and policies have often been dominated by the interests of these consulting firms and their clients.

Nat Bellocchi also had a nice piece back in August, 2005, Identity issue raises its head again. It contains identity issue as well as a warning for the Taiwanese who believe that maintaining the status-quo is the best choice for Taiwan. For people who pay little attention about the gradual shifting of the status-quo, Bellocchi's advice in that piece was:

Unfortunately, Taiwan has one priority issue that overshadows all the others -- the lack of consensus on national identity.

That is an enormous task, but a critical necessity. Voters see "status quo" as the answer -- thinking that staying neutral can last as long as they like. My last article tried to explain why this is illusory. The result would not be a choice, but eventual unification. Ambiguity dominates the language between Taiwan, the US and China. In addition, election campaigns tend to be dominated by unreliable rhetoric. With the lack of interest among so many voters, addressing this problem should be today's top priority.

Beyond “Don’t concede more on Taiwan 美對台立場不能再讓步於中國”

I was reading this article called Don’t concede more on Taiwan by Hisahiko Okazaki published on Friday, Nov 06, 2009, Page 8 at the Taipei Times. It actually talked about how President Clinton shifted Taiwan’s status-quo, an important history lesson for Taiwanese from 1998 to 2009. Hisahiko Okazaki has served as the Japanese ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He now runs the Okazaki Institute, a think tank in Tokyo. This piece was first published in ACFR News Group No.1528, an e-mail publication of The American Committees on Foreign Relations, on Oct. 27, 2009.

The following are the excerpts from the above link which described how Taiwan’s status-quo has been slowly shifted since President Clinton’s era:

Then on the eve of the President’s visit, stories began to circulate that the President was going to commit ‘three NOs,” that the US would oppose Taiwan independence, one-China-one-Taiwan policy and Taiwan’s formal membership in state-based international organizations. Fortunately, there was no mention of “three NOs” in the joint press conference, nor in the major policy speech at the Beijing University. Then the volte-face came. Dropping by in Shanghai, the President declared the “three NO’s” in a dialogue with Chinese intellectuals on a TV show.

Although the US Congress quickly rejected the commitment through resolutions of both Houses, China may still view the remark as an official commitment of the President of the United States and may quite likely expect President Obama to reconfirm it.

It is not difficult at all to suspect that there were some disgraceful deals behind the scenes. The date of the visit, to start with, is believed to have been besought by the US to turn attention away from a domestic scandal, and that indebted the US to say three NOs and bypass Japan and Korea while making the longest trip that Clinton made to a single country. The topics to be discussed during the Shanghai TV interview, which had originally been planned to concentrate on cultural affairs, seemed to have been changed at short notice.

The Chinese-language translation of the above article is also available.

The above article led me to read some other very important articles, which I will mention them from the latest to the oldest.

First, what did Secretary of State H. Clinton do this past February in Beijing?

Read Clinton’s China Visit Opens Door on Climate Change by Orville Schell.

The 2^nd last paragraph of the article has this:

Long after the current economic crisis is over, the situation in Tibet has been calmed, arguments over currency exchange have been forgotten, and the Taiwan split has been resolved, the world will only be beginning to confront the daunting effects of climate change. To date, the U.S. and China have been largely out of the game of climate change solutions. Without our two countries whole-heartedly in the game, there is, honestly speaking, no meaningful game being played.

What does it mean by this phrase “the Taiwan split has been resolved”?

Whatever it means, it is up to everyone’s guess! Was Taiwan bargained away without our knowledge? Is president Obama’s upcoming trip to China, for the subject of Taiwan, simply to rubber stamp the arrangement already made earlier between H. Clinton and China’s leaders in February?

Now another article back in 2003.

An article by Charles R. Smith published on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003 would raise some eyebrows for sure because it gave some explanations why China could advance so quickly in its military science.

Declassified documents showed that President Bill Clinton personally approved the transfer to China of advanced space technology that can be used for nuclear combat. (read the entire article…)

And one could find out how President Clinton had kowtowed to China’s demand back in 1998 by reading As Summit Approaches, Clinton Follows China’s Lead written by Richard Halloran just before Clinton’s trip.

The Chinese had induced Mr. Clinton to spend nine days in China, from June 25 to July 3, 1998 (just in time to return home for the July 4^th national holiday), longer than any other U.S. president’s trip to China before, and had requested Clinton to fly directly from US soil to Beijing by-passing Japan, an important ally of US in Asia. China also made Clinton appeared in Tiananmen Square symbolizing his assertion of China’s handling of the dissidence was right, thereby, bringing an end to the controversy in China's history.

I conclude that Hisahiko Okazaki’s recent article is backed up by all my other reading I have done.

Twenty three million people’s fate was nothing when a politician had to diffuse attention from his personal scandal. And I don’t understand how anyone can be accused of spying when military secrets can be “approved” officially to be transferred abroad.

Finally, Chinese dissidents may be expecting yet another time’s lock-ups or house arrests for Obama’s upcoming visit since that had been the case when the UK’s Telegraph reported on Feb. 21 2009 by David Eimer that Hillary Clinton China visit blamed for the detention of activists.

If you haven’t read the links, go ahead and read them now because history has taught us many lessons.