Hungry Ghosts

Betel nut brouhaha

2012-01-05T11:37:00.009+08:00

HSINCHU, Taiwan — A magazine here is catching flak for touting scantily clad betel nut vendors as a tourist attraction. The minor flap has renewed debate over a unique but controversial part of Taiwan's pop culture. Betel nut, a mild stimulant, is enjoyed across Asia. But only in Taiwan is the nut sold by fetching young women in outrageous outfits, perched in neon-lit, see-through roadside stands. FULL STORY.

Double Jeopardy

2012-01-05T11:37:00.008+08:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Japan hangs them. China puts a bullet in their head. Taiwan makes them lie face down on a blanket, then shoots them in the back or skull. Asia has had few qualms about capital punishment. It put more people to death in 2009 than the rest of the world combined, according to Amnesty International, with “the vast majority” of those executions in China. But now, movements are afoot to abolish the death penalty. FULL STORY.

Love Motel 2.0

2012-01-05T11:36:00.008+08:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Gone are the days of scuzzy "rest" hotels, rented by the hour to furtive lovers. The latest generation of Taiwan love hotels are over-the-top pleasure dens, kitted out with full karaoke sound systems, massive jacuzzis and high-tech privacy protection. FULL STORY.

Japan: Just-in-time workers

2012-01-05T11:36:00.007+08:00

NAGOYA, Japan — For decades, Japan's big firms were famous for their deal with employees: The corporation was a big family that looked after its workers for life. In return it expected total dedication. That was the Japanese way, and part of the popular 1980s American media narrative on the rise of Japan, Inc. It's no longer true. Instead, more than 17 million people in the world's second largest economy are now "irregular" workers, or temps, according to government statistics. FULL STORY.

Red light fight

2012-01-05T11:22:00.005+08:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Massive debts pushed her into prostitution. Now, after several false starts, she's pocketing $3,000 in a good month, turning tricks as a self-employed Taipei street-walker. The money's good, she says, but there's just one problem: the cops. Prostitution is illegal in Taiwan, and the cops have several times hauled her in for three days in jail, or a fine up to $1,000. If sex work is legalized in a year's time as now planned, though, she says her working conditions will improve. FULL STORY.

Taiwan's China envy

2011-09-06T05:42:00.003+08:00

Controversial Chinese philanthropist visits Taiwan, highlighting wealth gap and "new poor."

Global Post, Jan. 30, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — You might think Taiwan would welcome a wealthy visitor who wants to pass out money to the poor. But you’d be wrong.

The island was abuzz last week over the visit of one of China's top philanthropists, Chen Guangbiao, who is well-known for his flashy style. The controversy highlights the still awkward relations across the Taiwan Strait, as well as the growing rich-poor gap on both sides.

Chen insists he merely wants to return the generosity of Taiwanese who have helped China, for example with huge donations after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. But several objections have emerged from Taiwan's rowdy political and media arena.

Some think he's tasteless and disrespects the poor by making such a show of his charity. (In China last week, he ostentatiously passed out banknotes after erecting a massive, $2.3 million "wall of cash.") One Taiwan county head rejected his visit on those grounds, promptly igniting a backlash from angry constituents who were hoping for a payola.

Others in the pro-independence opposition see him as a Trojan Horse, spreading a pro-unification message under the cover of traditional, Chinese New Year generosity. (China claims Taiwan as its territory; Taiwan insists it's an independent state.)

Such critics pointed to his itinerary, which avoids the pro-independence south to focus on several counties in the more China-friendly north. And then there's the inscription on the 50,000 "red envelopes" he's using to distribute cash, which according to Taiwan media reports reads in part "the Chinese race is one family."

Chen denied any political motive, telling reporters, according to the Taipei Times: "I don’t know anything about propaganda for Chinese reunification. I only know about charity and environmental work. I just want to do good.”

Beneath the moral and political indignation, though, there's a palpable unease with the symbolism of Chen's visit. Taiwan's development once far outpaced China's. But as China's wealth booms and Taiwan's stagnates, the island is losing its sense of economic superiority.

Taiwan's per-person wealth may still be far higher than China's, at around $18,500 compared to some $4,300. But growth rates have sagged in Taiwan while soaring to double or high single digits in China. And in the last few decades, the island has seen a growing income gap. (Measured by the Gini coefficient, inequality rose from 0.28 in 1980 to 0.34 in 2006.)

Like other advanced economies, manufacturing jobs have shrunk as factories move to China and elsewhere. Lower-paying, non-unionized service sector jobs have taken their place. The service sector is now nearly 70 percent of the economy, compared to 50 percent 20 years ago. And since the global downturn, Taiwan firms have been increasingly relying on "dispatch" or temp workers, like Japan and South Korea.

The result has been a new legion of "working poor" or "new poor," as they're called here. They may not show up on unemployment statistics. But they struggle to make ends meet with two or even three low-paying jobs, but no job security.

"Those people cannot get help because they're not ill, or victims of a disaster, and they're not poor by the government's standards," said Taiwan sociologist Chiu Hei-yuan. "So they are just helpless — and they hope to get some unexpected help from people like Mr. Chen."

Twelve percent of the workforce now earns less than $700 per month, and average monthly wages are at 1998 levels, according to labor groups.

Meanwhile, highly-skilled workers in the technology and other sectors pull in ever-fatter paychecks, sharpening inequality between the haves and have-nots. "Taiwan's social welfare system cannot solve the problem of the gap between the rich and the poor — especially the 'new poor,'" said Chiu.

For its part, China is seeing a burst of newly-minted millionaires and even billionaires, as a lucky few strike it rich amid the rising power's go-go economy. There, too, inequality has spiked sharply, with the most noticeable chasm between the urban elite and the vast ranks of the rural poor. The top 10 percent now earns 23 times what the bottom 10 percent makes, compared to just a seven-fold gap in 1998. The Gini coefficient is now 0.47.

"In China now, some people can get very rich in a very short time because of China's growing, but unbalanced economy," said Chiu. "The large cities are developing so fast — they can accumulate wealth quickly."

One of those lucky few is Chen, who made his fortune recycling material from the construction industry after growing up poor in the boonies, according to a BBC profile. (In that interview, he also confirmed that he had vowed never again to give money to his sister, who works as a hotel dishwasher, or his brother, who works as a security guard, because they squandered his money in the past.)

He's exactly the type of swaggering, nouveau riche Chinese businessman who rubs some Taiwanese the wrong way. For others, though, all the criticism over Chen's visit is just sniping. One 67-year-old woman waited all night outside his Taipei hotel after he arrived, then hit the jackpot by nabbing Chen's first red envelope.

Amid a swarm of Taiwanese TV cameras, the woman explained that she wanted to take care of her 88-year-old mother, who has lost her eye-sight.

“I’ve never touched so much money in all my life," she told reporters after receiving about $2,300 from Chen. “I’m very thankful. He is a very generous man."

Original site

Asia's unsung flower power

2011-09-06T05:36:00.005+08:00

In the last decade, Taiwan has quietly become the world's No. 1 exporter of orchids.

Global Post, Jan. 25, 2011

TAINAN COUNTY, Taiwan — In a massive greenhouse in balmy southern Taiwan, workers pack boxes of 2-year-old white butterfly orchids.

Around them stretch row after row of the flowers, a hothouse battalion prepared for customers in Japan. There, the flowers fetch about $12 each, earning producer Tai-Ling Biotech a more than 30 percent profit margin, according to managing director Peter Liu.

Tai-Ling exports 7,000 to 8,000 flowers to Japan per month with a 185-strong workforce. And growing demand boosted the firm's sales to $10 million in 2010 from $7 million in 2009. "I need to expand into more greenhouses," said Liu, as workers scurried behind him.

Taiwan may be famous as a high-tech manufacturing giant. But in the last decade, the island of just 23 million has also quietly become one of the world's top flower exporters, and the world's No. 1 exporter of orchids. Taiwanese know-how has also powered China's own emerging flower industry.

Flower and flower-seed exports have nearly tripled in value in the last decade, from $48 million in 1999 to $111 million in 2009, according to statistics from the Taiwan Floriculture Exports Association. Those numbers show how Taiwan has successfully married its agricultural past with cutting-edge technology for breeding and mass-producing flowers.

Much of the boom has been in orchids. $87 million of last year's exports were orchids, up from $40 million in 2004, according to government statistics. Orchids account for just 20 percent of Taiwan's flower exports by quantity, but 80 percent of export value, according to the orchid growers' association.

In 2005, Taiwan became the world's top orchid exporting country, replacing Thailand — a spot the island still holds, according to the association.

"Butterfly" orchids, also known by their scientific name phalaenopsis, have been a star export. Exports of butterfly orchids earned Taiwan $62 million last year.

Taiwan firms have also played a key role in the birth of mainland China's mass-produced flower business. Beginning in the early 1990s, Taiwan firms moved across the Strait, especially to the area around Kunming, in southwest Yunnan Province, which has an ideal climate for horticulture.

Taiwan firms typically produce for the Chinese domestic market, and serve as middlemen between Chinese growers and foreign breeders.

Tai-Ling serves the China market from a branch in Shanghai that employs 70 to 80 Chinese workers. Production costs are half what they are in Taiwan, but managing director Liu says Taiwanese workers are far better — one of them can do the job of two typical Chinese workers, he says, erasing the mainland's cost advantage. And Japan remains his most important market by far, he says, because Chinese still don't have regular buying patterns.

"They don't have the habit of buying flowers, except during Chinese New Year or National Day," said Liu. "At other times sales are very small."

That could change soon. Flower consumption is rising 20 percent to 30 percent per year in China, says Liu Bang-shein, managing director of the Dahan Group, a Taiwanese pioneer in China's flower market. That's a contrast with nearby markets like Japan, where consumption is stable or even decreasing slightly. According to a recent documentary that aired on China's state-run CCTV, China's flower market is already estimated at some $10 billion.

Dahan is now Asia's largest company for poinsettias, producing 4 million cuttings a year — 20 percent of China's overall production, and 65 percent of "legal" production, that is, plants produced under license, with royalties paid to breeders.

Amid all the success, though, Taiwan already has its eye on the rear-view mirror. New Taiwanese firms have crowded into the market, increasing competition and lowering profit margins. The Dutch are planning large-scale greenhouses in the United States, which could give them an edge in that key market.

China doesn't export much yet, because of problems with breeders' rights — the right to grow and sell specific flower varieties. Exports without the proper paperwork and licenses are banned from key markets like Europe and the U.S.

"Our plant variety protection is better than theirs [China's]," said Chang Su-san, from Taiwan's Council of Agriculture. "They focus more on food crops, we focus more on horticulture."

But eventually, homegrown Chinese firms could compete in key flower markets. So Taiwan firms are looking to move up the value chain, in search of better margins and an edge.

"We need to keep increasing our varieties and efficiency," said Chang. Some Taiwan producers hope to set up a cross-strait production line, with the first stages of production in lower-cost China and final production, branding, and packaging in Taiwan for export to world markets.

Dutch flower exporters use a similar model, with plantations in Africa or other cheaper locations. But at the moment, cross-strait trade barriers make that business model impossible. Some flower imports from China are banned; others face a 35 percent import tariff, said Parker Wu, a veteran of the orchid business at Orchis Floriculturing.

Wu thinks the Taiwan government should set up an export zone and an auction, similar to the one in Yunnan province or in Holland, to better connect Taiwan's producers with global buyers.

Another focus will be on developing brands. Up until now, many of the island's flower firms have been akin to "contract" manufacturers in that they export small plants or cuttings to the U.S., where U.S. brands shepherd them through the final stages of production, market and sell them. That means Taiwan firms earn only a small slice of the profits.

Branding would expand Taiwan's slice. "In the end, your brand is the most important thing," said Richard Lin, of the Taiwan Orchid Growers Association. "There's still a lot we have to learn and improve."

Original site

Double jeopardy: Asia's death penalty debate

2011-09-06T05:29:00.004+08:00

Part I: A murder trial in Taiwan puts the spotlight on Asia's death penalty debate.

Global Post, Feb. 10, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Japan hangs them. China puts a bullet in their head. Taiwan makes them lie face down on a blanket, then shoots them in the back or skull.

Asia has had few qualms about capital punishment. It put more people to death in 2009 than the rest of the world combined, according to Amnesty International, with “the vast majority” of those executions in China.

But now, movements are afoot to abolish the death penalty. Taiwan and South Korea put unofficial moratoriums on executions, at least until Taiwan put to death four convicts in June last year after an outcry from crime victims’ relatives. Japan has also reduced executions.

Majorities in Asian countries support the death penalty, as is the case in the United States. But several high-profile cases have given people pause. In Japan last year, DNA evidence proved the innocence of a man who had been jailed for 17 years for murder. There are doubts, too, on the guilt of the country’s longest-serving death row inmate.

In Taiwan, the case of the "Hsichih Three" is cited by rights groups as a disturbing example of how police and the courts can get it wrong.

Once hours away from the execution chamber, the three men were found innocent last November in the grisly double murder of a couple in 1991. The only evidence against them were confessions they later recanted, saying they were obtained through torture.

"The case of the Hsichih Trio has raised public awareness of the weaknesses of the criminal justice system and begun to raise the death penalty as a question for public debate," said a report by the International Federation for Human Rights.

From April to November last year, GlobalPost followed the re-trial of the Hsichih Three, attending hearings and interviewing the key figures in the case. Their story is one of high drama. It highlights how the global debate over whether the state should have the power to take a life is playing out in Asia.

And it shows why Taiwan, for all its problems, is considered to be in the vanguard of human rights in Asia — and an example to its giant neighbor across the Taiwan Strait. While Taiwan is moving fitfully toward scrapping the death penalty, China executes thousands per year behind a shroud of secrecy.

An abominable crime

What happened in that room was evil.

In the dead of night on March 24, 1991, Wu Ming-han and Yeh Ying-lan were in bed, in their small apartment in a working-class Taipei suburb. In another room, their 7- and 8-year-old children slept.

At around 4 in the morning, one or more intruders crept into the couple's tiny bedroom. The couple awoke. A violent struggle erupted.

A crime scene reconstruction catalogued the results in emotionless detail, like a spreadsheet of horror. Wu was hacked 42 times; Yeh 37. Her wounds included 12 cuts on the face, 18 cuts on the left occipital, wounds to the left chest, right scapula, right hand, wrists and both arms. His left pinkie was broken and his wedding ring cut off.

Grainy police photos of the crime scene show two bodies sprawled on the floor like tossed-away rag dolls, each a bundle of mauled clothing and gore. Blood runs red down dressers, bedspreads and walls.

Police arrested the couple's 22-year-old neighbor Wang Wen-hsiao, a marine conscript on home leave with a drug habit, divorced parents and gambling debts of at least $1,500. He confessed to the crime, describing a burglary gone horribly wrong. Military courts tried and executed him.

Under intense public pressure, local police also rounded up Wang's brother and three local teens he identified, on the belief that one person couldn't have committed such a brutal double murder alone. All four confessed to involvement in the crime, and Wang identified them as accomplices. They all later recanted, saying they had been tortured by police.

Only Wang’s fingerprints were found at the crime scene, along with two sets of bloody footprints (one of those believed to be a cop's), and one murder weapon — a meat cleaver. To this day, not a single piece of physical evidence ties the three to the scene of the crime.

Wang’s brother served a light jail sentence for testifying against the others, and was released. The Hsichih Three were found guilty and sent to death row. Their lives were spared when the minister of justice — now Taiwan's president — refused to sign their execution orders, citing irregularities in the case.

In 2003, a court overturned the convictions and freed them. Prosecutors appealed, and the three were found guilty again in 2007. Yet another retrial was ordered. And that's where things stood in April 2010.

Read more from Double jeopardy:

Part II: victims' families seek justice

Part III: trend toward abolition

Part IV: presumed guilty

Part V: matter of "face"

Original site

Double jeopardy: victims' families seek justice

2011-09-06T05:23:00.005+08:00

Part II: Have anti-death-penalty activists gone too far?

Global Post, Feb. 10, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — The prosecutors in black-and-purple robes yawned, fidgeted, even dozed through many of the High Court hearings.

But throughout the trial, a 60-year-old man with thinning hair, wearing red-framed glasses and a plain jacket, listened intently from the row behind them. It was Wu Tang-jie, older brother of the male victim.

In an interview at his lawyer's office in Taipei in June, Wu said he had attended every hearing he could in the case's 19-year course. A counselor at a Taipei prison, he used his vacation days to represent the family in court.

He insisted that all the evidence pointed “obviously” to the guilt of the Hsichih Three.

How could one person with one weapon have inflicted so much gore? How could the victims’ 7- and 8-year-old children have slept through the horror, unless two or more assailants covered the victims' mouths to stop their screams?

In the middle of the interview, Wu pulled from a folder two large, double-sided laminated photos and placed them on the table. Garish red jumped out first. Then a closer look: a mutilated head and blood-matted hair, in gruesome close-up. It was Wu's brother and his brother’s wife, both 37 at the time of death, in blown-up police photos from the crime scene.

"If people who oppose the death penalty could see these pictures, I think they would change their minds," he said softly. "People who want to abolish the death penalty don't have family who were killed like this, so they don't have sympathy."

"The victims’ feelings, before they die — nobody can know that," he said, peering over the photos. "No one can write it down."

Wu said he thought the death penalty could deter serious crimes. "You will consider that you could be put to death before you commit a crime," he said. "If there was no death penalty, people would do whatever they want."

He said there should be a law to better take care of victims’ families, saying the two children of the murdered couple had “no help.”

He was clearly bitter at how the Hsichih Three had become a cause celebre for human rights and anti-death-penalty groups, while his family has suffered with little support. “We think we are a minority — nobody cares about us,” he said.

"Everybody speaks for people who are still alive," he said. "But what about the rights of the dead? My brother and his wife can't return from the dead. The law should give them justice."

Wave of sympathy

Last March a candlelight vigil was held to show solidarity with relatives of victims of heinous crimes, like Wu. It was timed as a rebuke to the justice minister, who had vowed not to execute anyone on her watch (the minister later resigned amid the backlash.) One of the vigil’s organizers was 35-year-old Chu Hsueh-heng.

Chu became interested in the death penalty while working on a government-commissioned research project that involved online polling on social issues. He started contacting victims' families, digging into archives, and researching the issue.

He said the anti-death-penalty movement had good intentions, and was "brave" in its initial opposition to political executions in the last days of martial law (1949-1987). Civil society efforts eventually bore fruit: Taiwan paid out some $650 million in compensation for more than 7,000 wrongful verdicts during the martial law era, including nearly 900 executions, according to Taiwan’s Humanistic Education Foundation.

But activists had gone too far, said Chu. "In the past three to five years, almost all the people they are defending are not innocent." He said activists and the government should be doing more to give legal help and a support system to victims' families.

Worse, he accused the government of keeping victims' families in the dark, by starting a de facto moratorium on the death penalty without public debate on the issue. Chu called that policy "immoral."

"The government was doing something behind our backs," said Chu. "They were using a loophole as a way to delay the process, and didn't tell the public."

Victims' families "thought we would provide support," said Chu. "But our government didn't do the job well, so they feel cheated."

"Most of the victims' families support the death penalty," he said. "Maybe it's not right by high moral standards. But it’s like closure for them.” Long, drawn-out cases with no result, like the Hsichih Three case, were “like a torture” for victims’ relatives said Chu, and they “want to stop the torture.”

"'Where is the justice society promised me?' they say. 'When I get it, I'll be able to sleep at night, and I can start to forget. Then I can start to forgive.'"

Read the rest of Double jeopardy:

Part I: a look at the death penalty in Asia

Part III: trend toward abolition

Part IV: presumed guilty

Part V: matter of "face"

Original site

Double jeopardy: trend toward abolition

2011-09-06T05:18:00.004+08:00

Part III: The majority of Taiwanese and Japanese support the death penalty.

Global Post, Feb. 10, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Worldwide, the death penalty is on the decline.

In 2009, only one-third (58) of the world’s countries kept the death penalty on the books, according to Amnesty International; only 18 of those carried it out. For the first time in history Europe had zero executions; in the Americas, only the United States carried out the death penalty.

Asia is a holdout. It leads the world in executions, thanks to China. Beijing refuses to divulge numbers on how many it puts to death; Amnesty estimates “thousands” per year, including political criminals. Vietnam was a distant runner-up in 2009 with more than nine executed.

Elsewhere in Asia, though, capital punishment is on the wane. The Philippines abolished the death penalty in 2006. India executed just one person from 1999 to 2008.

South Korea, which like Taiwan has moved from dictatorship to democracy, hasn’t executed anyone since 1997, although it recently upheld the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Activists in Japan are pushing for abolition. The center-left government has only put two to death since taking power in the fall of 2009. In those cases, the justice minister allowed the media into the execution chamber for the first time, and called for public debate.

Popular support

Despite those trends, a majority of Taiwanese — 70 to 80 percent, depending on the poll — still supports the death penalty. In Japan it’s 85 percent.

In a 2006 report, the International Federation of Human Rights (IFHR) found that most Taiwanese explained their support in terms of a "cultural belief in retribution.”

"There is a belief that human nature can be fundamentally evil and irredeemable, that serious criminals should pay for their crimes with their lives and that extreme punishment is needed to curb behavior," the IFHR found. "There is a fear that if the death penalty is removed, the social order will disintegrate."

The IFHR report noted, though, that some 50 percent polled also think life sentences without possibility of parole could be substituted for the death penalty.

Taiwan sociologist and death penalty opponent Chiu Hei-yuan said Taiwan’s capital punishment was rooted in universal ideas of vengeance, but took Chinese forms. Interestingly, Taiwan's Austronesian aborigines had no tradition of the death penalty, he said, but the Chinese who settled Taiwan did.

"In Chinese culture, the death penalty is a very important institution for maintaining social order and the ruling government's power,” he said.

Chinese history is packed with gruesome punishments, such as execution to the “ninth degree” — wiping out an entire clan for one man’s treason against the imperial family. Condemned men were often paraded in public before being killed, and peasants would jostle to dip buns of bread in the fresh blood of the executed, said Chiu. "They thought it was good for your health, and for curing illness.”

Paul Katz, a historian at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, said Chinese judicial tradition often featured a presumption of guilt. "The idea has always been that if you were brought into court, it was a shameful indication that something was wrong — mediation had failed," he said. "The burden of proof was always on the person being accused."

That was true also under martial law in Taiwan, said Katz, when the Kuomintang’s totalitarian spy and security apparatus operated with impunity. "If you were caught up in the state's web, you must have done something wrong and it was up to you to prove that you were innocent."

Torture to extract confessions from suspected political enemies was routine. Kangaroo courts sent thousands before firing squads.

In that context, the treatment of the Hsichih Three by cops and prosecutors was a reflexive habit of an authoritarian regime in its dying days.

Since democratization in the late '80s and early '90s, Taiwan has cast away much of that troubling legacy. Part of that is reducing the number of people it puts to death.

Executions declined from 32 in 1998 to just three in 2005, according to the 2006 IFHR report.

A thirst for vengeance

In 2005 Taiwan quietly put a moratorium on capital punishment. It wasn’t abolished, but no one was put to death, either.

But last year, public debate was reignited when the justice minister, under legislative questioning, vowed that no one would be executed on her watch. Two prominent murder victims' relatives — including a TV celebrity — took to the airwaves with emotional protests. They quickly attracted a groundswell of public support.

"This was an irrational movement; crowd behavior to ask the government to kill these criminals,” said Chiu, the sociologist.

The crowd got what it wanted. The justice minister resigned in March. Two months later, four death row inmates were shot to death, with the new justice minister saying their cases were extreme ones that had, by a Chinese saying, "made the gods and man alike tremble with rage."

The executions came despite what Amnesty described as “assurances” from the current president Ma Ying-jeou in June 2008 that Taiwan’s moratorium would continue.

Forty men remain on death row, according to rights groups, including 15 who had no lawyers at their final trials.

Still, Taiwan is moving toward abolition. A task force has met to chart the way forward on scrapping the death penalty. One human rights alliance has challenged the constitutionality of the death penalty in Taiwan, on behalf of most of the condemned men (a few refused to be part of the suit, saying they wanted to die.)

Pro-death-penalty groups say that until the laws are changed, executions should continue as legally mandated.

But rights groups make the reverse argument, saying Taiwan shouldn't put anyone to death until there's a ruling on the penalty's constitutionality.

"People who are against the abolition of the death penalty misunderstand," said Chiu. "They think if a guy's not killed, that means he's not guilty. They say, only if we kill him can we get justice. We don't think so."

Read more from Double jeopardy:

Part I: a look at the death penalty in Asia

Part II: victims' families seek justice

Part IV: presumed guilty

Part V: matter of "face"

Original site

Double jeopardy: Presumed guilty

2011-09-06T02:36:00.006+08:00

Part IV: The most outspoken of the Hsichih Three, Su Chien-ho, describes torture in detention.

Global Post, Feb. 10, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — "They poured water on my face to make me afraid, like I was drowning," he recalled in a flat voice.

"They put water on a towel and put the towel on my face. They used an electric prod on my body, including my genitals. They slapped me and kicked me, and beat me with a stick, on the bottom of my feet."

The torture and questioning by police continued for more than 30 hours, he said. "I couldn't take it anymore, so I confessed.”

In an interview at the office of a human rights group in Taipei, Su Chien-ho, the most outspoken of the “Hsichih Three,” re-told the story he's been telling for nearly 20 years of his adult life.

He’s been whipsawed by Taiwan’s courts; found guilty and nearly executed, found innocent, then found guilty again.

Su is a lanky, rail-thin man, with unruly hair flopping over his glasses and a slight chin. His emaciated appearance suggests a man who has been physically wasted by his two-decade ordeal.

Eight witnesses support the Hsichih Three's alibis, he said, proving they were not at the crime scene at the time of the murders.

But when they hauled him in on Aug. 15, 1991, police at the local Hsichih police station weren't in any mood to listen to alibis. Lacking any physical evidence, they were under intense pressure to extract verbal confessions, said Su.

After police tortured him, prosecutors arrived at the station to take Su’s statement, he said. At one hearing in April, the court listened to a scratchy 19-year-old recording of that encounter. Over and over again, Su's weak, scared voice pleaded, sobbed, saying, "I didn't do anything, I didn’t do it. You must believe me.”

Finally he did sign a statement, though. "They said if I didn't sign it, I couldn't leave the station."

Su and a member of the defense team said the Hsichih police station chief and deputy station chief on duty in August 1991 have since been promoted to high-ranking jobs; they don’t know the whereabouts of the lower-ranking cop who carried out most of the alleged torture.

To this day, none of the cops involved have been punished. Prosecutors refused to charge them when Su tried to bring a lawsuit, despite Su's insistence that there was photographic evidence of his wounds from an exam before he left the police station in August 1991.

All of the cops involved in the case deny torture.

Waiting to die

Su spent the next nine years in detention. First he was alone in a 72-square-foot room, wearing five-pound shackles around his ankles for 24 hours a day. Inmates got 20 minutes a day outside.

"Most of the inmates developed mental illnesses," said Su. "I kept reading — otherwise I would have gone crazy."

After his first year, he got a roommate. Several inmates had committed suicide at his detention center, so authorities decided not to leave them isolated.

His final sentence — the death penalty — came down on Feb. 9, 1995.

From that point until his first retrial in 2000, the psychological pressure was intense. "Six to 10 days after you receive the final sentencing, it's random, you can't predict when they will come for you," said Su. "I faced the fear and pressure that it would be me, next, every day."

Some death row inmates prepared empty "red envelopes" (hong bao), used to give gift money in Chinese culture, to pass out to other inmates once their final sentence came down. Su once got one from a condemned man with a terse message of encouragement: "You will win your case." But inmates who insisted they were innocent or didn't deserve to die wouldn't give out red envelopes.

Such was the case when Su's final sentence came down, leaving him a week to live.

"I didn't want to" give out red envelopes "because that would be a sign that I had given in to the situation, and could never escape," he said. His parents came to see him. "They told me they had visited many temples and prayed to God, and they told me to keep the faith, there might still be a chance for me to get out," he said.

Typically, Taiwan death row inmates are taken from their cells without notice in mid-evening. ("It used to be in the morning, but nearby residents said it was too terrifying, so they changed the schedule," said Lin Hsin-yi, of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.) Some cops burn incense to the god of the underworld at small altars near the execution sites, to notify him another soul is on the way.

The condemned are given a last meal and asked for their last words. Then they’re injected with a powerful anesthetic, so strong it sometimes kills them, according to Lin. They're made to lie face-down on a blanket, then shot in the back, through the heart. If they've agreed to donate an organ, they're shot in the head.

Superstitious cops treat the spent execution bullets as amulets, believing they can repel demons, according to Taiwan media reports.

While waiting, Su wrote goodbye letters to his family, to his supporters, to his attorney.

"I believe there is a spirit, a God above this world, but I don't believe in any particular religion," said Su. "But I thought, if I get out I will devote most of my time to human rights causes. This was sort of my negotiation with God."

On Feb. 20, Taiwan’s top prosecutor, under pressure from rights groups, filed a rare, 11th-hour appeal to halt the execution. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal. Two more appeals were filed; both failed. By mid-August, Su’s options were exhausted. Only the justice minister’s signature stood between him and the execution chamber.

That minister — now Taiwan’s president — refused to sign the orders. So did his successors. And so Su got an indefinite reprieve.

For all of that, Su has a surprisingly unemotional take on capital punishment. "Any innocent person could find themselves in my position one day," said Su calmly. “They could be declared a criminal, like me.”

"So I support the abolition of the death penalty because it's a very problematic system. That's pretty much it."

Contradictory opinions

Lin, of the anti-death-penalty alliance, said public opinion polls paint a confusing picture. Although a majority backs capital punishment, 80 percent of Taiwanese also don't trust their judicial system, and think it must make mistakes.

To explain that apparent contradiction, she said many Taiwanese believe it's worth killing one innocent person if it will help save many others' lives. Most people never believe they'll be the one falsely accused. "They think, I won't be one of the people to pay this price," said Lin.

If they have money, they're probably right, she said. "Rich people, or those with social status, they don't worry, because if they get in this situation, they can afford a good lawyer."

She noted that the Innocence Project and others have documented wrongful convictions in the United States. (Since 1973, 138 people have been released from death row in the United States because of evidence they were innocent, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.) "But in Taiwan, we don't have this kind of information. Our legal system doesn't recognize that we even have these kinds of cases."

Lin said support for the death penalty had also been high in countries like France, Germany and Canada. But after the death penalty was abolished, support rates plunged.

What's more, 53 percent of Taiwanese are willing to accept a life sentence without the possibility of parole as a substitute for the death penalty, she said.

“The death penalty is often imposed after a grossly unfair trial,” wrote Amnesty International. “But even when trials respect international standards of fairness, the risk of executing the innocent can never be fully eliminated — the death penalty will inevitably claim innocent victims.”

In short, says Amnesty and other rights groups, the death penalty too often compounds the suffering of the original crime with the horror of executing an innocent man. That’s not justice, they say. It’s human sacrifice.

Read more from Double jeopardy:

Part I: a look at the death penalty in Asia

Part II: victims' families seek justice

Part III: trend toward abolition

Part V: matter of "face"

(Original site)

Double jeopardy: A matter of 'face'

2011-09-06T02:29:00.005+08:00

Part V: Why did it take the court 19 years to change its mind on the Hsichih Three?

Global Post, Feb. 10, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — One Friday in late April last year, Wang Wen-chong, the brother of the marine convicted and executed for the murders, took the witness stand. He had named the Hsichih Three as accomplices in the murder in 1991, identifying them to police by their nicknames.

As such he was partly responsible for putting them on death row.

He described being hit in the head by police at the station, how they threatened to haul in his mother if he didn't confess, how he saw Su Chien-ho tied up, heard him scream in pain from another room.

He said he denied involvement in the murders, but police didn't write that down. "I told them I didn't do this, but they didn't believe me," he told the court. He remembered how cops told him the murders couldn't have been the work of just one man, "there must have been more people involved."

He described being beaten bloody, until he “couldn’t tell who were prosecutors and who were police.” At one point they stopped recording his testimony “because I said I didn’t do it.” Every time he denied involvement, they hit him again.

He finally confessed to acting as a “lookout,” as his brother and the Hsichih Three committed the crime.

He said he'd seen his brother doing drugs, smoking something off aluminum foil (probably amphetamines), but not on the night of the murders. “I didn't know it was serious,” he said.

The photos of six policemen from the Hsichih station were projected on the courtroom wall. Wang Wen-chong said he couldn’t identify the ones who had hit him. “I can’t speak carelessly,” he told the court, after glancing quickly at the wall.

Marshaling evidence

In most criminal trials in the United States, juries are instructed that the burden is on prosecutors to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” the guilt of the accused.

In the Hsichih Three's retrial, before a panel of three judges, the burden of proof often seemed to lie with the defense. “From the start, there’s been no evidence in this case" to prove guilt, said Shau E-ming, a member of the defense team. “But they still sent them to death row. So we had to prove that these three men were innocent.”

Wang’s recollections added weight to the accusations of police torture. The most crucial testimony, though, was that of the foreign expert — Taiwanese-American forensic scientist Henry Lee, famous from the O.J. Simpson trial. Lee was brought to Taiwan by the defense to do a crime scene reconstruction and appear in court.

His forensic report concluded that the bedroom was so cramped as to make it unlikely that four assailants could have struggled violently against the two victims, in the poor visibility at the hour of the crime, without leaving more physical evidence.

Lee wrote that one strike with a meat cleaver could leave several different wounds on a body, making it possible for one attacker to have left 79 wounds on the couple in an explosion of violence.

"There is a high likelihood that Wang Wen-hsiao acted alone in committing this crime," Lee's report read. "It is highly improbable that four (4) suspects attacked two (2) victims simultaneously with the types of weapons [described by police] in such a confined space."

In their closing arguments in September, defense lawyers leaned heavily on Lee’s testimony to sway the judges. They focused, too, on the testimony of police torture and the lack of physical evidence tying the Hsichih Three to the murders.

"How is it possible that only Wang Wen-hsiao's physical evidence was left at the scene — but none from the other three?" one defense lawyer said. "Why didn't they find any hair, or blood beside Wang Wen-hsiao's? The prosecutors haven't met their responsibility for proof."

Another defense lawyer railed against the very fact that the three were still defending themselves in court, two decades after the crime.

"The case has already dragged on 19 years and they're still on trial — is this the way the legal system should work?" he said with clear disgust. "This is blackening our country's reputation."

Catalyst for change

Why did the case drag on so long?

"Face," one defense lawyer said simply, putting his hand to his cheek, in a conversation in the lawyers' lounge after one hearing. He and others said it boiled down to the judicial system's embarrassment over making a mistake. (The lead prosecutor declined GlobalPost’s request for an interview.)

"One of the hardest things for the state to do is to admit that they screwed up," said Katz, the historian. The Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty’s Lin agreed. When a second trial found the Hsichih Three innocent in 2003, "There was a lot of pressure from the victims' relatives, and the prosecutors lost face," said Lin.

Still, things have improved since the days when the Hsichih Three were first hauled in. This and other cases have spurred calls for reform. "The legal process is more open, police don't rough you up anymore," said Katz. "You can't get away with it anymore, like you could in the 1990s."

Taiwan has adopted a law putting a time limit on cases like the Hsichih Three’s. No longer can prosecutors drag out a case indefinitely. Legal reform advocates are also pushing for changes to how judges are chosen and promoted, to shake up a hidebound hierarchy where junior judges are afraid to go against their elders.

Taiwan now requires all police interrogations to be video-taped; that's still not the case in Japan, according to Shau, the member of the defense team, who also works for a human rights foundation. He said that neither Japan nor China had a historical idea of human rights, but that "Taiwan is different."

Unlike China and more so than Japan, Taiwan has an independent media, independent businesses and a thriving civil society with active non-governmental organizations. "All these can influence the government to support human rights," he said.

Taiwan is taking human rights concepts from the West and adapting them to what is "suitable" for Taiwan, he said.

"Some people say, 'You are Asian,' or 'You are Chinese.' Why do they say that? I am myself. There's no such thing as 'Asian people' — we are only individuals," said Shau. "A lot of people in Taiwan have a new belief in individual rights."

He called this a marked contrast to China, where the Communist Party government controls the justice system, sharply limits civil society and scorns human rights as a foreign annoyance. "In mainland China, if the government doesn't help you, no one can help you," he said. "In Taiwan, if the government can't help you, we are there to help. That's democracy."

As flawed as the Hsichih Three case had been, it could be worse, he said. "Because they are in Taiwan, they are still alive," he said. "In China they would have been killed already."

Mixed emotions

None of the prosecutors showed up on Nov. 12, when the verdict was read. Only Wu, the older brother of one of the victims, sat quietly on their side of the courtroom, a lone figure facing a phalanx of black-and-white robed defense lawyers, and, to his left, the Hsichih Three.

The spectators’ galley was packed, mostly with students and Hsichih Three supporters. The three judges took their places behind the raised desk, a tower of documents piled unsteadily in front of them among the tea cups.

The court police ordered everyone to rise and then the head judge read out the verdict — not guilty. Gasps and murmurs came up from the crowd.

Wu left the courtroom quickly with a blank expression. Outside he told reporters that he would try to get prosecutors to appeal again. "The injustice against my younger brother and his wife ..." he said, his voice breaking. "I don't know when it can be made right."

In the courtroom, Su Chien-ho hugged his lawyer for a long time, holding on until the lawyer’s eyes turned puffy. Outside, the three defendants and their lawyers gave a press conference, surrounded by a mob of TV cameras, microphones and well-wishers.

Their supporters started chanting "Justice, jiayou [an expression of encouragement]!,” "Taiwan, jiayou!"

Su, stopped by a reporter on the sidewalk outside the court, made a few comments. Then he turned and quickly loped away down the street, leaving the chants, lawyers, students and cops behind. He was free again.

Huang Guo-rong and Yang Chia-nin assisted with this report.

Read more from Double jeopardy:

Part I: a look at the death penalty in Asia

Part II: victims' families seek justice

Part III: trend toward abolition

Part IV: presumed guilty

(Original site)

Keep your 'frenemies' close

2011-09-06T02:23:00.002+08:00

In Washington this week, US and China will be looking to stabilize troubled relationship.

Global Post, Jan. 17, 2011

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Are the United States and China friends? Enemies? Partners? Rivals?

Ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip to the United States this week, observers are struggling to define a thorny relationship that increasingly defies characterization.

Taiwan-based Next Animation may have done best when it dubbed the two countries "frenemies." One blogger suggested the clunkier "parvals." But even those fall short.

"I don't want to use simple words," said China-U.S. relations expert Shi Yinhong, when asked to define ties between the two countries. "The U.S. and China have a relationship which is complex. But compared to the past, I think the strategic rivalry is increasing."

Last year the two countries grappled with a long list of issues that bedeviled relations: How to deal with North Korea, the value of China's currency, a massive trade gap, the South China Sea, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, climate change and the Dalai Lama, just for starters.

Shi, from Beijing's Renmin University, said China's priority during the U.S. visit will be to "stabilize" relations after that turbulent period. But he doubted there will be any "historic breakthroughs" on the big problems.

He downplayed talk of a joint statement or declaration to guide U.S.-China relations, as suggested by former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

"Dr. Brzezinski is very old and doesn't necessarily have a very strong influence on the U.S. government, so I don't think a joint statement is most important," said Shi. "Maybe they [the U.S. and China] will launch some statements, but they can only play a very limited role, because the substantial points are not being solved, or even dealt with."

For Shi, Presidents Hu and Obama should take steps to improve Chinese public opinion toward the United States, which he said had soured in recent months. "Beginning last year, the Chinese public has had a bad opinion of the U.S.," he said. "The Chinese people feel that the U.S. has not treated China as a strategic power, it only sees China as a financial great power, who can lend money to the U.S."

Shi's comments seemed to clash with polls conducted last summer by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. That poll found that 58 percent of Chinese had a favorable attitude toward the U.S., up from just 34 percent in 2007. Only 37 percent had an unfavorable view.

But Shi dismissed those numbers, saying "I don't think such polls are very accurate." Others agreed.

Li Mingjiang, an expert on China-U.S. ties at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said that the poll was conducted before two major events: the war of words last summer over the South China Sea, and huge U.S. military deployments near Chinese waters.

Those two developments were "alarming" for China, he said. "If you did another survey now, the 'favorable' opinion would probably decline quite a lot."

Last summer, Washington said that the United States had a "national interest" in resolving territorial claims in the South China Sea. That was a response to China's description of its claim over nearly all of the disputed South China Sea as a "core interest" on par with Taiwan and Tibet. It was the first time China had used that language. Later last year, the United States dispatched aircraft carriers and conducted massive military exercises near Chinese waters, in response to North Korea's provocations.

Li said China would likely press the United States for a statement of principles to stabilize bilateral relations. China was especially concerned about U.S. wooing of new "strategic partners" in Asia, including Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and India, he said.

"China's decision-makers may have concluded that the U.S. is trying harder to encircle China," Li said. "Their concern is to forestall this from moving forward." He said China's wish-list included a U.S. statement that Washington would respect China's "core interests," but he thought that was unlikely to happen. "I doubt America would go that far."

Li also rejected any simple labels for the U.S. and China's hot-and-cold relations. "It's so complicated, there's really no single term or phrase to characterize this bilateral relationship," he said. "I use the term 'cooperative competitor.' There’s a lot of cooperation, a lot of collaboration, but also a lot of competition and rivalry."

The American public seems to agree. In Pew's polling last year, it found that 49 percent of Americans had a favorable view of China, with just 36 percent having an unfavorable view. And in a new Pew poll released last week, most Americans said China was a "serious problem, but not an adversary." They said the U.S. military was far more powerful than China's.

But Americans wrongly dubbed China the world's top economic power (the U.S. economy is more than twice the size of China's), and called China the country representing the "greatest danger" to the United States (just ahead of North Korea).

In terms of priorities for policy toward China, Americans put "build a stronger relationship" at the top of their list, with "get tough with China on trade and economic issues" second. Human rights and environmental concerns were a distant third and fourth.

The wisdom of the American people seems to be saying: Keep your friends close, but your frenemies closer.

Original site

China's military head games

2011-09-06T02:12:00.004+08:00

Rumors or no, news of China's military advances throws wrench in the works for US strategists.

Global Post, Jan 5, 2011

Taipei, Taiwan -- China's recent military advances have launched a debate in security circles on whether the People's Liberation Army is more bark or bite.

Much of the talk has focused on China's new anti-ship ballistic missile, which is now deployed, according to the top U.S. military commander in the Pacific. Not to mention today's news about a runway test for China's first radar-evading stealth fighter. State media called the news "rumors" and played down the aircraft's capabilities.

But for one top Taiwanese security analyst, rumors of the runway test and China's other upgrades have already achieved their key objective: to mess with U.S. war planners' heads.

"It's a very effective deterrent on the minds of strategic planners in Washington," said Lin Chong-Pin, a former Taiwan defense official who teaches strategy at Tamkang University. "The Chinese don’t have to do anything in the future. Their announcement has already thrown a monkey wrench in strategic planning for U.S. action in and around the Taiwan Strait."

To be sure, no one is arguing that China could beat the United States in a full-out conflict. U.S. military spending, war-fighting experience and technology vastly outmatch China's. That would make any war between the world's sole superpower and its rising challenger a lopsided, if devastating, fight.

But Lin and other experts say China's rapid military advances have exposed the vulnerabilities of one linchpin of U.S. military might: the aircraft carrier battle group. Now, they say, China has advanced just enough to deter or slow such a battle group from joining a fight in East Asia — thereby forcing U.S. strategists to rethink war plans, for example in a flare-up over Taiwan.

China's so-called "carrier-killer" missile is just one of its recent advances. It has also demonstrated its prowess in anti-satellite warfare. And its fleet of attack submarines — now Asia's largest — continues to grow apace.

Add to that the recent news that China's first aircraft carrier (a refurbished Soviet hand-me-down) may sail as early as next year, and that its advanced stealth fighter may be for real, and some are alarmed. "We are seeing the erection of a new Chinese wall in the western Pacific, for which the Obama administration has offered almost nothing in defensive response," security expert Richard Fisher told the Washington Times.

Others downplay the threat. They stress that the anti-ship ballistic missile has not yet been fully tested, involves extremely complex technology and can be countered through various means, including attacks on China's military satellites that would be key to the missile's targeting.

But Tamkang University's Lin said fundamental trends are "not favorable for the U.S. to maintain its dominance in East Asia, and even in space."

"Currently the Chinese are far behind, of course, but one country [the U.S.] is going level or down, the other is going up fast," he said.

For Lin, the real question is not whether the ballistic missile and China's other new equipment would turn the tide in an actual fight. The question is whether such advances can alter U.S. strategic thinking — and by that measure, the answer is already a "yes."

Though U.S. officials may still talk tough, the reality is a gradual, U.S. military retreat from East Asia, Lin said. "The U.S. has economic, social and political problems at home, and defense budgets are on a downward trend," Lin said. "Washington may not change its rhetoric, but in their own minds planners are very clear — they won’t guarantee the capability of intervening in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait."

Lin said the Chinese military has consistently advanced faster than Americans thought it could. "This is a decades long phenomenon — Americans tend to underestimate the activities of the PLA," he said. That's not entirely surprising, he said, since "the PLA's strategic tradition is to conceal."

He said U.S. analysts often misread China and the PLA due to cultural bias. "The Chinese are students of Sun Tzu's 'Art of War,' not students of Clausewitz," said Lin. "So they'll avoid using the military up front, and instead use the military as a backbone for Beijing's extra-military strategies."

He predicts China will successfully challenge the U.S. without resorting to war, by manipulating U.S. perceptions through a broad range of means, with military being just one. Western analysts don't sufficiently "get" this more comprehensive Chinese strategy, he said.

The result, he says, will be that China pushes the United States out of its Pacific backyard without firing a shot. "The U.S. will gradually withdraw without China fighting it," said Lin. "China will achieve that not by military means, but in economics, and diplomacy — this is Beijing's plan, and it's very shrewd."

"By 2025, and probably even before 2020, they will have de facto dominance of East Asia, or at least the western Pacific."

Original site

Asia and Wikileaks

2011-09-06T02:05:00.002+08:00

WikiLeaks Asia: "There but for the grace of God"

East Asia's reaction to Cablegate is so far subdued. Some say the US may win sympathy.

Global Post, Dec. 1, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A "visibly flustered" Chinese diplomat "temporarily lost the ability to speak Russian and began spluttering in Chinese" when his U.S. counterpart sprang an allegation on him in Kyrgyzstan. North Korea's leaders are "psychopathic types, with a 'flabby old chap' for a leader who prances around stadiums seeking adulation." And China's point man for six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program is "an arrogant, Marx-spouting former Red Guard who 'knows nothing about North Korea, nothing about nonproliferation and is hard to communicate with because he doesn’t speak English.'"

Those are some of the juicy bits from the U.S. diplomatic dispatches from Asia posted to the web by WikiLeaks. But while some observers are calling the massive cable dump a diplomatic catastrophe, most Asia-based experts have a lower-decibel reaction.

They say the cables mostly confirm what people already knew or guessed, though there's some surprise over lax U.S. security measures. The fiasco may even generate sympathy for the U.S., some said.

"It proves diplomats are flesh and blood — they're not as cold and boring as they look," Taiwanese commentator Antonio Chiang wrote in the Apple Daily. "This could actually help their image."

Brian Bridges, an expert on East Asian politics at Hong Kong's Lingnan University, said most of the cables he'd seen "confirmed things that I would have expected," but he was struck by two cables relating to North Korea and a post-collapse scenario.

The first reports a South Korean diplomat arguing that China could live with a re-unified Korea under South Korean control, though Bridges and other experts caution that this view may not be reliable or as widespread in China as the Korean official believes. "We have to be a little careful about that one."

The second surprise was indications in a cable from January that several North Korean diplomats have quietly defected while posted overseas, said Bridges — defections that had not been made public.

"The fact that they took the step of defecting implies that within the North Korean elite, there are serious doubts about the sustainability of the North Korean system," said Bridges. "If you haven’t got your family with you, it can be extremely tough for family members left behind in North Korea, so in order to make that decision, people will think twice or three times about that step."

Others were also struck by the cables' illumination of the China-Pyongyang-Seoul dysfunctional triangle, and by diplomats' extensive study and preparation for a unified Korea and what it would mean for China and the region.

Meanwhile, in Japan, the public is too absorbed with tensions on the Korean peninsula to pay much attention to Cablegate, said Koji Murata, an international relations expert at Kyoto's Doshisha University. But he said he and others were surprised at the massive cyber-security breach. "Some Japanese may feel that the American security system for protecting secrets is so fragile and weak."

Murata said U.S. cables may fuel arguments that Japan bows too much to U.S. pressure, particularly in relation to Tokyo's recent moves to relax a ban on exporting its military technology. "Many Japanese feel that this policy change may have been done under American influence or pressure," said Murata. "Some may feel this is evidence that Japan is too dependent on the U.S."

Chinese commentators had a mostly low-key reaction. With the exception of some choice remarks by Chinese officials about "spoiled child" North Korea, many of the cables from China released so far have been pedestrian (says China's top diplomat to U.S. visitors about China-U.S. cooperation: “If we expand the pie for the common interest, the pie will be larger and more delicious.”)

But Chiang, the Taiwanese commentator, said in a phone interview that Beijing is likely fretting, since information control is "vital for the survival of their regime" and authoritarian governments like China's are a stated WikiLeaks target. "They must be very alarmed," said Chiang. "There must be a lot of emergency meetings."

Taiwan, for its part, is bracing for the publication of nearly 3,500 cables that WikiLeaks claims to have from the American Institute in Taiwan, America's de facto embassy in the absence of formal ties, and one of its most sensitive diplomatic posts. But Chiang said he doubts anything "surprising" will emerge, since Taiwan's rowdy talk shows and manic 24-hour-media has already chewed through most everything involving U.S.-Taiwan relations.

One possibility, said Chiang, was cables that could "confirm Beijing's suspicions" about former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian (nickname "Ah-Bian"), now jailed on corruption charges. Last decade Beijing and Washington accused Chen of stirring up tensions by pushing the envelope on independence; AIT cables could further tarnish Chen's image. "It will be the nail in Ah-Bian's coffin," said Chiang.

Chiang noted that we'd only seen the "tip of the iceberg," since just 300 out of some 250,000 cables have been posted. But so far, he and others say the massive leak hasn't appeared to have done as much damage as some feared, at least in East Asia.

Lingnan University's Bridges said "people are going to be a bit more wary about what they say to American diplomats," but that their Asian counterparts will probably sympathize.

"I think there will be a sort of 'there but for the grace of God go I' kind of view — the Americans have been caught out and this is very embarrassing, but it could have been them."

Original site

Red light fight

2011-09-06T01:52:00.007+08:00

Plan to legalize prostitution sparks debate between women's and worker's rights groups.

Global Post, Nov. 29, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Massive debts pushed her into prostitution. Now, after several false starts, she's pocketing $3,000 in a good month, turning tricks as a self-employed Taipei street-walker.

The money's good, she says, but there's just one problem: the cops. Prostitution is illegal in Taiwan, and the cops have several times hauled her in for three days in jail, or a fine up to $1,000.

If sex work is legalized in a year's time as now planned, though, she says her working conditions will improve.

"I can be more relaxed at work," said the sex worker, who gave only the name "Nadia," in an interview in Taipei. "I won't have worry so much about the cops; worry that they'll come and catch me. I won't be afraid of anyone bullying me."

Nadia is one of an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 sex workers in Taiwan, including hostesses that offer services short of intercourse in clubs and karaoke halls. They're at the center of a debate over whether prostitution should be legalized as planned next year, and if so in what form.

Taiwan's decisions could have implications for countries in Asia and beyond that are struggling to balance demands for social order with the protection of sex workers' rights.

Prostitution is legal in more than 70 countries worldwide, illegal in more than 100, and restricted in others. (See map from Chartsbin.com.) In Asia, Thailand and the Philippines are well-known sex tourism destinations, despite a legal ban on prostitution in both countries. China legally bans prostitution but lurches between looking the other way and harsh crackdowns, such as the public shaming of prostitutes and their Johns. Japan legally permits sex services short of intercourse, and hosts a thriving sex trade.

In Taiwan, the legalization debate has pitted women's rights groups against workers' rights groups. The former say the sex trade exploits women, is plagued with trafficking and ensnares under-age girls.

"We don't think it's just a question of workers' rights," said Wang Yueh-hao, from the Garden of Hope Foundation. "The sex trade does big damage to both sex workers and their families."

But sex workers rights' groups say the sex trade isn't going anyway anytime soon, that bans are counterproductive, and that prostitutes deserve dignity and good working conditions as much as any other laborers.

"They contribute to society, but society gives them the lowest status," said the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters' (COSWAS) Chien Chia-ying. "That's the most unacceptable part." Sex worker rights activists in many other countries agree.

Part of the problem in Taiwan is that the laws don't make much sense. For decades prostitution was legal here. But since the 1990s, prostitutes have been punished under the Social Order Maintenance Act, COSWAS says. Pimps, middlemen and traffickers are dealt with under the criminal code, slapped with up to five years in jail or $3,300 fines. Johns aren't penalized at all.

That means it's perfectly legal to pay for sex, but illegal to sell it. Taiwan's courts found that arrangement unconstitutional in 2009, and demanded a change by November next year. So the government plans to scrap the penalty on prostitutes, and has mooted the option of legal "sex zones" in Taipei, or letting small brothels of five or six prostitutes run their own small business out of apartments anywhere in the city.

Women's groups take a dim view of either scenario. The Garden of Hope's Wang said that since 90 percent of sex workers are female, "We think it's an issue of gender inequality." They want the laws to remain as they are, at the very least, and ideally to make it illegal to pay for sex, too.

They say the government should do more to help prostitutes find a way out of the trade. "We need to give them other choices, so they don't think they have to sell their body to resolve their household problems," said Wang. And they say society has an obligation to curb a destructive trade as much as possible. "You can't improve their lifestyle and rights by legalizing prostitution," said Wang. "They will still face discrimination and be under gangsters' control."

Meanwhile, COSWAS is trying to improve sex workers' public image. Their ideal is a fully legal and open sex trade in which empowered prostitutes could hire third-party services to help them market their wares, and keep more of the profits. For that reason, they say the government's plans don't go far enough -- pimping and other third-party services need to be legalized, too.

"You need to completely decriminalize the sex industry in order to protect sex workers' safety," insisted COSWAS' Wang Fang-ping. "If middlemen are still illegal, you will still have a lot of problems."

They say prostitutes kept 70 or 80 percent of the money when the trade was legal (giving the rest to pimps or other middlemen) — now it's more like 60 percent.

In an interview arranged by COSWAS, GlobalPost interviewed Nadia to find out the reality on the streets.

The interview took place in a former brothel dating back to the 1950s. It's tucked into a narrow street fragrant with incense curling out of a next-door temple, in one of Taipei's jumbled, old commercial districts. The building is now used for legal health and counseling services. Inside there's peeling wallpaper, claustrophobic rooms, bead curtains. Dim yellow lighting bathes the hallway. Photos of one-time madames dot the walls, scraps of the brothel's long-past heyday.

There are still seven or eight small, illegal brothels nearby, said Wang, but "you have to know where they are."

In the decades following World War II, this and other Taipei brothels and clubs did brisk business, helped in part by a steady supply of U.S. military men. Taiwan hosted huge U.S. bases before formal ties were broken in 1979, and the island was an R&R destination during the Vietnam War. Taipei still boasts a now down-on-its-luck bar district dubbed the "Combat Zone" by U.S. servicemen.

But in the 1990s, a Taipei mayor, inspired by New York City's Rudy Giuliani, backed an anti-smut drive as a way to gain support from conservative middle- and upper-class voters, according to Wang. Outside Taipei, only 20 to 30 legal brothels remain, still open under a loophole.

Wearing a bright pink, puffy winter jacket, Nadia took a seat in a small office, two gold rings circling bony fingers. She appeared to be in her 30s ("Why don't you guess my age," said the rail-thin sex worker, when asked).

Nadia's story doesn't easily lend itself to either side of the legalization debate. She rejected the womens' rights groups arguments, at least for self-employed sex workers like herself ("We are absolutely not exploited," she said. "We don't have bosses.") But she told a depressing tale that hardly speaks of empowerment.

Asked how she had started in the sex trade, Nadia's wary expression crumbled into choked-back grief. She said her husband left her in 2006, abandoning also a son, now 7. Saddled with huge debts (she didn't want to go into why), she turned to prostitution. But her initial attempts failed. "This work isn't as simple as it looks," she said.

First she joined a "Thai shower" joint, where customers picked girls out of a line and paid about $65 for an hour's shower, massage and sex. She only kept about $35 per customer, giving the rest to her bosses. The money wasn't enough, so she left after four days.

Then she worked at a secret "spa" with a private elevator requiring a key. There the terms were even worse: $150 a trick, of which she kept only $50. After a month, she switched to a sex "studio," where she kept $65 out of $100 per customer. "No matter which place it was, my cut wasn't fair, and there was the problem of where to get customers," she said.

So she began walking the streets. Now at least she can choose her customers, and reject any who seem too shady. She charges about $35 per 15 minutes and can clear up to $2,800 a month after paying her rent and all other expenses — although $1,500 to $1,650 per month has been more typical lately, she said.

She works 60-hour weeks, takes only one day off per week, and lives in a building with more than 50 other sex workers. Despite what women's rights groups say, she says she has no contact with gangsters, and said the only reason some sex workers sometimes have to get gangsters' help is that the trade is illegal.

Sitting beside her, COSWAS' Chien said "I can't say there's no exploitation, but I think [sex workers] are exploited a lot less than most workers are." Chien added that do-gooder plans to switch prostitutes into other work typically offer them salaries a fraction of what they can make selling their bodies. Said Nadia: "I would like to change jobs, but I don't have the ability to do other work."

Now, Nadia's top concern isn't gangsters or pimps, but police stings. She and COSWAS allege that Taipei cops routinely set up prostitutes for arrest by arranging for friends or a paid third party to approach them. Once a sex worker negotiates a price, she can be busted; meanwhile the customer is considered a "witness" to the infraction but is not fined or held.

COSWAS led protests against such set-ups last year, drawing a pledge from the mayor to end them. But with new regulations on the sex trade still in limbo, the group — and Nadia — say not much has changed.

"I'm afraid of the cops, not my customers," said Nadia.

Original site

Who'd down with TPP?

2011-09-04T11:54:00.004+08:00

Obama is betting on a new free trade bloc to help the US economy. Here's what you need to know.

Global Post, November 21, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — New Zealand's down with it. Singapore's down with it. Now the United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia are getting down with it, too.

Still waiting for word on whether Japan's down with it or not.

There's a new trade bloc on the block, and it's called TPP — short for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Just a few years ago it was an obscure deal between the "P4," which sounds like an Asian boy-band but actually refers to four small, free-trade loving countries on the Pacific rim: New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile.

But since the Obama administration publicly embraced it last year as a way to help revive America's zombie-like economy, TPP has shot to stardom. And joined a long list of mind-numbing acronyms.

TPP was a hot topic at the recent APEC meeting in Yokohama, and has been widely lauded as a possible stepping stone to a FTAAP.

That last one may sound like something Bill the Cat would have spat out in the 1980' comic strip Bloom County. But it stands for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, a "Mother of All Free Trade Deals" that would include the world's top three economies — the U.S, China and Japan — and APEC's 18 other members in one king-sized trade block spanning the Pacific.

Too bad it's not likely to happen in our lifetimes.

"The FTAAP is a hopeless dream at this point," Deborah Elms, a trade expert with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, wrote in an email. "I don't see the political will to launch talks on this scale. And, practically, to get the entire 21 member economies to agree to talks on liberalizing trade with one another is just not in the cards."

It's the politics, stupid

Even TPP's prospects are dubious, some analysts say. The problem, as usual, is politics. Domestic politics, to be more specific — in the U.S. and Japan, for starters.

With TPP, Obama's team is headed into a bruising fight to get Americans down with another ambitious trade deal. Republicans are typically more free-trade-minded and likely to support such deals, so you'd think a Republican-controlled House could help.

But Obama's recent failure to re-negotiate a free trade deal with South Korea doesn't bode well. In that case, U.S. auto companies and beef exporters couldn't swallow the terms of the original 2007 deal and pressed for a better one. But so far Seoul isn't biting.

With TPP, it's the U.S. dairy lobby that's gearing up for battle. It threw down a gauntlet in March by marshaling 30 senators from both parties in a show of force against TPP. The reason, the senators said in a letter: Cheap dairy imports from New Zealand threaten U.S. dairy farmers livelihoods.

Elms, the trade expert, says objections are also likely from U.S. beef and sugar producers, and textile producers who would face cheap competition from Vietnam. She thinks these objections won't be as much of a hurdle as U.S. automakers' concerns over the South Korea deal. But the politics of TPP have others betting against Obama already.

"The net benefits to the U.S. economy are likely to be minimal and the political costs, imposed by dairy exports from New Zealand, substantial," said John Ravenhill, an expert on global trade at Australian National University. "So I would not be optimistic about its chances."

"The TPP at the moment has no significant economy involved with which the U.S. does not already have a trade agreement," said Ravenhill, with the possible exception of Vietnam. If Tokyo gets on board, TPP would become far more important, he said.

But Japan's inclusion would also sharply raise the political stakes — almost certainly sparking a fierce debate in America that would make the 1990s NAFTA fight look like a playground scuffle.

Land of the rising "no"

Which brings us to Japanese politics. Tokyo's center-left government has only expressed vague interest in joining TPP talks [4], and it's already ignited a firestorm of debate and brought 3,000 farmers onto the streets in protest. Japan's rice and vegetable farmers have long been protected by tariffs as high as 600 to 800 percent, and they like that arrangement just fine, thank you very much.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan has an urban support base that's more likely to back free trade. But the opposition — and some in Kan's own coalition — draw support from rural farming areas. And amid Japan's musical-chairs political leadership, Kan is considered weak.

At his excellent "Observing Japan [5]" blog, Tobias Harris rounds up the politics of TPP in Japan, and says Kan needs to show leadership on the issue. Instead, Tokyo kicked the can down the road, saying it won't make any decision on TPP until next June. "By proceeding cautiously now, did the government simply give its opponents time to mobilize and thus ensure that once again the issue will be postponed?" wrote Harris.

If the politics of TPP look thorny, they're nothing compared to the politics of a wider trans-Pacific deal. Protected agricultural sectors have so far helped prevent a Korea-China deal, a Japan-Korea deal, or an expansion of the ASEAN-China deal to include Korea and Japan.

And any ambitious regional deal will face the same issues that have seen the the current "Doha Round" of global trade talks grind to a halt, said Ravenhill.

"What you have is essentially the same divide as exists in the Doha round, except with a couple of key players missing — the EU and Brazil," said Ravenhill. "But otherwise you've got the same players with the same attitudes and the same entrenched interests facing off against each other."

In other words, the politics are just as tough. "For economists, the puzzle is why states would ever do anything other than free trade," Harris wrote in his post on TPP, paraphrasing political economist Helen Milner. "For political scientists the puzzle is why states would ever practice anything but protectionism."

"Getting back in the game"

If the politics of these deals are so daunting, why all the rosy talk in Yokohama?

TPP is partly about showing that the U.S. is "back" in Asia. There's a perception that while Asia has been busy inking deals and integrating its economies, Washington's been asleep at the switch.

Now Washington is determined to be a player on economic as well as security issues. TPP "is a bid by the U.S. to keep at bay Asia-initiated economic integration in the region and maintain influence over Asia," Moon Gwang-lip wrote recently in South Korea's Joong Ang Daily. The deal is "being driven primarily by strategic calculations on what is necessary to get back in the game" in Asia, added Ravenhill.

Elms said the TPP drive began at the administration of George W. Bush over worries that Washington was being "locked out" of Asian markets and left out of preferential deals. "Many officials in the U.S. were increasingly concerned about the proliferation of trade agreements at all levels that would have left the United States on the outside," Elms said.

The next TPP talks are in December in New Zealand, and Obama wants big progress by next year's APEC summit in Hawaii. But if he can't sort out the politics, TPP — not to mention FTAAP — may well be DOA.

Original site

Taipei After Hours

2011-08-29T10:18:00.005+08:00

Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2010

Taipei, TAIWAN -- Taipei is more an eating city than a drinking city. You won't find here the raucous public drunkenness of Tokyo, the hip watering holes of Beijing's restored hutongs, or the alcohol-fueled debauchery of Bangkok.

What you will find is a culture in love with food, and the pursuit of food -- in all kinds, shapes and sizes, but especially snacks (xiao chi). Drinks are often an afterthought.

That's not to say there's no booze culture. For wealthy male Taiwanese movers and shakers, serious drinking is tucked away in private, high-priced clubs and karaoke halls packed with nubile staff. Linsen North Road, though hard-hit by the economic downturn and an expat exodus, still caters to the thirsty -- carving out a strip of Japanese-style hostess and piano bars south of Nanjing West Road, and Filipina-staffed hostess bars in the former U.S. military's R&R "Combat Zone" further north.

Western-style lounge bars and cookie-cutter hip-hop clubs have sprung up in recent years, too, especially in the sleek new Xinyi shopping district in eastern Taipei that's clustered around the landmark Taipei 101 skyscraper. Taiwanese are justifiably proud to boast all the same luxury brands as Tokyo, Paris and New York, and Xinyi is where Taipei flaunts how far it's come -- from a garbage-strewn developing-world town with nightmarish traffic to a clean, neon-washed and brand-savvy metropolis.

But at night, the city's soul is still in its crowded night markets; its narrow, dark side alleys; its corner fruit stands; and its incense-choked temples, where the clacking of wood divination blocks
mixes with cell-phone rings. So when the lights go down, to discover the real Taipei, give Xinyi a pass and head west, to the old city.

6:30pm: Wanhua (Monga)

Taipei has vaulted headlong into the 21st century -- but someone forgot to tell Wanhua.

This is the heart of old Taipei, still barely beating -- a commercial hub dating back to the early Qing dynasty that's far past its prime. It's an old person's neighborhood, a slice of the Taiwan of
yesteryear, full of crumbling beauty and earthy Taiwanese culture but faintly embarrassing to well-educated, upper class Taiwanese. Wanhua is the polyester-clad Taiwanese great-aunt who spits in public, never learned how to use the Internet, and tells you you're fat to your face.

The neighborhood got a boost recently from a coming-of-age gangster movie titled "Monga," after the old name for Wanhua. Now, the seedy charms of this former thieves' bazaar, turned second-hand market, is luring more tourists -- both foreign and domestic.

Start at the Longshan Temple subway stop. Turn right after coming up the escalator, walk a few meters, and it's like traveling 30 years back in time. The park and underground shopping mall are worthy of Fellini: groups of gnarled old men playing Chinese chess, middle-aged women in motorized wheelchairs belt out hackneyed karaoke with a Taiwanese twang, fortune tellers show off photos of celebrity customers and birds ready to peck out your fate (they pick slips of paper with their beaks), 'nakashi' bands entertain drunk retirees, a down-at-the-heels septuagenarian tries to grasp a Hello Kitty doll with a mechanical pincer at a glowing grabber machine.

Check out Longshan temple, then exit and take a left and then another immediate left to cut through pungent Herb Alley. Cross the street to the temple of the King of Hell. On the other side of the temple, you'll come to the newly restored, historic street of Bopiliao. It's Taiwan's answer to the hip, restored hutongs of Beiijing; a fragrant lane dedicated to the wood-and-paper-lantern nostalgia of small-town 1960s and 1970s Taiwan.

Now it's time to get down to the serious business of eating. Retrace your steps to the narrow markets, especially the Guangzhou Street night market. The idea here is to graze; moving from stall to stall, while chewing on your latest plastic-bag-wrapped treat with the help of a wooden skewer. Try the ren bing (NT$50), a Taiwanese-style jumbo spring roll, packed with dried tofu strips, radish, carrots, crushed peanuts and sprouts.

Dart down Snake Alley (the covered Huaxi Night Market), perpendicular to Guangzhou Street, for the snake-gutting shows, and -- if you dare -- to down a snake blood-and-sorghum liquor cocktail (it's supposed to be good for men, especially). Also on offer: "three-cups" field rat, turtle, and snake soup -- as well as sex toy shops and several stores offering foot massages so excruciating they've been known to make grown men cry.

Make sure you stop for a mango ice (NT$100) at the popular Lungdu Ice and Juice Shop, on Guangzhou Street near the entrance to the night market.

8pm: Changan Road, central Taipei

If you're scared of street-stalls or just prefer a sit-down meal, beat a retreat to central Taipei. Head to the standby Shin Yeh, which serves Taiwanese favorites like oajian (oyster pancake, NT$280) and sauteed sea clams with ginger (NT$295) in a lively setting not far from the Linsen North Road "Combat Zone." Efficient staff whisk dishes from the kitchen, and the noise reaches a dull roar as the alcohol flows.

Another excellent and quieter option is Jiu Fan Ken, where you'll find down-home Taiwanese cooking in a classy, old-Taiwan atmosphere of wooden antique furniture and slow-turning ceiling fans. The small joint, an old favorite of Japanese tourists and pro-independence politicians, closed briefly after its previous owner passed away last year, but has reopened by popular demand, with a slightly different look.

Try the fong rou (NT$350), a chunk of fatty pork slow-cooked to an almost custard-like consistency, and topped with a cilantro garnish. Other favorites here are the five-flavored-fish (wu wei yu, NT$480) -- a fried fish in a sweet red sauce -- and duck strips.

At Jiu Fan Ken you can also sample the island's sudsy pride, Taiwan Beer, served out of blue-and-white bowls. Or if you prefer more company, head to the Taiwan Beer bar, just ten minutes' walk away. It's a vast beer hall in a converted warehouse, where large groups of
Taiwanese revelers imbibe and celebrate with signature green mini-kegs of Taiwan Beer at picnic tables.

Also not far from here, and well worth checking out, is the 1914 Huashan Culture Park. It's a sprawling former winery complex that's been tastefully converted into an artsy, dimly-lit complex of cafes, boutiques, art galleries, the live music hall Legacy, and classy pizza and pasta joints.

9:30pm: Zhongxiao East Road, Dunhua road intersection

Hop in a cab or take the MRT's blue line a couple stops to this throbbing center of Taipei nightlife. It's a prime destination for the beloved Taiwanese pastime of "guangjie" -- slow-paced strolling, window-shopping and snacking. This nameless 'hood is the haunt of stylish twenty- and thirty-somethings, older scenesters who wish they were still that age, dandies, hip-hop kids in trucker hats, camouflage or Bathing Ape-wear, and la mei ("spicy girls") in body-hugging dresses and stiletto heels.

Check out the eye-candy from a good people-watching vantage point, visit a Taiwan-style teahouse in the strip on Lane 181, Alley 7, sample some pomelo or other locally-grown fruit at a corner stand, or try one of the hip lounge bars like 2046. It sports wicker furniture on an outside patio; glass bead curtains, plush chairs and moody lighting within, and serves up cool cocktails like the Honey Paradise (fresh apple juice, Southern Comfort and honey, NT$300).

To find out where Taiwanese flock at night instead of bars, walk a few blocks south and check out the 24-hour Eslite bookstore on Dunhua South Road, a favorite haunt of night-crawlers, book-lovers and Hong Kong tourists. Most nights the aisles and marble tables are packed with young Taiwanese soaking in the latest business fad, thumbing through travel magazines or devouring American and European bestsellers in translation.

10:30 pm: Anhe Road. Serious drinkers will want to retire now to Anhe Road, Taipei's premier lounge bar and wine bar strip, with a saloon, club and a few quirky watering holes thrown in for good measure. One of the first clubs here, and walkable from the Eslite bookstore, is the elegant Champagne, which serves up a cool champagne-and-lychee liqueur cocktail in a classy, glittering setting; it also does a super-sweet lychee Mojito (NT$300).

Further south and just off of Anhe Road (a 15-20 minute walk, or brief cab ride), pop in to China White to sample a truly diabolical concoction: the Tai Ji (NT$350). It's a stomach-battering blend of Kahlua, triple sec, Korean soju and 80-proof vodka, garnished with cinnamon and set alight along with a flaming absinthe garnish. Also popular here are Lemon Drops, served with a lime wedge.

Midnight, take your pick: Serious club-hoppers can head back to Zhongxiao East Road to hit Luxy, a standby of Taipei nightlife that's still going strong, with a steady diet of electronica, hip-hop, special shows by gyrating "Luxy dancers" and bottle-juggling bartenders, and cavernous dance floors with plenty of elbow room. Other nightclub options like Barcode, Primo and Room 18 are located further east in the Xinyi district.

But for pure dumb fun, Carnegie's -- just across from China White -- still can't be beat. Some long-time expats will groan and recoil at the name, as the Taipei incarnation of this pub chain is a notorious meat market with rowdy, drunken revelers spilling into Anhe Road late at night. But on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, it's hard to find a better, more expat-friendly party, though definitely one geared toward those a bit long in the tooth.

On a good night, Carnie's, as expats call it, continues Wanhua's Fellini-esque theme with amateur dancing on its long, brass-railed bar, in front of a towering wall of booze. Sip your drink and feast
your eyes, if you dare, on the 50-something woman gyrating on the bartop in lingerie; the elderly gay queen shaking his booty, a group of Malaysian stewardesses attempting a pole-dance without the pole, and a pot-bellied, balding and be-spectacled European businessmen, well into his seventh Corona, working off his jetlag with jerking, a-rhythmic motions that at times resemble dance moves. By this stage, you might be ready to join them.

Late night, Fuxing South Road: To end your night like in true Taiwanese style, it's imperative to eat. An early-hours snack, if administered correctly, can help blot out the shameful memory of whatever happened at Carnegies, soak up alcohol and stave off a crushing hangover (that goes double if you've had the Tai Ji at China White).

Try one of Taipei's signature congee joints on Fuxing North Road, such as No Name Congee Snacks, open until 6 a.m. Select a few small plates like bamboo shoots (NT$50), sliced beef with yellow chives (NT$60), and cucumber with red pepper (NT$35), served with a bowl of congee
(the Chinese answer to oatmeal) with sweet potato chunks. Some like to dip bites of food in their congee; others dump everything in their bowl, mix and slurp away.

Now you're ready for the Sandman -- and if you're a true Taiwanese, you're already thinking about where to get breakfast.

Mentioned in this article:

Lungdu Ice and Juice: Guangzhou Street #168, +886 (0)2-2308-3223

Shin Yeh: ShuangCheng Street #34-1, +886 (0)2-2596-3255

Jiu Fan Keng: Changan East Road Section 2, #172-1, 2F, +886
(0)2-2775-3317, tw.myblog.yahoo.com/ninefankan, amyanty@yahoo.com.tw

Taiwan Beer Bar: Bade Road Section 2, #85, +886 (0)2-2771-9131

1914 Huashan Culture Park, Bade Road Section 1, #1,
www.huashan1914.com (Includes Legacy, +886 (0)2-2741-7065,
www.legacy.com.tw)

2046: Zhongxiao East Road Section 4, Lane 205 #24, +886 (0)2-2711-5589
(MRT stop: Zhongxiao Dunhua)

Eslite Bookstore: Dunhua South Road Section 1, #245, 2F +886
(0)2-2775-5979, http://www.eslite.com/ (MRT stop: Zhongxiao Dunhua)

Champagne: Anhe Road, Section 1, #75, +886 (0)2-2755-7976

China White: Dunhua South Road Section 2, #97-101, 2F (just off Anhe
Road in the Modern Mall), www.chinawhite.com.tw,
info@chinawhite.com.tw, +886 (0)2-2705-5119

Luxy: Zhongxiao East Road Section 4, #201, 5F, www.luxy-taipei.com,
+886 (0)955-904-600 (MRT stop: Zhongxiao Dunhua)

Primo: Zhongxiao East Road Section 5, #297, www.club-primo.com, +886
(0)2-2760-5885 (MRT stop: Yongchun)

Carnegies: Anhe Road Section 2, #100, www.carnegies.net, +886 (0)2-2325-4433

No Name Congee Snacks: Fuxing South Road Section 2, #130,
www.no-name.com.tw, +886 (0)2-2784-6735

Original site

What's changed since Copenhagen?

2011-08-29T10:05:00.002+08:00

Few expect big breakthroughs at China's climate change talks this week. The real success will be in smoothing relations after the Copenhagen debacle and small side deals that are more realistic, observers say.

Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan -- United Nations climate officials say they hope to get talks for a new global deal on carbon cuts back on track after last year's climate talk debacle in Copenhagen. This week's climate change conference hosted by China in Tianjin could give them just that opportunity.

But with mistrust still high and feelings raw, few expect any big breakthroughs in Tianjin, or at higher-level talks beginning in late November in Cancún, Mexico. Instead, participants are focusing on smaller side deals that are more realistic, observers say, indicating that though a comprehensive deal might not get finalized here the real success of the conference will be in smoothing relations with small steps.

"Almost everybody is downplaying their expectations," said Yang Ailun, Greenpeace China's head of climate and energy, in a phone interview from Tianjin. "People are talking more about specific issues they think they can make progress on, such as climate finance and forestry."

Tough road ahead

The Tianjin talks are a prelude to Cancún, when world leaders will again try to cobble together a global deal on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming. The aim is to forge a consensus before the current Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Hopes for a grand deal were dashed in Copenhagen last December, when talks broke down amid recriminations between rich and developing countries who couldn't agree on how to share the burden for deep emissions cuts, and how such cuts should be verified.

Much of the focus is on China and the US, now the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases. China insists the US and other developed countries should make more dramatic cuts and do more in funding and transferring technology to poorer countries for green energy efforts.

The US wants China and some other developing nations to bear more of the burden for cuts, and wants a mechanism for verifying such cuts – something Beijing has resisted.

And they're closely watching the attitude of China, the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter, as it hosts the conference for the first time in the 20-year history of United Nations global climate change talks.

Observers say there's no sign either side is prepared to budge much from those positions. From China's point of view, said Greenpeace China's Yang, the US is doing little domestically – climate change legislation is stalled in the US Congress – and isn't offering much at the negotiating table, either.

"China can't get any of the technology or climate finance it wants, so it feels like there's very little the US can offer," she said. "It's one reason why negotiations have really stalled."

Some progress

Still, the view from Tianjin isn't all bleak. Of $30 billion pledged by developed nations in Copenhagen to help developing countries fight climate change, $28 billion is already lined up. Observers are optimistic the rest will be in place by Cancun, though there's skepticism that some of the funding is merely previously-committed money repackaged as "green" aid.

Yang said negotiators also appear to be closing in on a deal on fighting deforestation.

There are also signs that China is getting more serious about climate change, both domestically and on the global stage. The US and China have begun cooperating on clean energy research, and China is retooling coal plants in an effort to ease pollution.

In Copenhagen, where China took much of the blame for the breakdown in talks, Beijing learned that it has new-found responsibilities as a major world player, said Yang.

"China came to understand that given the scale of the country, there's simply no way it can hide – you're either the leader or you will be blamed," Yang said. "By hosting this meeting, it sends a strong signal that China is thinking about how to play a more proactive role on the international stage."

Ma Jun, director of the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, said in a phone interview that China has a strong domestic motivation to curb emissions, especially from its coal plants, which still supply 80 percent of its electricity, according to the World Resources Institute.

Greenpeace China has estimated that there are more than 1,400 coal-fired power plants in China producing over 375 million tons of coal ash a year.

"We understand that if we don't change our current way of inefficient growth model, then China will sooner or later face a very severe energy security challenge," said Ma. "Our current way of growth also generates a massive amount of pollution, which we cannot afford."

Ma noted that China is now the world's leading investor in renewable energy, but said "it's not enough." He said better enforcement was needed to rein in emissions and curb construction of new coal-powered plants, and that the Chinese public needed to be better informed about "the true environmental and social cost of coal mining and coal burning."

Alternatives to a deal

Ma said many obstacles remained for a global deal, including America's failure to take a "proactive" stance on the issue. US greenhouse-gas emissions increased 16 percent from 1990 to 2006, according to a 2007 study by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

Given such challenges, he said the world should explore alternatives to an elusive UN-backed global deal, which might not even prove effective. Worldwide emissions have ballooned 25 percent since the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated, according to a World Bank report last year.

One avenue some environmental groups are exploring, Ma said, was corporate carbon disclosure projects, which could allow consumers to apply economic pressure on big polluting businesses to cut carbon emissions throughout their supply chains. "That could serve as a kind of feasible alternative if we can't reach an intergovernmental agreement," said Ma.

China surpassed the US as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases in 2007, and each country now produces about 20 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Resources Institute.

But China's per-person emissions are only about a quarter that of the US 70 percent of China's energy demand comes from the industrial sector, while private consumption accounts for most of the energy demand in the US, according to the Institute. Private energy demand is expected to skyrocket in China in the coming years as the middle class swells and car sales boom.

China is a major investor in hydro, wind, nuclear, solar, and other renewable power sources, and aims for 15 percent of its energy needs to come from such sources by 2020. The US has no such national goal, though some states like California have set their own targets.

China and other developing countries have pledged to curb the growth of their carbon emissions, rather than promise absolute cuts. Those targets "should be understood in the context of the development stage in China," where 150 million people still live in poverty, Stanley So, manager of Oxfam Hong Kong's Economic Justice Campaign, wrote in an e-mail.

China's per-person GDP is $3,700, compared to more than $46,000 in the US.

"It is a compromise between development and the climate change challenge," Mr. So said, of China's target.

Original site

Losing patience with Pyongyang

2011-08-29T09:58:00.002+08:00

WikiLeaks: China May Be Fed Up With North Korea

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Dec. 3) -- U.S. State Department cables made public by WikiLeaks appear to confirm what many suspected: China is just as fed up with North Korea as the U.S. and other countries, despite its reluctance to speak out publicly.

Beijing is seen as the only government with influence over an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable regime in Pyongyang. It has come under sharp pressure from the U.S. to take a harder line, but so far has appeared reluctant to do so.

The leaked cables appear to show that part of China's strategy is to privately bemoan North Korea's behavior while publicly maintaining a studied neutrality. That has frustrated South Korean and U.S. officials, who want a stronger response to Pyongyang's provocations.

North Korea's recent shelling of a South Korean island near the maritime border shocked the international community, pushing tensions on the Korean peninsula to the brink of war. The attack killed two civilians and two South Korean marines. But Beijing only called for calm from both sides.

And earlier this year, China refused to join the U.S. and other nations in condemning North Korea for an attack on a South Korean navy vessel that killed 46 sailors. A multinational probe pinned the blame on Pyongyang, but China never accepted those findings. Beijing continues to block any action against North Korea at the United Nations.

Experts have long said that China's paramount concern is stability on the Korean peninsula, because it fears a flood of refugees in the event of a North Korean collapse, and also fears the prospect of a U.S.-allied unified Korea on its borders.

However, quotes from Chinese and South Korean diplomats and officials in recently leaked U.S. State Department cables suggest a more complicated picture: China is also growing exasperated with Pyongyang and has carefully studied the possibility of regime change and what a unified Korea might look like.

"Beijing has already set up a study group to look at the unification of Korea," said Antonio Chiang, a Taiwan-based commentator for that country's Apple Daily newspaper. "They are exploring all kinds of possibilities, because it [North Korean collapse] could come at any time. It's a very serious strategic dilemma, challenge and risk."

Meet China's dolphin tribe

2011-08-29T09:41:00.005+08:00

Analysis: Inflation, hoarding, hot money — why the "currency wars" will only get worse.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — They're called the "dolphin tribe," a pun on the Mandarin word for "hoarding."

They're an example of how a weaker U.S. dollar is starting to affect everyday lives in China and across east Asia — and why, even as Asia-Pacific leaders meet in Yokohama to hash out a free trade agreement, the "currency wars" have only just begun.

"Dolphin tribe" (haitunzu) is one of the latest buzzwords on the Chinese-language internet, and it refers to Chinese who have begun hoarding everyday goods on expectations of more price hikes.

Ms. Zhang, from the southern metropolis Guangzhou, told China's Southern Daily that hoarding had become an obsession, and she's even snatching up makeup and towels. "I'm hoarding everything I use — I've become a 'dolphin'," she told the paper.

It's not just hysteria. China just shocked analysts by posting 4.4 percent rate of inflation in October, far higher than expected — and some economists are now saying the rate could soon hit 6 percent. According to the Southern Daily, prices at Guangzhou supermarkets are soaring: cooking oil shot up 15 percent in late October; sugar, 13 percent, ditto garlic, ginger, apples and rice wine.

Why the sharp rise in prices? One of the reasons, explains Taiwan finance expert Norman Yin, is the weak dollar. "When the U.S. dollar is going down, people holding U.S. dollars dump them to buy other things to secure value, so it pushes everything up," said Yin. "So the price of imported goods and all kinds of materials is soaring."

Commodity prices are also sharply up in Taiwan, prompting the government to slash tariffs on key imports like corn flour, soybean flour and cane sugar to ease the burden on consumers.

Now, central banks in both Beijing and Taipei are expected to hike interest rates as they pivot from stimulating the economy to taming inflation. Expectation of those hikes from China — possibly over the weekend — sent commodities tumbling Friday, a sign of markets' ultra-sensitivity.

But hiking rates is likely to worsen another long-standing problem: hot money inflows. "Hot money" refers to short-term speculators looking to turn a quick buck on the currency or another craze du jour — be it New Taiwan dollars, South Korean won or Indonesian rupiah. Such investors are basically turning East Asian currency markets into casinos, pumping in funds by the billion only to dump the local currency when they think it has peaked.

According to one Chinese official, there's now $10 trillion — that's trillion with a 't' — in "hot money" sloshing around the globe, looking for easy returns. Buying in mass amounts creates self-fulfilling prophecies: whatever the hot money thinks will go up, usually does.

But exporting countries don't want their currencies to climb too much, because that makes their goods pricier abroad, and so slows business, sags economies and kills jobs. To keep their currencies from spiking up and then cratering like Pets.com stock circa 2000, China's central banks and others engage in massive interventions. Basically, they're sopping up all the "hot money" to keep their currency stable.

Now, the U.S. Federal Reserve has just made their job that much more difficult — turning the headache of "hot money" into a serious migraine. From East Asia's perspective, the $600 billion "QE2" injection plan has sent a tsunami of new "hot money" rolling toward their shores.

"The U.S. is trying to boost domestic demand in America, but that money will go abroad instead of staying in the U.S.," said Yin. "So it causes problems. When it goes abroad, it just pushes the U.S. dollar's value further down, and then it triggers a currency war."

Yin says Washington may not mean badly, it just don't "give a damn" about what QE2 will mean for China or other Asia exporters. "Americans aren't really taught to see this kind of thing as a concern," said Yin. "But for us, if there is such a large quantity of money flowing in in a very short period, then it really causes a lot of trouble, because most Asian countries have quite shallow financial markets."

"Hot money" inflows account for about 20 percent of China's accumulated reserves, says Yin; some economists say much more. And it's not just China; Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are also struggling to sponge up hot money inflows and hold down currency values. Yin said hot money began surging into Taiwan's currency market at $1 billion a day starting in mid-September when QE2 was first signaled, at least twice the typical daily flows before. It's coming in at $1.5 billion a day now.

"The four central banks are very busy in dealing with hot money from abroad, and they'll use every means," said Yin.

That means loading up their weapons of mass intervention. In Taiwan, sipping coffee with foreign bankers and hinting politely that maybe they should lay off the NT dollar didn't work so well (they called it "moral suasion.") So Taiwan's central bank is now selling massive amounts of Taiwan dollars toward the end of daily trading sessions to keep the currency down, adding steadily to its more than $380 billion pile of foreign exchange reserves — the world's fourth-largest reserves after China's, Japan's and Russia's.

Taiwan and South Korea are also dabbling with capital controls; changing rules to discourage short-term speculators. Japan is ready to sell massive amounts of yen into the market to keep down its value.

And China will continue to do the same with its own currency, the yuan. In fact, its intervention is only likely to increase, and its reserves balloon more (they're now a cool $2.65 trillion), as higher interest rates attract even more hot money.

That means despite what Obama and his "dogs" at the IMF may say (see Next Media Animation rap below), China's not likely to throw Washington a bone on the value of the yuan.

Economist Andy Xie is downright alarmist, writing in a recent commentary in China International Business that tit-for-tat attempts to drive down currency values are wreaking havoc on the global economy.

"If you print a trillion, I'll print a trillion. No change in exchange rate after a trillion? Let's do it again, QE2," writes Xie. "The world is heading towards high inflation and political instability. It's only a matter of time before there is another global crisis."

Think we're in a currency war? The dolphin tribe's rise is a sign you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Original site

Underworld justice

2011-08-29T09:34:00.002+08:00

A surprising number of Taiwanese still take disputes to the gods.

Global Post, Nov. 18, 2010

HSINCHUANG, Taiwan — In his small, fluorescent-lit office, the portly temple scribe Lai Ming-hsien faces a middle-aged man in a dark blue jacket.

Lai asks the man's name, age and address, then begins jotting Chinese characters with a ball-point pen on a fresh piece of bright yellow paper, as the man looks on intently.

The matter that brought the man here is working its way through Taiwan's criminal justice system in nearby courts. But like many Taiwanese in such situations, he's also seeking an otherworldly remedy.

Lai is writing out the man's formal complaint to deliver to the "Lord of the Hordes" (Da Zheng Ye), an underworld dispenser of justice in Chinese Daoist and folk belief. (The man did not want his name or the nature of his case published.)

Here, in a side wing attached to Dizang Temple in a working-class Taipei suburb, Taiwanese come to air their grievances, at about $13 per complaint. Dizang is just one of scores of Taiwan temples offering such services, but it's among the most well-known.

In fact, business has boomed in recent years, says the 53-year-old Lai, so much so that the temple now employs three full-time scribes, who record and transmit to the gods more than 100 petitions per day. That's double or triple the number just a few years ago, when Lai was a one-man show.

Taiwan may have rapidly modernized and boosted educational levels in the past few decades, and its flagship high-tech industries embrace scientific rationalism. Yet many centuries-old, Chinese folk beliefs and practices show no signs of dying out.

Some practices have merely taken new, urban forms as Taiwan's old rural ways fade. Others — like underworld petitions — have survived into the 21st century intact, and might even be more prevalent than before. Such appeals can also be made by the dead against the living, says Paul Katz, an expert on Chinese religious and judicial traditions at Taiwan's Academia Sinica, at a recent talk in Taipei.

"There are people indicting people, ghosts indicting people, people indicting ghosts, and all sorts of other things." said Katz, who did field work at Dizang Temple. "This whole underworld indictment thing is busier than L.A. Law."

According to Katz, approximately 3,500 people file underworld petitions at the Dizang Temple every year.

The Chinese custom of underworld indictments dates back to sometime after the emergence of religious Daoism around the 2nd century A.D., with its emphasis on the bureaucratic order of the underworld.

"There's always been an idea that justice was being administered by officials in this world and the other world," Katz said.

At the Dizang Temple, the custom persists in modern packaging. Just like in a Taipei bank or clinic, petitioners file into a lobby off to the side of the main temple, take a number from a machine and wait their turn on rows of plastic chairs. When an automated voice calls out their number and shows it on a red L.E.D. screen, they step into the scribe's office.

Their complaints involve stolen vehicles, workplace troubles, extramarital affairs, even intellectual property rights disputes between technology firms.

"If they have situations they can't resolve, they come to us," Lai said. "We consider ourselves a bridge to the gods."

Katz' field work found only one change in the nature of such appeals from the late 1990s to 2006: An increase in missing pets cases. More recently, financial disputes have increased with Taiwan's high unemployment and recession-battered economy, Lai said.

The scribes also handle appeals for good health, better karma and getting rid of troublesome ghosts. Such petitions are directed toward the Buddhist deity Ksitigarbha ("Dizang Wang Pu Sa," in Chinese), Lai said. Both Ksitigarbha and the Lord of the Hordes are worshipped side by side at the temple, a common practice in Taiwan's blend of Daoist, Buddhist and folk practices.

On a recent Monday morning, some 30 Taiwanese visited the scribes in the space of a couple hours, mostly couples or small groups of relatives. Some of the men chewed betel nut, the mild stimulant popular with Taiwan's working class; others toted babies.

Wei, a 50-year-old man from the nearby city Shulin, padded in and out of Lai's office in old-fashioned wooden, thonged sandals, as a female companion waited outside. He said he came to ask the gods for relief from bad karma he believes he earned in a past life and is plaguing him in this one. It was his second visit; the first was three months ago for "another matter," he said, declining to elaborate.

An elderly couple asked Lai to write down their appeal for a relative's cancer treatment to go smoothly. After Lai had done so, they each pressed their left thumbs on a red ink pad and put a print on the yellow paper, which Lai then folded neatly and gave to them.

Every so often Lai refuses a case. One instance involved a third party in an adulterous love triangle, another, an inheritance dispute between brothers, he said. "You can't write just anything" and pass it on to the gods, said Lai. Sometimes he tells petitioners they should first go see a lawyer; sometimes lawyers send their clients to him.

If he's uncertain about a case, he may use a delaying tactic, such as telling a petitioner to first directly approach the gods. If the petitioner tosses wood divination blocks in front of the god's altar and three times in a row get a "yes" answer, he'll take the case.

Prices for a petition haven't gone up much — it cost $7.50 a pop when he began working as a scribe 32 years ago. But he works longer hours; he now gets only one day off a week and works eight or eight-and-a-half hour days with an hour's lunch break. Back when the temple paid him based on the number of petitions he wrote, he could earn better money than he does now (about $1,600 a month), but the income wasn't as stable, he said.

He said he mainly taught himself how to write indictments in formal Chinese, and experience tells him when a petitioner is lying. He keeps an Asustek "Eee PC" netbook on his desk, but only to listen to music. "I'm used to writing" petitions by hand, he says, though the other two scribes now tap out theirs on computers.

Katz said temple appeals have traditionally been made to win legitimacy for one's cause, or to prove one's innocence. That's an important move in a judicial culture where the burden of proof usually lies with the accused. Cops and lawyers have been known to make offerings to the gods, or even take suspects to the temple as a test of their honesty, he said.

Scribes like Lai deal with situations the courts "can't or won't deal with," Katz said. Going to a temple scribe can also be a way to "put pressure on family and friends in cases where it's difficult to work within the legal system," or to cool off a dispute.

Many Taiwanese charge into the scribes' offices in an agitated, emotional state, said Katz. But Lai then calmly writes out their complaint in formal Chinese. "By the time these people leave the temple, their facial expression has totally changed — a lot of that anger is gone," Katz said. "So it's really a great safety valve."

Taiwanese often appeal to the underworld at the same time as they pursue a case in court, Lai said. His services are especially valued since the island's judicial system is plagued by corruption, he said, citing recent high-profile cases of crooked judges.

"Judges can be bribed, but the gods cannot," Lai said.

Huang Guo-rong contributed to this report

Original site

What cross-strait thaw?

2011-08-29T09:20:00.003+08:00

Famous Taiwanese actress Vivian Hsu was reduced to tears — and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Global Post, Nov. 1, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — In terms of international news, it was barely a blip.

But an ugly quarrel between delegations from China and Taiwan at a recent Tokyo film festival was the type of petty spat that has long characterized interactions between the two sides of the strait on the global stage.

Such incidents help explain why most Taiwanese have a dim view of China's government, and no interest in unification.

They also show how far apart the two sides remain politically, despite a historic warming of economic relations.

It started innocently enough. A group of Taiwanese movie stars and starlets lined up to take a stroll down the "eco-friendly" green carpet at the 23rd International Tokyo Film Festival on Oct. 23. A group from China did the same.

Then the head of China's delegation, Jiang Ping, decided to make a scene. After apparently noting that Taiwan's delegation was participating under the name "Taiwan," he demanded that this moniker be switched to "Chinese Taipei" or "Taiwan, China."

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and is hypersensitive to any suggestion on the world stage that the island is actually something else — namely, a de facto sovereign and independent state. For that reason, Taiwan is only allowed to participate in the Olympics and other global sporting events as "Chinese Taipei" due to the high-decibel pressure China puts on organizers.

The head of Taiwan's delegation refused his Chinese counterpart's request, saying "no concessions will be made this time around." Then, as cameras rolled, the two sides bickered.

"The Taiwan area delegation is a part of China's delegation," Jiang angrily told news cameras. At one point he gave Japanese organizers 10 minutes to accept his demands.

In the end, after more than two hours of heated discussions, neither delegation strolled the green carpet. China later withdrew from the event entirely after the Japanese hosts refused to enforce its demands.

But what really added news value in Taiwan were the waterworks from Taiwanese celebrity Vivian Hsu, one of the island's stars at the festival.

A news clip of the actress crying in Tokyo was played and replayed in Taiwan's frantic media. Hsu told reporters that one Taiwanese actor had "torn off his tie" after being told they couldn't walk the carpet. Hsu herself had bought a more than $6,500 Zac Posen-designed dress for the occasion, only to be stymied by the Chinese, media reported. The head of Taiwan's delegation said he felt as if his daughter's wedding had been ruined.

Soon the editorials poured forth and talk show discussions ensued. The island's internecine quarrels were put aside for a moment as politicians and commentators of all stripes lined up to condemn China's behavior and applaud Taiwan's delegation for standing up to China. The spat in Tokyo "proved to Taiwan's people that unification with China is absolutely not a good thing," wrote the Apple Daily. The presidential spokesman rebuked China, as did the premier, who said Jiang's behavior was "unreasonable and rude."

Such a strong reaction to a tiff at a minor event may seem puzzling to outsiders. But it speaks to the petty humiliation Taiwan routinely endures from China at international events — treatment that dredges up deeply emotional issues of identity and respect. While the rest of the world is just now getting to know a more assertive China, Taiwanese have long been familiar with Beijing's sterner face.

"We have to stand up to say we don't agree with that type of behavior," said George Tsai, a cross-strait relations expert at Chinese Culture University in Taipei. "We have our dignity and principles."

China has in the past two years allowed Taiwan to participate in some World Health Organization meetings as an observer. But it continues to block Taiwan's participation in other bodies.

One example, at the top of Taiwan's priority list, is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Membership would allow Taiwan to network on green energy issues and receive technical and financial support for such efforts; China continues to block the island's participation.

Such snubs — hardly newsworthy outside Taiwan — have had a cumulative effect on Taiwanese. In the Taiwan government's latest opinion poll on cross-strait relations from September, 48 percent of those polled think China is "unfriendly" toward Taiwan's government, with 37 percent thinking China is "friendly," despite a dramatic warming in ties and the recent signing of a historic trade deal.

Just 10 percent of Taiwanese support unification with China, with a scant 1.7 percent supporting unification "as soon as possible," according to the government's latest data.

Well aware of this public sentiment, the Taiwan government has recently stressed that it has no timetable for political talks with China.

Analysts say that President Ma Ying-jeou has accomplished much of his cross-strait economic agenda, and is likely to put any further, substantial cross-strait talks on hold indefinitely. That's because he's now returning to job No. 1 for any Taiwanese politician: winning elections.

Local polls are coming up at the end of November. Those will soon be followed in Taiwan's hectic election schedule by a primary season, legislative elections and Ma's own re-election bid in March 2012.

Under the circumstances, slamming China for its film festival tantrum was a political no-brainer. Tsai said that "domestic political considerations" helped explain the strong backlash to China's belittling behavior; it was an easy way to score points by defending Taiwan's dignity.

Moreover, China has yet to meet Ma's longstanding condition for political talks; namely, that Beijing draw down its missile arsenal across from Taiwan, now estimated by the U.S. military at some 1,050 to 1,150 short-range ballistic missiles and scores of cruise missiles.

There are some signs this might change. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao caused a stir in September when he made vague comments suggesting the missile issue could eventually be addressed. Chinese Culture University's Tsai, who just returned from a trip to China, said Chinese academics told him Beijing is "seriously considering the possibility of re-deploying the missiles," but that it doesn't want to appear to do so under pressure.

"So if we keep a low profile, it will be easier for them to do this," said Tsai, who was told there is "very high-ranking internal discussion" in China on re-deploying the missiles, and even an "inclination" to do so.

But so far there haven't been any concrete steps. Even if there were, Tsai and other analysts say political talks are "out of the question." "It's not in the foreseeable future," said Tsai. "It's not in Ma Ying-jeou's interests, and it's not on his political agenda."

Ma's own premier said conditions are "not yet ripe" for political talks.

And if he needed any help making that point, what better than a fresh-faced Taiwanese actress, reduced to tears by China's bullying, at an event intended to celebrate cinema and the arts — not power politics.

Original site

Japan besieged north and south

2011-08-29T09:13:00.003+08:00

China, Russia muscle in on Japan-claimed islands

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Nov. 6) -- Japan, which for centuries relished the security of being an archipelago, is being challenged in separate territorial disputes over small islands.

It's unclear whether the challenges -- from Russia in the north and China in the south -- are in any way coordinated. But analysts say they represent a diplomatic baptism by fire for Japan's year-old, center-left government, which is seen as inexperienced in world affairs.

Both rows are also seen testing the strength of the U.S.-Japan security alliance. That alliance has come under severe strain in the past year due to sharp disagreement over a relocation plan for a U.S. military base in Okinawa.

In both territorial disputes, the U.S. has urged bilateral talks between Japan and the other claimant, but neither China nor Russia is disposed to listen to Washington.

"China and Russia do not trust the U.S. enough to accept it as an honest broker and would likely view such an offer as U.S. interference," James Manicom, an expert on East Asian maritime disputes at the University of Toronto, said in an e-mail exchange. "I'm skeptical that U.S. mediation will be accepted by parties to either dispute."

China earlier this week rejected one U.S. offer to mediate its dispute with Japan.

Russia sparked a diplomatic spat Monday when President Dmitry Medvedev visited an island chain northeast of Japan's Hokkaido that has been controlled by Russia since World War II but is also claimed by Japan. Tokyo protested and recalled its ambassador to Moscow. (See a map here and a video report on the flap from Russia Today below.)

Called the Southern Kuril Islands by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan, the islands have been contested since World War II, a dispute that has prevented the two countries from inking a formal peace treaty. Various offers and counteroffers have been made through the years, with little success.

Japanese media attributed Medvedev's provocative visit to his desire to burnish his nationalist credentials ahead of a power struggle with his rival and mentor, Vladimir Putin, for the presidency in 2012. The visit was also seen as a rebuke to Japanese foreign minister Seiji Maehara, who said bluntly last year that Russia was "illegally occupying" the islands.

Kimie Hara of the University of Waterloo said the visit was an affirmation of Russia's ties with China, too. "The Russian president's visit to the disputed island was also prompted by his meeting with his Chinese counterpart in late September in Beijing, where they celebrated the 65th anniversary of the Soviet-Chinese alliance in the war against Japan (1936-45) and confirmed their solidarity," Hara wrote in an e-mail.

A Chinese analyst suggested the same in comments to Global Times, saying "the strong message by Medvedev's visit to the island, to some extent, echoes China's firm stance on its dispute with Japan."

The dispute over islets on Japan's southern flank is seen as being more explosive. The uninhabitable islets, called the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, have been effectively controlled by Japan since 1972 but are also claimed by China and Taiwan.

A collision between a Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard vessels in September near the islets sparked the worst diplomatic tensions in at least five years between the two Asian powers. The collision triggered large-scale, tit-for-tat nationalist protests in both Japan and China.

Now, Japan and China are both running regular, armed patrols near the islets. "The potential for miscalculation between such vessels is thus elevated," Manicom said.

"The probability of something really bad happening is pretty modest, but the consequences are very bad," Richard Bush, an expert on China-Japan security relations at the Brookings Institution, said at a recent forum in Washington, D.C. "The chance of some kind of clash between marine forces of the two countries is increasing because of competing interests in the East China Sea."

Bush warned that even a minor episode could spiral out of control because of poor crisis management capabilities on both sides.

"Institutional factors at play suggest that just because the two governments have contained these episodes and don't want a crisis doesn't mean that they can contain incidents in the future," Bush said. "Neither side wants a true crisis, but each may be hard pressed to avoid one in the event of a really serious clash."

In the northern dispute, by contrast, potential crises are seen as more manageable. Hara noted that a more serious incident occurred in the north in 2006, when a Japanese fisherman was shot dead by the Russian Coast Guard near the disputed islands.

"But the situation was handled more skillfully," Hara said, sparking no protests in either Japan or Russia. In the south, "the tension escalated this time because the case was mishandled by the young [Democratic Party of Japan] government."

Both disputes could potentially drag in the U.S. due to its treaty obligations. The U.S.-Japan defense pact obligates Washington to respond in the event of an attack on any territory under Japan's administration.

The U.S. said it backs Japan's claim in the island dispute with Russia. But Washington has also said the defense treaty doesn't apply because Japan does not control the islands, according to a Xinhua news report.

In the south, the reverse is the case. The U.S. takes no position on the sovereignty of the disputed islets. But it says the islets fall within the scope of the U.S.-Japan defense pact because they are administered by Japan.

On Monday, video of the Sept. 7 collision between the Chinese fishing boat and Japanese coast guard vessels was shown to Japanese Diet members.

Purported excerpts were later leaked and posted to YouTube (See links at Japan Probe here, and an Al-Jazeera report below.)

Original site

Asian space race heats up

2011-08-29T09:07:00.002+08:00

The Asian space race is moving along slowly, but steadily – and China is in the lead, with technology that could give it a military advantage over the US.

By Jonathan Adams, Correspondent / October 28, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan

China looks set to pull ahead in the Asian space race to the moon, putting a spacecraft into lunar orbit Oct. 6 in a preparatory mission for an unmanned moon landing in two or three years.

Chinese engineers will maneuver the craft into an extremely low orbit, 9.5 miles above the moon's surface, so it can take high-resolution photos of a possible landing site.

Basically, China is looking for a good "parking space" for a moon lander, in a less-known area of the moon known as the Bay of Rainbows.

The mission, called Chang'e 2 after a heroine from Chinese folklore who goes to the moon with a rabbit, highlights China's rapidly growing technological prowess, as well as its keen desire for prestige on the world stage. If successful, it will put China a nose ahead of its Asian rivals with similar lunar ambitions – India and Japan – and signal a challenge to the American post-cold-war domination in space.

The Asian space race

Compared with the American and Soviet mad dashes into space in the late 1950s and '60s, Asia is taking its time – running a marathon, not a sprint. "All of these countries witnessed the cold war, and what led to the destruction of the USSR," says Ajey Lele, an expert on Asian space programs at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, referring to the military and space spending that helped hasten the decline of the Soviet regime. "They understand the value of money and investment, and they are going as per the pace which they can go." But he acknowledged China's edge over India. "They started earlier, and they're ahead of us at this time," he says.

India put the Chandrayaan 1 spacecraft into lunar orbit in 2008, a mission with a NASA payload that helped confirm the presence of water on the moon. It plans a moon landing in a few years' time, and a manned mission as early as 2020 – roughly the same timetable as China.

Japan is also mulling a moonshot, and has branched out into other space exploration, such as the recent Hayabusa mission to an asteroid. Its last lunar orbiter shared the moon with China's first in 2007.

Both Japan's and India's recent missions have been plagued by glitches and technical problems, however, while China's have gone relatively smoothly.

Mr. Lele said the most significant aspect of the Chang'e 2 mission was the attempt at a 9.5-mile-high orbit, a difficult feat. India's own lunar orbiter descended to about 60 miles in 2008, he said, but was forced to return to a more stable, 125-mile-high orbit.

A low orbit will allow for better scouting of future landing sites, said Lele. "They [the Chinese] will require huge amounts of data on landing grounds," said Lele. "A moon landing hasn't been attempted since the cold war."

During the famed 1969 Apollo 11 manned mission to the moon, astronaut Neil Armstrong had to take control of the lander in the last moments of descent to avoid large moon boulders strewn around the landing site. China hopes to avoid any such last-minute surprises with better reconnaissance photos, which would allow them to see moon features such as rocks as small as one-meter across, according to Chinese media.

Is China's space exploration a military strategy?

Meanwhile, some have pointed out that China's moonshot, like all space programs, has valuable potential military offshoots. China's space program is controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which is steadily gaining experience in remote communication and measurement, missile technology, and antisatellite warfare through missions like Chang'e 2.

The security implications of China's space program are not lost on India, Japan, or the United States.

The Pentagon notes that China, through its space program, is exploring ways to exploit the US military's dependence on space in a conflict scenario – for example, knocking out US satellites in the opening hours of a crisis over Taiwan.

"China is developing the ability to attack an adversary's space assets, accelerating the militarization of space," the Pentagon said in its latest annual report to Congress on China's military power. "PLA writings emphasize the necessity of 'destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy's reconnaissance ... and communications satellites.' "

More broadly, some in the US see China's moon program as evidence that it has a long-range strategic view that's lacking in Washington. The US has a reconnaissance satellite in lunar orbit now, but President Obama appears to have put off the notion of a manned return to the moon.

With China slowly but surely laying the groundwork for a long-term lunar presence, some fear the US may one day find itself lapped –"like the tale of the tortoise and the hare," says Dean Cheng, an expert on China's space program at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. "I have to wonder whether the United States, concerned with far more terrestrial issues, and with its budget constraints, is going to decide to make similarly persistent investments to sustain its lead in space."

Original site

China pulls ahead in moon race

2011-08-29T00:55:00.003+08:00

The US has cutting-edge technology and India won't give up, but China has its eye on the prize.

Global Post, Nov. 2

Taipei -- The next human to plant a foot on the moon's surface is most likely to be Chinese or Indian — and that "small step" could happen as soon as 2020.

In late October, China's moon orbiter Chang'e 2 shifted into a lopsided orbit that brings it as close as 9.5 miles from the moon's surface. It's snapping pictures, scouting a landing site for an unmanned rover in two to three years' time in a lesser-known area of the moon known as the "Bay of Rainbows."

India plans a similar rover mission around the same time, and both countries hope to follow that feat with a manned mission as soon as a decade from now.

Both countries are pouring money and resources into moon programs. Japan has also floated plans for a manned lunar mission and moon base. By contrast, the recession-battered United States earlier this year scratched its Constellation program — the ambitious, George W. Bush-launched plan to return Americans to the moon's surface — because it was too pricey (about $100 billion through 2020 alone).

So is Asia poised to make a giant leap, past the United States, in space?

Not necessarily. Experts say both China and India still lag far behind the United States in space expertise and experience. After all, American astronauts bounded over the moon's surface more than 40 years ago. President Barack Obama himself downplayed the importance of manned moon missions earlier this year, saying bluntly "we've been there."

U.S. spacecraft and satellite technology is still cutting-edge; witness the high-tech American lunar orbiter that's now sharing the moon's skies with China's orbiter. And the United States is now aiming for a daring new stunt: landing an astronaut on an asteroid by 2025, a project dubbed "Plymouth Rock."

But some worry that by giving up its grand lunar ambitions, the United States is ceding important political and symbolic ground to Asia — China, in particular. "I’m afraid what the president and his administration want is for the United States to no longer be pre-eminent in space flight, and that has very, very serious consequences," former astronaut Harrison Schmitt told the Madison, Wis., Capital Times. "I am very much of the mind that America can’t afford to be second-best in space.”

There are commercial fears too. While extracting lunar resources may still be the stuff of science fiction, in another generation or two it could become reality — and the United States might find itself on the back-foot in a race to mine the moon.

Moreover, voices including former Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk the moon, argue that the moon should remain a focus of the U.S. space program because it could provide a stepping stone to Mars and the rest of the solar system. Last year's findings of extensive water on the moon (first confirmed by an Indian lunar orbiter, by the way) suggest that rocket fuel could one day be produced at a moon base, making a Mars trip more feasible, Armstrong's co-pilot Buzz Aldrin pointed out recently.

Chinese and Indian scientists claim their space programs are only pursuing peaceful, scientific research, and they deny they're competing in a "space race."

But it's clear that prestige and bragging rights are drivers for both countries — and neither wants to be the second Asian nation to put a man on the moon. "We can definitely put Chinese on the moon," Ouyang Ziyuan, a senior adviser to China's moon program, said recently, according to Taiwan's Want Daily. But if China falls behind India, "That would show that Chinese scientists are incompetent," he said.

Boosting military prowess is also a motivator. As the Cold War space race showed, most space technologies have military uses, especially in missile development and remote monitoring and control. "For any space-faring nation, space technologies will have military applications," Dean Cheng, an expert on China's space program at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in an email. "This is further reinforced in the case of [China] because of the extensive integration of the military into China's overall space program."

India's timeline for putting a human on the moon is actually ahead of China's — it's gunning for 2020, while China is looking at the 2020 to 2030 time frame and has not yet set a timetable.

But in terms of actual achievements to date, China's ahead. China has already put six men in space; India, zero. China has more doable, twin goals of establishing a space station above the Earth and landing a moon rover by 2020 (the space station program formally kicked off in late October). The success of those missions will determine how quickly it tries a manned moon shot.

China's lunar orbiters have so far fared better than India's, too — or Japan's. India's first lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1 was forced to cut its mission short by more than a year due to glitches, and wasn't able to stay in a shallow orbit because of technical difficulties blamed on solar storms. Japan's orbiter actually beat China's to the moon in 2007 by a few weeks, but its mission was delayed several times and it was deliberately crashed into the moon due to a malfunctioning part.

China's missions have so far been mostly snafu-free, and it has now completed the challenging maneuver of putting the Chang'e 2 in an extremely shallow orbit.

Long-term vision

Both China and India cite the possibility of mining lunar minerals as a potential long-term goal.

Such potential resources have China talking already about the need to plant its flag on the moon to secure development rights to whatever's sitting below the moon dust. "If China doesn't explore the moon, we will have no say in international lunar exploration and can't safeguard our proper rights and interests," Ouyang told Global Times.

The moon is thought to be rich in uranium and titanium ores, "rare earths" that have lately made headlines, and an obscure substance known as helium-3 that some scientists describe as a Holy Grail of energy sources. Helium-3 could potentially be mined from the moon, the thinking goes, returned to Earth and used in a nuclear fusion reaction to generate massive amounts of energy.

It may sound wacky, but helium-3's enthusiasts include Schmitt and his fellow moon-walking Apollo program veteran Edgar Mitchell (see interviews with them from the BBC special "Mining the Moon").

Indian scientists believe a successful fusion reaction using helium-3 could happen by the decade's end.

"Helium-3 could be one of best solutions for providing clean energy," Ajey Lele, an expert on Asian space programs at the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi, said in a phone interview. "Scientists say that if you can manage to get a shipload of helium-3 from the surface of the moon, it will resolve your problems for the next 10 years as far as energy security is concerned."

"But it's all in the experimental stages at this point," he stressed. "It's unproven."

The Heritage Foundation's Cheng is one skeptic. "Helium-3 becomes useful in a fusion power generation context," he wrote in an email. "It will become something meriting more sustained discussion when we get closer to actually having a sustained fusion reaction."

Still, he said that China's programs, especially its space lab, could give China an edge if and when the extraction of moon resources turns political. "Once you start mining, and even before, questions arise as to ownership, as to profit-sharing (if any), as to who has the ability to establish and enforce claims in space," he said. "A long-term presence in space will give China political capital."

Original site

Chinese Internet no threat to regime

2011-08-17T10:15:00.002+08:00

China's Internet Imperils Corrupt Officials, but Not Regime

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Oct. 28) -- The Chinese Internet has been abuzz over a hit-and-run incident involving the young son of a high-level security official in Hebei Province, outside Beijing.

The episode shows how quickly outrage over abuses by privileged Chinese officials can come to a boil, as well as the power of Internet-fueled popular pressure in today's China.

Still, many experts caution that while the Internet has become an outlet for anger against local officials, it is not a significant threat to the Chinese Communist Party's grip on power.

What sparked the uproar was not only the hit-and-run itself, but the young man's lack of remorse and high-handed attitude. "Go ahead and sue me, I'm Li Gang's son," he reportedly said, just after the accident.

The Oct. 16 accident left one student dead and another injured, according to Chinese media reports translated at Chinahush.

The "human flesh search engine" -- a Chinese-coined term referring to the collective efforts of angry Internet users -- found and posted personal information on the young man, including photos. The police later arrested Li Qiming, the son of high-ranking public security official Li Gang, according to the Global Times.

Father and son have since both given blubbering apologies, but unsatisfied observers say they're crying "crocodile tears." Some have even posted running commentaries analyzing the duo's facial expressions to prove they were faking it. (See translations at EastSouthWestNorth here.)

It's not the first time angry Chinese Internet mobs have targeted local officials and their relatives.

In the summer of 2009, millions of Chinese Web users rallied around a 21-year-old pedicurist in Hubei Province who stabbed to death a local official, claiming he was trying to rape her. Amid the outcry, her original charge of murder was changed to a lesser charge.

And in 2007, an online video game, in which players kill and torture corrupt local officials, became an Internet sensation.

Despite public outrage, though, corruption by local officials appears to be on the rise. The China Daily reported that prosecutors handled 6,375 cases of "malpractice" or "abuse of power" by civil servants in the year leading up to November 2009, a 6 percent increase over the previous year.

And observers caution that the central government is still able to keep a strong grip on the Internet to head off any organized challenge to its rule. If anything, the Internet has become a useful tool for helping Beijing monitor and purge bumbling local officials who hurt the party's image.

"China is pioneering a new kind of Internet-age authoritarianism," Rebecca MacKinnon, an expert on China's Internet, said in testimony to Congress this year. "It is demonstrating how a nondemocratic government can stay in power while simultaneously expanding domestic Internet and mobile phone use.

"In China today there is a lot more give-and-take between government and citizens than in the pre-Internet age, and this helps bolster the regime's legitimacy, with many Chinese Internet users who feel that they have a new channel for public discourse," she said.

"Since the openness of the Internet allows the tracing of every online activity, fear of arrest and imprisonment ensures that the impact of that monitoring is likely to be strong," Junhao Hong, an expert on China's Internet controls at the University of Buffalo, told the Science 2.0 website. "So at the moment, at least, the Internet is not a real threat to authoritarian regimes."

According to the human rights group Dui Hua, China arrested an estimated 1,150 people in 2009 for "endangering state security" and imprisoned 1,050 of them -- a far higher number than most previous years, though a decline from the spike in such arrests in 2008, when China hosted the Olympics.

Original site

Commercial bloggers cash in

2011-08-17T10:09:00.003+08:00

Cartoonist Wanwan shows how enterprising Taiwanese turned blogs into big business

Global Post, October 24, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Hu Jia-wei started posting cartoons about her office life to her blog in 2004 because work was "too boring."

Six years later, the 29-year-old, better known by her cartoon alter-ego "Wanwan," is a brand name, complete with an agent and rabid fan following in Taiwan and throughout east Asia. Her blog gets more than 100,000 visitors a day, and she's sold more than a million copies of her cartoon books in six Asian countries. She's also licensed her images for scores of TV commercials, products and promotions.

Her story shows how a few savvy Taiwan bloggers have parlayed their online popularity into business opportunities and fame.

Besides Wanwan, other notable examples include "Nu Wang" (The Queen), who launched best-selling books on the popularity of her girl-power, Sex-in-the-City-style blog.

But in comics-crazy Taiwan, cute cartoon blogs hold a special appeal. Several regularly appear in the top ten blog rankings. The "Caterpillar" blog features simple cartoons like Wanwan's, and Mark Lee's "I'm Mark" blog, which mines Dilbert-like territory of absurd office dynamics and has also inspired a book.

But Wanwan holds the cartoon blog throne. Her blog has been in the top five or so for at least a few years, and often tops the charts. Wanwan and her agent were cagey about her earnings, but one Taiwan media estimate puts her net worth as high as $3.25 million.

Why is she so popular? Jerry Hsu, marketing and sales director at BloggerAds in Taipei, said her success is due in part to clever promotional tactics.

A convenience store chain passed out stickers with her cartoons, and many of Taiwan's eight million users of the MSN Messenger instant messaging service downloaded and used her cute, funny "emoticons," said Hsu. "These were simple cartoons to show 'boredom', 'annoyance', 'happiness' — everyone started using them," he said. "They were distributed for free, and allowed many people to get to know her."

Now, Wanwan has helped launch a trend of cartoon bloggers, many of whom also offer free emoticons and have turned their sites into at least a part-time business.

In an interview with GlobalPost in a private room at a Taipei coffee-shop, the poised, well-spoken Hu said she drew cartoons about everyday experiences that people could easily connect with — starting with her parody of soul-crushing office life.

"Everyone who works in an office has had these experiences," said Hu. "And when it comes to work and day-to-day life, these things happen in every country."

Watch "Wanwan" in action here:

Shortly after graduating from college in design, Hu went to work at a computer game design firm, joining the ranks of Taiwan's shangbanzu — or "office tribe." She created a blog and started posting cartoons and instant-message "emoticons" inspired by life in Taipei's white-collar trenches.

Her cute style and depiction of that life — complete with goofy bosses, inane elevator conversation and broken-down air conditioners — soon struck a nerve.

"At first, just some friends and relatives saw it, but it got more and more popular," said Hu. "I never thought it would get so big.

A typical cartoon shows Wanwan dying to tell her clueless boss he's got food stuck in his teeth, but finally daring not to.

Soon a Taipei publisher, Revolution Star, had taken note of her popularity, and in 2005 it released her first, best-selling cartoon book, "Can we not go to work?" (Ke bu keyi bu yao shang ban?)

That same year, the company she worked for went belly-up, and she became a full-time blogger, cartoonist and author, often sleeping in as long as she likes.

Six other books have followed, on themes like school ("Can we not go to school?) travel ("Can we go on vacation every day?") and raising pets. More recently, she's focused on her family life, chronicling her older brother and mother's travails (her older sister and father are off-limits because they're "more serious" and don't like being the subject of her cartoons, said Hu.)

She's published in China (where unauthorized editions of her cartoon books are also available, she said), South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and she says her readers span elementary-school age to recent college graduates.

Now, thousands follow her on Facebook, Plurk, (Taiwan's Twitter clone) and a mainland China Twitter clone. When she appears at conventions or book signings, huge crowds show up to meet her. Her agent helps her review frequent promotional and licensing requests.

She's already cooperated with cellphone firm Taiwan Dageda, the Family Mart convenience stores in Shanghai, and the popular bakery chain 85 degrees C. Alcohol or cigarette ads are out. "Many of my fans are kids, so we can't accept that," says Hu. Her blog has had some 240 million visits since it launched in 2004.

It's heady stuff for a young woman who, as a girl, would sneak comics back home to read, stuffing them under her clothes so her mom wouldn't find them. "My dream was to be a cartoonist, but I always thought it was just a dream," said Hu. "I've been very lucky."

As a kid, she devoured Japanese comics on the sly, especially those starring the blue robot cat from the future, Doraemon (called "Xiao Ding-dang" in Chinese). Her mother disapproved. A typical Taiwanese parent, she wanted Hu to spend all her time studying so she could be a doctor or teacher one day, rather than wasting time on frivolities such as comics.

Now her mother takes credit for her success, likes to boast about her daughter to strangers, and urges Hu to write about her in her cartoons, said Hu with a laugh. Hu is even collaborating with her mother on a new book.

She learning drawing techniques in school, but when it came to drawing Wan Wan, she reverted to a doodle-like style, making rapid sketches and sloppy Chinese characters with a Wacom pen tablet that she touches up in Photoshop. She says she can finish a typical frame in ten minutes. "If you want to draw everyday life, the simplest style is the best," she said.

She gave an impromptu demonstration of her sketching style at the coffee-shop, rapidly sketching a cartoon in thick, black lines.

What's next for Wanwan?

She's now targeting the Japan market ("Japan doesn't often accept foreign books, so it's very difficult," says Hu.) And she's mulling an English-language edition, possibly even a U.S. edition. "I'm very interested in the American market," she said.

Original site

Brother gymnast goes viral

2011-08-17T10:07:00.001+08:00

'Brother Gymnast' Shows China's Road Risks

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Oct. 21) -- A video of a motorcyclist miraculously walking away from a crash has gone viral on the Chinese Internet -- the latest of several spectacular accident videos to cause a stir.

The video, which had received 1 million hits as of today on Tudou (a Chinese YouTube clone), shows a helmet-less motorcycle rider slamming into the side of a small pickup truck, flipping through the air, then walking back, seemingly unscathed, to inspect his totaled bike.

AOL News could not confirm the authenticity of this or other viral Chinese accident videos. Hoaxes -- for fun or profit -- are widespread in today's vibrant and booming Chinese Internet culture.

Such videos show how the Internet is blasting once-trivial, local events across the Chinese Web, but they also highlight the dangers of China's anything-goes roads.

According to the posted videos, the accident occurred in Wenzhou. That city's police posted the video footage online on Oct. 20 in an attempt to locate the motorcycle rider, but he has reportedly not come forward.

The website Chinasmack, which posted the video with English translations of Internet users' responses, said viewers had dubbed the flying motorcycle rider "Brother Gymnast."

In a report by China's Zhejiang TV, the truck driver, identified only as Mr. Mei, says he lost control of the truck when the motorcyclist hit him. "I also thought I was finished," Mei said.

According to Mei, the motorcyclist asked him for compensation of 200 renminbi (about $30), a demand Mei rejected, saying the motorcyclist had hit him, not vice versa.

In May, another viral Chinese accident video purported to show a man -- dubbed "Brother Tricyclist" -- pedaling serenely through the mayhem of a high-speed, fatal Beijing car accident.

Videos of that accident have since been removed from Youku and other sites, but a news report is still viewable on YouTube. The report also shows "Running Brother," a man who narrowly avoids an accident involving a city bus and passenger car as he crosses the street.

"We would like to remind everyone to pay attention to traffic safety," the anchorwoman says at the end of the report.

Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for people age 15 to 44 in China, according to the World Health Organization. Every year an estimated 250,000 people are killed and half a million more are injured on Chinese roads, the WHO says.

China's own official statistics report far fewer accidents, with about 68,000 killed and 275,000 wounded in 2009, according to the state-run Xinhua news service. Road deaths have declined since a 2002 peak, according to the Chinese government.

China had the world's highest number of road accidents and road fatalities in 2005, according to the Chinese government.

But measured by traffic fatalities per 100,000 people, China (at 16.5) is hardly the worst in east Asia, trailing Laos (18.3), Mongolia (19.3), the Philippines (20) and Malaysia (23.6), according to a recent WHO report.

Chinese drivers routinely ignore traffic lights and rules and do not observe "right of way." In 2009, a retired 74-year-old teacher became famous for trying to enforce a traffic light near his home in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, by hurling bricks at disobedient drivers' cars, according to a China Daily report cited by Agence France-Presse.

Police stopped him after he'd damaged 30 cars, but 80 percent of the 400,000 respondents in an Internet poll supported his efforts, the China Daily reported.

The WHO says China is improving on road safety, especially after the 2003 formation of a national road safety coordination committee and the 2004 passage of stricter seat-belt, helmet and insurance guidelines in a new road safety law.

But roads are also becoming far more crowded as car sales soar in line with China's economic growth. China passed the U.S. to become the world's largest car market by unit last year, with 14 million autos sold, according to the Facts and Details website. Car sales have grown 20 to 30 percent per year since 2005, the fact sheet says.

Ninety million vehicles traveled China's roads in 2005, and 140 million are expected on the roads by 2020, according to the fact sheet.

Original site

Black hand of Beijing

2011-08-17T10:03:00.003+08:00

Some See Beijing's Hand in Anti-Japan Protests

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Oct. 19) -- Three days of rowdy and occasionally violent anti-Japan demonstrations in Chinese cities have left observers puzzling over whether the generally hyper-vigilant Chinese government was behind them.

For some observers, the answer is "yes" -- at the least to the extent that government censors allowed protests to be organized online.

China's normally heavy-handed Internet and mobile-phone controls seek to suppress exactly the type of large-scale demonstrations that took place over the weekend and into Monday in at least five cities in China. Usually, such controls are fairly effective.

But when the target of protesters' wrath is Japan, the picture becomes muddier. The Chinese government is believed to condone some anti-Japan activity as a way of letting off nationalist steam, sending a signal of its displeasure to Tokyo or -- if you're of a more cynical mind -- distracting Chinese citizens from their own government's shortcomings.

"This [the protests] is definitely no coincidence. It's a typical example of diverting attention," rights activist Pu Fei told Hong Kong's Apple Daily. "It's to shift the public and netizens' focus away from [Noble Peace Prize winner] Liu Xiaobo and [his wife] Liu Xia."

Still, the Chinese Communist Party government considers social stability a paramount concern and is fearful of letting large-scale protests spin out of control.

The latest round of anti-Japan protests began Saturday, ostensibly as tit-for-tat counter-demonstrations to anti-China protests in Tokyo, where right-wing Japanese surrounded Beijing's embassy. Japanese police prevented the protesters from coming too close to the embassy, according to Taiwan media reports.

Protesters on both sides are angry over tiny islets, called the Senkaku in Japanese and the Diaoyu in Chinese, that Japan controls but both countries claim. Nationalists in both countries insist the rocky islets in the East China Sea are part of their country's territory; tensions flared last month when the Japanese coast guard detained a Chinese fishing boat captain near the islets.

In the latest protests, analysts differ on how active a role Beijing played.

"It is not at all clear that these demonstrations are orchestrated by the central government," said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based professor of Chinese politics, in an e-mail. "Indeed, it is far more likely that these protests are driven by local organizers with experience and skills and who think that anti-Japanese sentiment is looked upon favorably by certain officials in Beijing."

A favorable -- if guarded -- view of the protests came from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, who expressed sympathy with the demonstrators while urging them to follow the law.

"It is understandable that some people expressed their outrage against the recent erroneous words and deeds on the Japanese side," said Ma after Saturday's protests, according to Agence France-Presse. "We maintain that patriotism should be expressed rationally and in line with law. We don't agree with irrational actions that violate laws and regulations."

Others say the government clearly "allowed" the protests to be organized and go forward, and could have easily put a stop to them had it wished.

"If the government very consciously opposed or didn't want these demonstrations, if they resolutely didn't want them, then there would be nothing," Renmin University professor of international relations Shi Yinhong told The Associated Press.

On Saturday in China, protests erupted in the western Sichuan province capital of Chengdu, as well as Xian. One English-language blogger took photos and video of the Chengdu protests, showing hundreds of young Chinese thronging the streets, calling for a boycott of Japanese products, burning paper arranged in the Chinese characters for "Japan" and scuffling with riot police.

There were also reports that a woman was forced to strip by an angry mob who mistook her dress for a Japanese-style kimono.

Asked by the blogger why he showed up, one protester cited the Diaoyu islands and said, "China's territory cannot be separated." Asked how he'd heard about the demonstrations, the protester said "tieba" -- referring to Internet message boards.

Such bulletin boards, like the popular Baidu Tieba, are strictly monitored by government censors, who delete inappropriate content, including attempts at unsanctioned political organization. Baidu Tieba deletes 1 million posts every day, mostly spam, according to a company official quoted in a Chinese report.

Protests continued Sunday in Mianyang, also in Sichuan province, then spread to Wuhan in central Hubei province and Lanzhou city in Gansu province on Monday, according to Hong Kong and Taiwan media.

Students carried signs saying "Kill 'little Japan'" ("little Japan" is a favorite term of reference for Chinese nationalists) and "China's most important task is to wipe out Japan"; overturned Japanese-brand cars; and smashed windows at Japanese stores.

At least seven Chinese students as well as a Hong Kong TV crew were arrested and taken away in Wuhan, according to Taiwan's Apple Daily. Police put students on tour buses and returned them to their campuses.

Mainland Chinese media have blacked out the protests, with no mention in either English- or Chinese-language news sites.

The last round of anti-Japan protests, at the height of the fishing boat dispute in mid-September, were quickly quashed by police. Then, Internet postings attempting to organize protests were rapidly deleted.

At that time, according to Japan's Asahi Shimbun, Han Han, one of China's top bloggers, complained that anti-Japan protests were a "game engineered by the [Chinese] government." His post was itself quickly zapped by censors, the Asahi said.

More anti-Japan protests are planned for Saturday in Sichuan province's Deyang City, and three protests are planned in Chongqing next week, according to Japanese media cited by the Apple Daily.

Original site

The Yellow Priest

2011-08-16T10:04:00.002+08:00

Philippines: Aquino's presidency and the Yellow Priest

President Aquino faces challenges at his 100-day mark. Good thing he has the "Yellow Priest."

October 15, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Is change finally coming to the Philippines?

For one Filipino-American Catholic priest and supporter of the new president Benigno Aquino III, the answer is a qualified "yes."

The Taiwan-based Father Joy Tajonera is part of a group that urged Aquino to run for office after the politician's mother, democracy icon Corazon Aquino, passed away.

He began shuttling back and forth on the two-hour flight between Taiwan and Manila during the campaign, and became active in the "yellow ribbon movement" supporting Aquino's candidacy. He even had a bright-yellow, Roman Collar shirt and yellow cossack made to show his support for Aquino and for change — an eye-catching get-up that earned him the label "The Yellow Priest" from the Philippines media.

Now, just past 100 days into Aquino's presidency, Tajonera's still a believer. And he insists Aquino — nicknamed "Noynoy" or "PNoy" — is the real deal.

"One encouraging thing I hear from both young and old is optimism — that it's possible to hope that the country will be better," said Tajonera, who at 51 is about the same age as the new president. "That sense of hope is what helped Noynoy get elected — people are clamoring for change."

The Philippines has long been one of Asia's underachievers, trailing far behind its peers in the region due to a potent mix of corruption, clan-based politics, long-running armed rebellions, incompetence and the out-sized influence of a landed elite.

Aquino hasn't changed that overnight, of course. But Tajonera insists that the fledgling president has already succeeded in projecting a clean, humble image for his government. He's gotten the style right — now everyone's waiting for him to make more progress on substance.

Other analysts also give Aquino good marks."I wouldn't give him a perfect score, but I would say he passed the test of his first 100 days," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reform in Manila. "So far so good, in the sense that he has made key initial steps for fighting corruption and poverty — he's appointed people to key positions."

Most Filipinos seems to agree; Aquino's latest satisfaction rating was 71 percent, compared to just 11 percent dissatisfied, according to a survey by Social Weather Stations.

Philippines media made much of his recent, lower-key trip to the U.S. — spending a third what his predecessor did for a state visit to New York City, by lodging at Sofitel instead of the Waldorf, and eating at street-side hot-dog stands instead of Le Cirque.

Tajonera ticks off several more examples of Aquino's more modest, down-to-earth ways. PNoy has scrapped "wang-wang" — the practice of Presidential motorcades using wailing sirens to get through metro Manila's notorious gridlock. He's done away with self-promotional billboards on public projects, which were widespread under his predecessor.

He gave his entire inaugural address and first state of the nation address not in English but in Tagalog, the Philippines' main dialect — a first for a Filipino president. "There's a divide in the country between those who have and have not — and those who speak English well and those who do not," said Tajonera.

And Tajonera has personally observed that government officials and police have a noticeably less "arrogant" and more polite, upright attitude.

Case in point: when one of Tajonera's relatives was caught speeding as he rushed to make a lunch with the priest during one of his trips to Manila, he tried bribing his way out of a ticket in the tried-and-true Philippines style — by passing a banknote to the cop along with his license. This time, it didn't work.

Still, there's plenty of reason to doubt whether PNoy can change the broader system. The most significant challenges are his lack of control of Congress and the courts, which could hobble his efforts at reform, said Tajonera.

Most Supreme Court justices were appointed by his predecessor and political rival, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a deeply unpopular and allegedly corrupt figure who nonetheless has her own formidable power base in Congress. And PNoy's governing coalition is "more a coalition of convenience than an honest coalition," said Tajonera, with many Congressmen wanting their share of pork in exchange for continued support.

Casiple added that Noynoy faces a "steep learning curve" because of his relative inexperience, and is learning under "very stressful conditions," including a hostile opposition and "political landmines" left by the previous administration."He has a lot of problems before him," said Casiple.

Meanwhile, PNoy stumbled in his response to the Sept. 7 hostage crisis, in which eight Hong Kong tourists were killed by a disgruntled ex-cop.

And human rights groups fault Aquino for failing to stop so-called "extra-judicial killings" of leftists (16 so far on his watch, according to rights group Karapatan).

Perhaps most difficult to surmount is the skepticism of Filipinos themselves, who have long suffered under bumbling, corrupt leadership.

"Filipino people, especially the poor, have been disappointed so many times, sold out so many times, used so many times, it's not so easy to say things will change — it's easier said than done," said Tajonera.

That's one reason he's continued his active involvement in the "yellow ribbon" movement, a call for grassroots commitment to change. The group, organized by the late president Corazon Aquino's former appointments secretary Margarita "Margie" Juico, advertises a list of 10 pledges for good citizenship, including paying taxes, respecting the police and soldiers and taking care of the environment.

"The government cannot be reformed if the citizenry is not willing to change," said Tajonera, one of a core group of 50 to 60 people in the movement. "If you want change to happen in our society, then you must become part of the change."

The significance of the "yellow ribbon" goes back to the dark days of martial law (1972-1981) under Ferdinand Marcos. Supporters of pro-democracy activist Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino — father of the current president — wore yellow ribbons and sang the old U.S. ditty "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree" as a show of solidarity for Ninoy during his seven years imprisonment.

(Ninoy was later exiled to the U.S. and assassinated on his return to the Philippines, launching his widow Cory Aquino into the presidency on the back of the "People Power" movement.)

For Tajonera, the significance is also deeply personal. He remembers declining an invitation to join Ninoy for Thanksgiving when he met him in New York City in 1982, something he now deeply regrets (Ninoy was gunned down the following year). Again in 1986, he declined a call from Cory Aquino's people to return to the Philippines and help build a new government. Now, he's finally ready to help.

"It's my redemption," said Tajonera. "Twenty-eight years ago I said 'no' to Ninoy, and 28 years later I said 'yes' to myself. This is the time."

He says he was among the first to urge Noynoy to run for the presidency, while attending his mother's funeral last year. Then, Noynoy's response was non-committal. "He just smiled — of course, it's a priest telling you what to do," he said. "It's typical Pinoy [slang for a Filipino] — you just smile, and don't say no. But I'm happy I did it."

Now, the unassuming bachelor who smiled politely that day holds the reins of power. Time will tell if he's able to put the Philippines on a better course.

"Corruption is one problem. Our attitude is another — we have an attitude of being complacent," said Tajonera. "Nothing will change with that kind of attitude, it won't work if you want to move the country forward."

"My hope and dream is the same as PNoy — that our country can learn the lessons of Marcos and Gloria. If we do that, then change is not impossible."

Original site

North Korea's PR-challenged leader

2011-08-16T10:01:00.002+08:00

North Korean Heir Apparent Is No PR Hit

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Oct. 15) -- Despite having finally made his first public appearance this week at a military parade, North Korea's heir apparent Kim Jong Un appears to be missing the mark so far in winning over the populace.

Some 12,000 soldiers, tasked with building a new, lavish estate for the dictator-in-waiting, have been angering locals by raiding nearby farms for food, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Local farmers who complained were beaten up, according to the South Korea-based Research Institute for North Korean Society, cited by the Times.

It remains unclear whether news of the conflict has spread within North Korea's highly regimented society, where gauging public opinion is notoriously difficult.

But outside the country, Kim Jong Un is also taking hits from the entourage of his older half brother, Kim Jong Nam, who spends most of his time in China and Macau. He and his alleged "associates" have let loose with a tabloid-worthy stream of criticisms about Jong Un.

The family feud looks set to complicate a delicate power shift in the nuclear-armed, Stalinist state, just as the younger Kim tries to get his footing.

The latest accusations came from an anonymous "associate" of the elder brother in China, to South Korean broadcaster KBS. The associate claimed that the older brother met with his father at the Kim Jong Il's Beijing hotel room in August and complained about his little brother.

He claimed that Jong Un, believed to be about 27 years old, orchestrated the attack on the South Korean navy ship on March 26 that killed 46. Jong Nam told his father to rein in Jong Un's behavior, according to the KBS report.

A government official dismissed the latest report as unconfirmed rumor, KBS reported.

The associate also claimed that the younger Kim plotted to kill Jong Nam in China this past summer over his outspoken ways and said Jong Nam still has a power base in China and North Korea, the KBS report said.

That followed a South Korean official's claim that China forced the younger Kim to drop plans to attack his older brother, claims reported in Chosun Ilbo.

In an interview with Japan's Asahi TV that aired in Japan Monday, Jong Nam questioned the hereditary succession that put his younger brother in power.

But he had a few good words too, telling Asahi TV, "I hope that my younger brother Jong Un would do his best so that North Koreans could live a comfortable life," and "I'm always ready to support my brother overseas whenever he requests."

The elder half brother Jong Nam, 39, is something of a black sheep in the family. He is believed to have had a falling out with his father over his flamboyant, jet-setting ways, including an alleged attempt to enter Japan with a fake passport in 2001 to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

The stunt wasn't exactly in keeping with the austere, disciplined image the Kim dynasty wants to project.

Jong Nam is believed to have been born of a different mother -- a dancer who died in Moscow -- than his two younger brothers.

Jong Nam lives with his wife and two children in Beijing and Macau and reportedly receives an annual allowance -- variously pegged at $500,000 to $800,000 -- from Pyongyang, the Telegraph reported.

On Sunday, the younger Kim made his first public appearance at a military parade, standing in full military regalia beside his father. Two weeks prior, he was promoted to four-star general and got a top political post.

Korea-watchers said the promotions and appearance at the parade confirm that he's on track to succeed his father, 68, who is believed to be in poor health after a stroke in 2008.

Little is know about the younger Kim, except that he is thought to have attended a boarding school in Switzerland.

However, a German expert on "facial research" told Germany's Der Spiegel that there was a "high probability" that the young man in an official photo and a photo from his Swiss boarding school days are not the same person.

Original site

Asia silent on Nobel winner

2011-08-16T09:57:00.002+08:00

Much of Asia Silent on Nobel Peace Prize Winner

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Oct. 13) -- In the wake of Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Peace Prize win, congratulations -- and some criticisms -- have poured in from governments the world over. But in Asia, the silence has been deafening.

With the exception of Taiwan, and a low-key statement from Japan, Asian governments have kept quiet on the Nobel controversy -- neither supporting Liu nor taking the side of Beijing, which has furiously denounced the Nobel committee for the "blasphemy" of honoring a "convicted criminal."

The muted response reflects China's growing regional influence, Asia's authoritarian tendencies and a lack of regional leadership on human rights, says one activist.

"In general, developing countries, and especially Asian developing countries, try to stay on good terms with China," said Wang Songlian, research coordinator for China Human Rights Defenders, in a phone interview. "Asia continues to lag behind in promoting human rights, even though it has made great strides in economic development."

Liu is serving an 11-year jail sentence for "inciting subversion," a charge based on his peaceful calls for political reform in China, specifically through the Charter 08 manifesto he co-authored.

Wang said human rights activists "weren't expecting so much from Asian countries" in response to Liu's prize, because many of those countries, such as Vietnam and Burma, are also authoritarian, while others are "emerging from those tendencies."

But she singled out India as a democratic regional power that could do more but so far hasn't. "India is the only country big enough to counter this [China's] influence," said Wang. "But we're not seeing India providing leadership in this area. It's a bit disappointing that it's not saying anything."

Taiwan's government called for Liu's immediate release and for political reform in China, albeit after a day's delay that earned it criticism from the opposition. Despite warming ties with China, Taiwan prides itself on having shed an authoritarian past and changing into a vibrant, raucous democracy.

Japan's foreign minister made a bland statement saying that "fundamental human rights and freedom are important in any country."

An Indian official told The Times of India that "the decolonized world has learnt not to interfere in the internal affairs of each other," by way of explaining New Delhi's silence. The Times noted that the last time India congratulated an Asian democracy activist for winning the Peace Prize -- Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 -- it lost out on "lucrative oil, gas and other business contracts."

Elsewhere, reaction to Liu's prize was a litmus test of a country's relations with China and support for human rights. Unconditional calls for Liu's release came from the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand (belatedly) and the European Parliament.

On the other side, condemnation of Liu's honor came from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuban state-controlled media, which accused Liu of being a U.S. stooge. "The curriculum vitae of Liu Xiaobo is, as a matter of fact, not the least bit different from the type of 'dissident' the United States has for decades employed," wrote M.H. Lagarde on cubadebate.

Brazil, Russia and South Africa are among those countries that said little or nothing. The ruling African National Congress in the latter country came in for scathing criticism from one columnist, who noted the ANC's ties with past Nobel Peace Prize winner Nelson Mandela.

"So where we should be identifying with Liu in his long-standing fight for freedom for his fellow oppressed Chinese, you won't be hearing a congratulations from the ANC anytime soon," wrote Verashni Pillay in South Africa's Mail & Guardian. "Our freedom has been won and we'll be damned if we'll let someone else's fight interfere with our lucrative relationship with their oppressors."

The rest of Africa was mostly mum too ("The continent's new dependence on good relations with China has not gone unnoted," wrote one commentator), as was much of Latin America.

Latin America has made great strides in "transitions to democracy, and truth and reconciliation commissions dealing internally with countries' pasts," said China Human Rights Defenders' Wang. "But internationally, it hasn't stood up for human rights very constructively, either."

The European Commission, made up of appointed civil servants rather than elected officials, issued only a tepid statement that stopped short of calling for Liu's release.

And the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was also vague, saying in a statement only that the award was "a recognition of the growing international consensus for improving human rights practices and culture around the world," while going on to praise China for its economic progress.

Article 35 of China's own Constitution and Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights list freedom of speech as a basic right of all citizens and peoples.

See Russia Today video on Liu and this year's Nobel Prize:

Original post

More than just business

2011-08-16T09:47:00.003+08:00

Cross-strait banking: More than just business

Taiwan and China may have different motivations, but they both wind up at the bank.

October 10, 2010 TAIPEI, Taiwan — After years of waiting, Taiwan banks finally have a shot at the mainland Chinese market.

In the last year the two sides agreed on mutual market access for each others' banks — and Taiwan's first branches in the mainland could open up by year's end.

But bank officials and analysts here are surprisingly cautious about what comes next — and many are downplaying expectations.

Their skepticism reflects the complicated dynamics of cross-strait relations, in which business and politics are inescapably linked.

The story of cross-strait banking opening is just one example of a larger contradiction. Taiwan's motivation is money — it wants access to the lucrative China market. But China's motivation is strategic. It hopes closer economic ties will lead to political unification, Beijing's long-cherished dream.

Opening the mainland market to Taiwan banks is just another carrot meant to boost China's economic sway over the island, say analysts. And with a China-friendly president now in power in Taiwan, the carrots are coming fast and furious.

"Because of the cross-strait relationship, the Chinese right now are trying very hard to please Taiwan, and be friendly toward Taiwanese," said Norman Yin, a finance expert at Taiwan's National Chengchi University.

The question is, given the two sides' sharply different dreams, how long can the good feelings last? For skeptics, China's track record isn't encouraging. China's recent, de facto ban on rare earths exports to Japan during a spat between the two countries showed how quick it can be to use its business clout for political ends.

And there's a recent example from Taiwan, too. When pro-independence politicians in southern Taiwan invited the Dalai Lama to tour disaster-hit areas after a 2009 typhoon, Chinese tour groups reportedly canceled trips to southern Taiwan, though it was unclear if this was under Beijing's orders or not. China reviles the Tibetan spiritual leader as a "splittist" and loudly complains to any governments willing to host or meet him.

Tough regulatory landscape

Politics aside, China has a highly-regulated banking market that ultimately answers to the guidance of the state. China's four big state-run banks are run not as commercial enterprises but, first and foremost, as strategic economic entities tasked with helping drive China's development.

"The other issue is the government," said JP Morgan's Taiwan banking analyst Dexter Hsu, commenting on Taiwan banks' prospects in the mainland. "China is highly regulated, so you don't know how many benefits they will give us."

So far, big foreign banks appear to be finding this out the hard way. A recent report from accounting firm KPMG, reported recently by the Wall Street Journal, found that big foreign banks' profits had tumbled in 2009, while China's state-run banks had a banner year.

The Journal explained that foreign banks' mainland units had stricter self-imposed lending limits, while China's state-run banks were all too eager to dole out cash. Some regulations sharply limit what foreign banks can do, such as a $1 million renminbi ($150,000) minimum deposit requirement for foreign banks customers' that effectively bars foreign firms from extensive retail banking in China.

In the past two years Taiwan has negotiated a better deal for its banks' mainland operations, compared to foreign banks like HSBC or Citibank. But it will still face the $1 million RMB deposit requirement (Taiwan's banking regulator says it's talking to China to try to change that). And average Chinese will likely be all too aware of the political risks of stashing their money in a Taiwan bank, analysts say.

"If you are Chinese, why would you go to Chinatrust [a large Taiwan bank] branches?" said Pandora Lee, a Taiwan banking analyst for investment house UBS. "You probably wouldn't trust them."

Greener pastures

Still, all that's not stopping Taiwan banks from piling into China. For one thing, they don't have many other options for finding new business. As with many markets in Taiwan, the island's banking market is overcrowded and hyper-competitive.

"There are too many banks, and too few customers [in Taiwan]," said UBS' Lee. "Large Taiwan corporations and SMEs [small and medium enterprises] have moved to China. You can reduce the number of players through consolidation, but the government is not going to push for consolidation because that will mean layoffs — and there are too many elections."

"So the only solution is to move to a new market where you have growth," she said.

Taiwan banks' returns on equity — a common measure of a bank's profitability — are around 2 percent to 5 percent, while ROEs in the mainland top 20 percent, according to Yin, the finance expert. "That's why Taiwan banks are looking at China — it's a big pie over there," said Yin. "It's very profitable in that market."

So far, four Taiwan banks have been cleared to open branches in China. A few more are waiting in the wings. Meanwhile, two of China's state-run banks have been approved to open offices in Taiwan. Their presence will be mostly symbolic, since they can hardly expect to make much money in Taiwan's saturated market.

Well aware of the many challenges in mainland China, Taiwan's banks are starting easy, with the customers they already know — Taiwan businesses operating in the mainland, also called "taishang." Such firms helped kick-start China's export miracle, and punch far above their weight in contract electronics manufacturing and some other sectors.

By one Taiwan government estimate, Taiwanese have invested a cumulative total of $150 billion in China since the early 1990s. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council doesn't keep official statistics on the Taiwanese presence in China, but rough estimates range from 100,000 to 150,000 Taiwan firms doing business there.

Taiwan's banks will first go after the taishang market, estimated by UBS at $56 billion. "Their target customers are Taiwanese businessmen," said Yin. "And then after they secure this market, then they will try to get into the local market in China."

UBS thinks Taiwan could snatch up to a third of that market, with Chinese banks and foreign banks keeping the rest.

That's a tiny drop in the bucket compared to China's overall banking market, which includes a staggering $7 trillion in loans and $10 trillion in deposits. But for Taiwan's small banks, the extra business matters. "For them it's peanuts, but for us it's big — it could have a huge impact on Taiwan," said JP Morgan's Hsu.

Provided, of course, that politics doesn't get in the way.

Original site

China-Japan spat rattles nerves

2011-08-16T09:43:00.001+08:00

China-Japan Spat Rattles Nerves in Asia, US

(Sept. 28) -- Relations between the world's No. 2 and No. 3 economies are in tatters even after Japan released the captain of a Chinese fishing boat four days ago.

Commentators from Japan, China and the West had sharply different takes of who was to blame, and who had emerged from the feud the "winner."

But one common theme was alarm over how a minor dispute had blown up into a major showdown, and surprise at the unusually shrill rhetoric and harsh, unilateral sanctions from China's side.

Zhan Qixiong, center, the 41-year-old Chinese captain of a Chinese fishing boat, is led by Japan Coast Guard personnel to disembark from a coast guard boat at a port on Ishigaki island, southwestern Japan.

Meanwhile, tensions around the disputed islands where the Chinese captain's boat collided with two Japanese coast guard vessels showed few signs of easing. Taiwan and Hong Kong media reported that China had begun regular, armed patrols near the islets for the first time, and that Japan had already lodged a formal protest.

On Friday, in line with China's increasingly strident demands, Japan released the Chinese fishing captain, Zhan Qixiong, whom it had accused of ramming two Japanese coast guard vessels. But China's reaction sparked another round of verbal sparring.

Beijing on Saturday demanded an apology and compensation from Japan. Japan quickly rejected that, and in turn said it would seek compensation for the damage to its two patrol boats, saying "the ball is now in China's court," according to The Associated Press.

Japanese media reported a domestic firestorm of protest against Tokyo's decision to release the captain, with harsh criticism coming from both opposition and ruling party members of parliament, the Asahi Shimbun reported. One outspoken Japanese nationalist, Shintaro Ishihara, slammed China for tactics he compared to "what yakuza mobsters do," according to Agence France-Presse.

Chinese commentators in state-backed publications directed their harshest criticism not at Japan, but at the U.S.

"The Diaoyu Islands incident could be seen as a direct result of the recent series of Sino-US confrontations, from US-South Korea joint military drills to the US challenging China's core interests in South China Sea," wrote Ni Lexiong from the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law in a commentary for Global Times.

"The background to the incident is that the US has been provoking China and taking advantage of conflicts between China and its neighbors to contain China recently," he wrote. Other Chinese commentators made similar points critical of the U.S. (see here and here.)

Western commentators tended to express alarm at the severity of China's response, particularly its apparent willingness to use its growing economic clout for political ends.

Last week, traders in the rare earth minerals industry reported that China had halted critical rare earth mineral exports to Japan; the Chinese government denied any official embargo. China accounts for 93 percent of rare earth elements used in key military applications like missiles, hybrid automobiles and wind turbines, according to The New York Times.

Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University's Japan campus, told USA Today that China had "overplayed its hand."

"It's a revealing moment, and the rest of Asia is looking on and saying 'uh-oh,'" Kingston told the newspaper. "[Beijing's] 'soft-power diplomacy' -- that a rising China is not a threatening China -- has all gone up in smoke."

The Economist made a similar point, saying, "the ferocity of the Chinese response has harmed China ultimately, by undermining confidence in China as a responsible stakeholder in the region."

Meanwhile, Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper on Monday quoted Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming again denying that China had placed an official embargo on rare earth minerals to Japan, but adding that the government wouldn't interfere with the behavior of Chinese companies, suggesting they may have acted on their own to impose a freeze.

The daily also reported that beginning this week, China would begin regular armed patrols near the disputed islets to protect its fishermen.

On Tuesday, Taiwan's China Times reported that on Sept. 24, the Japanese coast guard encountered two armed Chinese fisheries vessels in waters just off the disputed islets, called the Senkakus by Japan and the Diaoyu by China. Japan lodged a formal protest against the incursion near what it sees as its territorial waters, the Times reported.

Japan, China and Taiwan all claim the tiny islets as their own, allowing them to in turn make claims on energy and fishing resources in surrounding waters.

Sam Bateman, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies' maritime security program in Singapore, said in a phone interview that one way forward would be to side-step the territorial dispute by establishing joint zones for fishing and energy.

Similar zones have been established by Australia and East Timor, as well as China and Vietnam, he said, and have helped defuse harmful territorial spats.

"Ideally you could establish a joint fisheries zone and joint hydrocarbon zone, in the vicinity of the Senkakus, and set aside the sovereignty dispute," Bateman said.

"The sovereignty dispute over tiny specks of land blows things up disproportionately, and you get this rabid nationalism that springs up and distorts the situation."

See a creative depiction of the China-Japan dispute from Taiwan's Next Media Animation below:

Original site

Chinese Twitter clones

2011-08-16T09:42:00.002+08:00

Twitter Clone Helps Chinese Family Thwart Authorities

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Sept. 21) -- It was a typical case of property seizure, like those that happen nearly every day in China, but with a key difference.

This time microblogs blasted the story across the Chinese Internet, causing an immediate outpouring of sympathy this month for the Zhong family at the center of the dispute, and outrage against the local officials that tried to evict them.

By the end of the Internet drama, eight local officials had been removed from their posts or were under investigation, according to Chinese media reports. And the Zhong family's home remains standing.

The Zhongs' story shows how powerful social media have become in China as citizens turn to Twitter-like services in the absence of effective legal recourse, government help or a free media.

The drama unfolded in a small town in Jiangxi Province, according to a Southern Metropolis Daily article translated at the popular blog EastSouthWestNorth.

The local government had planned since 2007 to build a bus depot and was relocating residents, the report said. The Zhongs, who owned a three-story home on the planned site, were the last hold-outs -- and one of several families unhappy with the government's compensation offer.

In May the government cut off the family's electricity. Then, on the morning of Sept. 10, scores of local officials and police officers came to evict them by force.

In the struggle that ensued, the mother, Luo Zhifeng, an elderly male friend of the family, Ye Zhongcheng, and a daughter, Zhong Rujin, doused themselves with gasoline and lit themselves on fire in protest. The daughter, Zhong Rujin, tumbled out of the second floor to the ground outside the home like a "human fireball," according to the Southern Metropolis Daily, a scene caught in graphic photos taken by a neighbor.

All three were taken to a burn center; the man later died of his injuries.

Two other daughters of the family, Zhong Rujiu and Zhong Rucui, then attempted to take a plane to Beijing to petition the central government -- a common, if often ineffective, recourse for Chinese who feel local governments have violated their rights.

Local officials surrounded them in a ladies' restroom at the airport, forbidding them to go to Beijing. And that's where the microblogs -- weibo in Chinese -- came in.

A reporter for Phoenix Weekly "tweeted" about the restroom showdown on a microblog at Sina.com and posted local officials' cell phone numbers -- posts that quickly got over a million views, before Sina.com contacted the reporter to ask him to delete his posts.

The two sisters then launched two microblogs of their own to plead for help and support and to post the latest developments of their case.

In her first post on a Sina.com microblog on Sept. 17, one sister wrote, according to Chinabroadcast.cn: "How are you? My name is Zhong Rujiu. I am the youngest daughter in the family involved in the self-immolations in Yihuang county, Fuzhou city, Jiangxi province. I have seen how everybody on the Internet has been concerned about my family. I am very grateful."

Her posts notified net-users of each new development in the real-life drama, including the arrival of scores of local officials to seize her uncle's body, despite the family's protests. Later, when officials took the sisters and other relatives away on a bus, a picture of Zhong Rujiu pressed against the window was posted and re-posted on the Internet, faster than censors could delete it.

The case shows how social media is becoming an increasingly influential force in the lives of many Chinese, as well as a source of breaking -- if not always 100 percent accurate -- news.

According to a count from one social media consultant earlier this year, there are 221 million blogs and 176 million social network users in China, out of a total Internet population of 420 million.

In a recent poll by China Youth Daily reported at China Daily, half of survey respondents, most of whom were under 40, said they browse microblogs frequently, with more than 94 percent saying microblogging is "changing their life." More than 73 percent view microblogs as an important news source.

Sina.com hosts China's most popular Twitter clone, or microblog, with 20 million users since its launch just over a year ago, according to the website micgadget.com. Twitter itself is blocked in China.

In July, several Chinese microblogs were briefly inaccessible, fueling speculation that the government was tweaking them to allow them to be more easily blocked or censored when necessary. When the sites relaunched, all links to websites outside China were blocked.

Chinese authorities recently decided to require microblogs to appoint "self-discipline commissioners" responsible for censorship, according to the media group Reporters Without Borders.

China maintains a vast army of Internet censors who rapidly delete content deemed subversive from chat rooms, or block entire sites and blogs.

Forbidden content includes excessive criticism of the central government, promotion of Tibet or Taiwan independence, and discussion of the banned religious group Falun Gong.

Original site

A promising islet

2011-08-16T09:30:00.002+08:00

A promising islet Dongsha marine park could be a model for how to handle other disputed islets.

October 1, 2011

DONGSHA, Taiwan — The Taiwan coast guard patrol ship skims over shallow, aquamarine water, white foam fanning out behind it.

Coast guard officials garbed in bright orange uniforms keep a wary eye as a group of journalists snap pictures and pace unsteadily across the back of the open boat.

One official points out from the boat at the dark patches rushing by, alternating with white coral sand — sea grass bunched at the bottom of a coral lagoon 17 miles in diameter.

Behind us, a tiny sliver of land — just big enough for an airport, a saltwater "lake" and a few scattered buildings — recedes quickly in the distance.

That sliver is Dongsha island, controlled by Taiwan but also claimed by China. It's an almost comically small patch of land in the South China Sea, the highest point of a massive coral atoll that forms a near-perfect ring — one of the roundest coral atolls worldwide, according to Taiwan officials.

Amid rising tensions over disputed islands in the South and East China seas, Dongsha is a perhaps encouraging example.

Just over a decade ago it was an over-fished ecological disaster and military outpost manned by a small contingent of Taiwanese troops on constant alert. Now it's Taiwan's first protected marine national park, where the coast guard keeps a wary eye for illegal fishing boats rather than Communist Chinese frogmen.

In line with warming cross-strait relations and Taiwan's growing environmental awareness, Dongsha is slowly making a comeback. Some are even talking of seeking UNESCO World Heritage status for Dongsha and promoting it for eco-tourism, though any such tourism would have to be sharply limited for practical reasons (right now there's only one flight a week from Taiwan's southern port city of Kaohsiung, and there's no hotel.)

"We haven't decided whether to open it yet [to tourists] said park headquarters chief Chang Chung-tso. "If we do, we'd have to strictly limit tourists — maybe to 20 people a day."

A model for the region?

Of course, Dongsha's situation is simpler because, unlike other South China sea islets and atolls, only China and Taiwan claim it.

China fiercely claims all of Taiwan as its own, but in practice it tolerates Taiwan's control of Dongsha, as well as Taiping island 650 nautical miles to the south, the largest of the Spratly islands, or Nansha. Analysts say China sees Taiwan's presence as marking both places as "Chinese territory," which is good enough for Beijing — despite the fact that they're held by a rival "China."

"Taiwan and China have very strange relations," said Shao Kwang-tsao, from the Biodiversity Research Center at Taiwan's Academia Sinica. "As long as Taiwan controls that island [Dongsha], they think it belongs to them, too. We help them conserve resources."

"For some common purposes, the [China] will agree to Taiwan taking over and doing something. For Taiping island, they have the same attitude."

Still, some say the marine park concept could be a model for other disputed islands. "Establishing Dongsha as a marine park to promote conservation is a good way to protect this area and reduce the political problems," said the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium's Tony Fan, who has conducted research at Dongsha.

The Dongsha model could allow Asian countries to give up costly, far-flung garrisons on absurdly tiny rocks and atolls, and replace them with scientific research outposts.

U.S. scientist John McManus has long argued for the establishment of a South China Sea international marine "peace park" as a confidence-building step for claimants, and earlier this year he collaborate with two Taiwanese researchers, including Academia Sinica's Shao, to expand on the concept in a paper.

"Territorial disputes have led to the establishment of environmentally destructive, socially and economically costly military outposts on many of the islands," the authors write. "Given the rapid proliferation of international peace parks around the world, it is time to take positive steps towards the establishment of a Spratly Islands Marine Peace Park."

Five countries claim all or part of the Spratlys (or Nansha in Chinese) and Vietnam disputes China's control of the Paracels (or Xisha in Chinese). China's recent statements that its claim of the entire South China Sea is now a "core interest" has inflamed tensions.

Farther afield, China and Taiwan dispute Japan's control of the Diaoyu islands (or Senkakus, in Japanese) in the East China Sea — a territorial dispute that spun out of control recently with Japan's arrest of a Chinese fishing boat captain after a collision between that boat and two Japanese coast guard vessels.

In 2008, Taiwan's then-President Chen Shui-bian (now detained on corruption charges) flew to Taiping and announced the "Spratly Intiative" a plan for cooperative environmental protection and research in the region. The current president has said it supports such measures. Academia Sinica's Shao has led a feasibility study for the government on turning Taiping into a protected marine park like Dongsha. The study is now working its way through the bureaucracy.

Tangled history

The Taiwan government flew a group of journalists on a two-hour flight from Taipei to Dongsha in a C-130 "Hercules" military transport plane, the U.S. military's workhorse that's been used by U.S. allies and friendly countries the world over since the 1950s.

On approach, the pilots obligingly flew across the massive coral ring a couple times at low altitude, drawing clusters of journalists to the C-130's few windows to ooh and ahh.

Once on the ground a government official gave the obligatory, pro forma re-affirmation that Dongsha was Taiwan's rightful territory. Then we made short work of the atoll's few sites: A lone Taoist temple, the new national marine park headquarters, a graveyard, a stone tablet with Chinese calligraphy, and what must be one of the shortest public bus routes on Earth — Dongsha Route No. 1 (there are no Routes 2, 3 or 4).

In one Monty Python-esque moment, government handlers had all the journalists scramble on to two vans and two minibuses, only to stop and disgorge us at the temple after a roughly three-minute drive.

Later, to get a good vantage point of the lake, our van drove about halfway down the airstrip and we trudged into low brush. A park official gave a quick rundown of the pond's flora, fauna and other features — including the unusual "upside-down jellyfish," which packs the lake, and unexploded ordnance. Asked whose ordnance, the park official looked embarrassed and said briefly, "Must be America's."

Like Taiwan proper, Dongsha was controlled by Japan in the early 20th century. American bombers attacked it in early 1945, near the end of the long, grinding Pacific campaign from Guadalcanal north to Okinawa (the U.S. military decided to skip a land invasion of Japanese-held Taiwan proper, but it did bomb strategic Japanese positions.) A small contingent of Marines even landed here in May 1945 to destroy a Japanese oil dump and barracks.

A few signs of Japan's occupation remain; to the Japanese journalists' delight, one official produced an at least 60-year-old, old-fashioned Kirin beer bottle found on the island.

Ecological collapse

Park officials painted a grim picture of the island's recent ecological trauma. Dongsha's abundant coral reefs once attracted fish of all varieties. They in turn attracted fishermen from mainland China (Dongsha is closer to the mainland city of Shantou, 140 nautical miles to the north, than to Taiwan proper, 240 nautical miles distant), Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan. Eight thousand boats crowded the atoll at peak fishing times. Some used cyanide, dynamite or other destructive methods; many dumped mercury batteries in the waters around Dongsha.

The crippling blow came in 1998, when massive coral bleaching brought about by El Nino wiped out some 80 to 90 percent of Dongsha's coral reefs, turning Dongsha into what one Taiwan TV station called a "coral graveyard." To this day, only some 40 percent of those have recovered, according to Chang, the park headquarters chief.

Taiwan TV documentary on Dongsha (in Chinese):

Now, coast guard vessels enforce a fishing ban within the lagoon and within a 12-nautical-mile radius around the atoll. Instead, marine biologists ply the area, studying the atoll's slow comeback and trying to help it along. It's part of Taiwan's goal to set aside 20 percent of its territorial waters as protected zones, said Academia Sinica's Shao. "It's a good example of environmental protection," he said. "Marine resources are declining worldwide — you see it everywhere."

Coral reef experts say the waters on the east side of Dongsha atoll, as well as off Taiwan's southern tip, make for especially resilient coral reefs because of a phenomenon known as "upwelling" and the replenishing currents flowing north from the Philippines.

Such areas may prove to be worthy of global attention and study, as higher water temperatures resulting from global warming knock out vulnerable reefs around the world. (In "coral bleaching" too-hot water causes symbiotic algae to withdraw from its coral hosts, draining reefs of color and the food it needs to survive.) "The upwelling area is like a refuge for coral reefs under the influence of global warming," said Fan, the researcher.

No Chinese visitors

So far, there's not any scientific or other cooperation between China and Taiwan in Dongsha — though there's plenty of talk about it. As China makes its own fledgling efforts at environmental protection, Taiwan's management of Dongsha and its six other protected national parks could be a model. "Everybody agrees that we need to collaborate," said Academia Sinica's Shao. "But the problem is, we need to find the money, and have someone write up the proposal."

For now, the only Chinese presence is the occasional renegade fishing boat, usually a small scavenging vessel that's no match for Taiwan's coast guard ships.

Back on the patrol ship, a Coast Guard official says they still come across the occasional violator. "But when we find them, they immediately run away," he said with a chuckle.

The boat makes a long arc and churns back toward the dock, past a vivid horizon in a hue that one park official described as an "impossible blue." By the dock, a beach of white, dead coral is lined with massive concrete baffles, strewn like children's playing jacks to prevent erosion.

As we approached the dock, a Japanese journalist leaned from the boat toward the surf to snap a few last shots. An obliging coast guard official clutched the back of his life-vest to steady him with one hand; with his other hand he held the journalist's hat on his head, to prevent it from blowing out into the South China Sea.

Original site

East Asia showdown

2011-08-15T10:35:00.002+08:00

East Asia showdown: China, Japan and a failure of diplomacy

Analysis: Asia's titans can't seem to make nice. What does it mean for the region?

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A minor spat over a fishing boat has escalated to one of the worst diplomatic feuds between China and Japan in years.

With still no end in sight to the two-week-old dispute, China has added a series of harsh countermeasures to its already shrill rhetoric. It has cut off all high-level ties with Japan (those at the ministerial or provincial level or above), halted talks on more China-Japan flights and aviation rights, and postponed meetings on coal and joint gas exploration, according to China's state-run newswire Xinhua.

Those moves came after a local Japanese court on Sunday extended by another 10 days the detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain at the center of the row. Meanwhile, Tokyo has continued to deny the very existence of a territorial dispute in the islands northeast of Taiwan where the Japanese Coast Guard arrested the captain.

Called the Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese, the islets are claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. Japan effectively controls them through its coast guard presence. (See previous article for background.)

While no-one is expecting armed conflict any time soon, the episode has troubling implications for East Asia's security outlook in coming years. It highlights the deep reservoirs of mistrust and animosity that remain some 65 years after World War II's end — and the failure of diplomacy, at least so far, to bridge that divide.

"Both China and Japan still lack the wisdom and ability to reconcile at this point," said Shen Dingli, an international relations expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, in a telephone interview.

The fishing boat is not the only sore point in China-Japan relations now. Japan is mad at China for buying too many yen-denominated bonds, helping push the currency to a 15-year high and so making Japanese exports less competitive just as its trying to get out of the economic doldrums.

To top it off, China blames Japan over a panda who died of a suspected heart attack at a Japanese zoo while keepers tried to extract semen for breeding purposes, saying it was the wrong season for such a procedure.

The conflict's effects go beyond the two Asian giants. Taiwan waded into the mess last week, sending coast guard vessels to guard an activist who was trumpeting Taiwan's own claim to the islets. (Taiwan's ships left the area after a standoff.)

The U.S. put its oar in, too, with a senior Pentagon official calling for China-Japan talks to resolve the dispute and a former top U.S. official reminding China of America's security obligations to Japan.

"My view is what China senses is a distracted United States who has a chilled relationship with Tokyo," former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said in Japan last week, according to the Japan Times. "So they are testing what they can get away with."

U.S. officials are on record saying that the U.S.-Japan defense treaty applies to the disputed islets and surrounding waters, since they are effectively under Japan's administration. That means the U.S. could in theory be called on to help Japan in any military conflict with China over the islets, though some observers pooh-pooh that idea

Troubled legacy

China-Japan ties had improved under more China-friendly Japanese prime ministers since 2006, when Junichiro Koizumi stepped down. The two sides even inked a 2008 agreement on the joint exploration of a disputed gas field in the East China Sea, one of their thorniest disputes.

But historical distrust remains, more than 100 years after Japan snatched Taiwan from the Qing Dynasty, and later, in the early 1930s, invaded and occupied much of China. Saturday's small anti-Japan protests in Beijing and other cities marked the anniversary of an incident that led to Japan's occupation.

Anti-Japan sentiment is easily whipped up in China, where nationalist netizens refer to their neighbor patronizingly as "little Japan." For its part, Japan, while all too eager to do business with China, doesn't have a very good image of the giant to the west. Concerns range from the safety of Chinese food imports to China's increased military muscle-flexing.

"Even though Japan-China relations are much better than under Koizumi, Japan's impression of China is not very good," said Tadahiro Ishihara, at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations in Taipei. "There's dissatisfaction over many things."

Only 26 percent of Japanese have a favorable view of China, according to the latest Pew Research Center poll, down from 55 percent in 2002.

Japan: mistrust, inexperience

Ishihara said Japanese Coast Guard had a harsher than usual attitude in this case; usually they release people quickly after detaining them. He said the current Japanese government's inexperience and infighting may partly explain how a minor spat has ballooned into a major diplomatic row.

The one-year-old Japanese government has sought to curb the power of career bureaucrats, including those at the foreign ministry, but the results have been mixed. "This government doesn't have foreign relations sense, they're inexperienced," said Ishihara. "There are more political considerations now."

Still, Ishihara said some in Japan believed that the Chinese government had encouraged fishermen to go to the Senkaku to "test Japan's attitude and reaction." "It's possible," he said. "You can't rule it out."

Koji Murata, an international relations professor at Kyoto's Doshisha University, seconded that notion, saying China may have been taking advantage of political uncertainty in Japan to test Tokyo. Prime Minister Naoto Kan last week survived a leadership challenge in a closely watched contest just three months into his term.

"Beijing probably tried to provoke Japan during Japanese domestic political turmoil," he wrote in an email. "So far, however, Tokyo has responded very reasonably, while Beijing very emotionally. The contrast is clear enough for the international community, I believe."

"This provocation may make Mr. Kan's new Cabinet seek closer security ties with Washington and reconsider Japan's defense posture and budgets," he wrote.

On Monday, Taiwan's United Evening News, citing Japanese media, reported that Japan was mulling its first expansion of its land forces since 1972, with a focus on its "western islands" (including Okinawa and the disputed Senkaku).

China: newly assertive, brash

Fudan University's Shen said China and Japan had many positive interactions in recent years, but that some conflict was inevitable, especially as China's fishing fleet and other economic interests press into waters near Japan. He said Japan's growing economic dependence on China, and China's economic and military rise, had changed the equation in the disputed Diaoyu islets.

"They [Japan's Coast Guard] have been there for years illegally, and China has been curtailing itself for years in order not to have a war," said Shen. "What's changed is that our people are less willing to do this, and our government is more capable of enforcing our claim."

Shen said China told its fishermen told not to sail near the disputed islets in order to avoid trouble, but that some fishermen simply ignored the government.

He said China had many means of retaliating against Japan, and wouldn't be shy about using them. "Every day our man is held, we are hurt," said Shen. "But there are places where we can hurt Japan. For instance, Japan still wants to be a member of the U.N. Security Council. Dream. No way."

"As long as a country named China exists on earth, a country named Japan wouldn't have the slightest chance of being considered a new member of the U.N. Security Council," he said.

Shen compared the cutting of high-level ties with Japan to China's cutting of China-U.S. military ties after the U.S. sold Taiwan $6.5-billion in weaponry earlier this year.

Still, he said the fishing boat dispute was far less serious than U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, and called for a quick resolution.

"We should both restrain [ourselves], never resort to war, each give the other face and have the least harmful, non-violent settlement as early as possible," said Shen.

Plenty of precedent

Philip Yang, a former adviser to Taiwan's national security council, said Taiwan's government has dealt with numerous incidents of Taiwanese fishing boats being detained by the Japanese. (In fact, Japan detained the owner and skipper of a Taiwan fishing vessel the same week as it detained the Chinese captain.)

Usually such disputes are resolved quietly, said Yang, with the Taiwan fishing boat owner having to pay a 300,000 to 400,000 yen ($3,500 to $4,600) fine to Japan to secure its release.

"But in this case, it's more difficult," he said. "From Japan's point of view, the fishing vessel intentionally tried to hit the coast guard vessels, and so they say they need more time to investigate."

The limits for ships near the Diaoyutai are well-known, said Yang, with a 12-nautical-mile no-go zone around the disputed islets and a 24-nautical-mile buffer, both enforced by the Japanese coast guard. "If you enter 24 [nautical miles] they try to stop you, if you enter 12 nautical miles they will try to arrest you," he said.

Twelve nautical miles is an often-used demarcation for territorial waters; many nations also now claim a 200-mile "exclusive economic zone" in which they have sole rights to fishing, oil, gas or other resources.

No easy way out

There are some signs that both governments are looking to defuse the situation to some extent.

Both China and Taiwan have blocked most activists from sailing to the islands and complicating the situation. And the Chinese government has also tried to tamp down anti-Japan protests and anti-Japan sentiment on the internet, before it spins out of control.

The new Japanese foreign minister, Seiji Maehara, has been making conciliatory statements and calling for calm, despite his reputation as something of a foreign policy "hawk."

But analysts say neither side looks inclined to accept third-party mediation on the matter. Neither is willing to take the underlying territorial dispute to the International Court of Justice, which has arbitrated similar disagreements. Even if the ICJ did address it, Taiwan's rival claim would greatly complicate a resolution.

Meanwhile, the Chinese captain remains in detention — and China's foreign ministry shows no signs of softening its tone.

"If the Japanese side clings obstinately to its own course and doubles its mistakes, China will take strong countermeasures, for which Japan shall bear all the consequences," a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said today.

Original site

Plane baby sparks debate

2011-08-15T10:32:00.002+08:00

Was Plane Baby's Migrant Mother a Victim, Too?

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Sept. 19) -- The sensational case of a Filipina migrant worker who gave birth on a flight from the Middle East and dumped her newborn in the trash highlights broader problems facing migrant workers, activists say.

The case gripped the Philippines and global media in recent days, after plane-cleaning staff found a baby in the trashcan of a Gulf Air flight from Bahrain to Manila.

On the Internet, outrage over the mother's behavior was mixed with Facebook cooing over the baby -- dubbed George Francis for the airline's flight code, GF -- and offers to adopt if the mother didn't come forward. Gulf Air staff looked after the infant at the Manila hospital where he was sent.

But on Thursday, the story took a dramatic twist when a Filipina migrant worker came forward and confessed to being the baby's mother. She told a Philippines lawmaker that she had worked in Qatar as a maid and was raped by her employer, according to The Associated Press.

When her pregnancy was discovered, her employer forced her to return to the Philippines, she said, according to Rep. Lani Mercado, the AP reported. She abandoned the baby out of fear for what her family would say.

The woman had been identified as the possible mother through the passenger manifest after blood was found on her seat on the plane, 40D, according to ABS-CBN News.com.

The woman has come in for plenty of criticism. But migrant workers activists say people shouldn't be so quick to judge. In many cases, migrant workers are justifiably worried that seeking justice for sexual or other abuse can backfire.

"I'm sure one of her reasons for not complaining is because in many cases if you complain, you are the one who will be in prison," said Eni Lestari, chairwoman of the Hong Kong-based International Migrants Alliance. "And in many cases, these women are not being protected by their own governments.

"In some countries, there will even be a threat of being accused of agreeing to have sex with the boss, when they didn't," she said. "In the eyes of the law, they can become a criminal, not the victim."

Lestari said most Asian migrant workers, like the Gulf Air mother, are women who work as maids. Often they have few or no days off, and suffer from physical or sexual abuse. In Hong Kong, she said, the legal burden is on the migrant worker to prove, through physical evidence, that sexual abuse occurred.

"Many such cases are unreported, leaving migrant workers dealing with the whole trauma and effects of sexual abuse, even while they have the responsibility of being the bread-winner of their family," Lestari said.

Some 11 million Filipinos live and work abroad because they can't find work that pays a living wage at home. They're part of a global migrant workforce estimated at 214 million. According to the website of the rights group Migrante International, about 2,000 Filipinos leave the country every day bound for 182 countries worldwide.

"The abuses and exploitation they experience in their place work are prevalent. These range from contract violations, rape, sexual harassment, mysterious deaths, among others," the group says. "Women migrant workers in particular are most vulnerable to abuses and maltreatment."

A 2009 U.S. State Department human rights report said foreign workers in Qatar had disputes with employers over leaving the country. "In some cases, sponsors sexually harassed and mistreated foreign domestic servants," the report said. "Most domestic servants did not press charges for fear of losing their jobs."

The report cited one unnamed foreign embassy in Qatar that reported 700 cases of sexual harassment against maids in 2008 alone. "When the domestic employees brought harassment to the attention of authorities, the employees were often deported, and no charges were filed against the employer."

But an Amnesty International staffer said Qatar and the Middle East shouldn't be singled out for poor treatment of migrant workers. "It's a worldwide phenomenon," said Wilnor Papa, Amnesty's campaign coordinator for the Philippines. "What we see here is not enough protection given to migrant workers."

Papa said the plane baby case likely reflects migrant workers' low levels of education, poor awareness of rights, and lack of sufficient legal protection from countries hosting migrant workers. "It's really sad that because of her fears of how family and the law would treat her, she would rather give birth and leave her child there [on the plane]," Papa said.

"She's not given that many options, and she doesn't know her options, and that's one of the problems," he said. "Not a lot of the migrants are educated, and not many know the law can protect them."

He said many migrant workers end up doing different work than they signed up for, and some even get trafficked into illegal brothels after being lured abroad with promises of legitimate jobs.

Papa said that while returning to the Philippines from London via the Middle East on a flight last year, he talked to migrant workers returning home -- including a nurse who'd been put to work as a maid, an engineer who'd become a driver, a woman whose hands had burnt because of a cleaning agent her boss forced her to use, and another woman who had been abused. "Stories like this happen on a regular basis," he said.

Papa said both sending and receiving countries needed to implement existing laws protecting such workers, and pass tougher ones. He noted that few hosting countries had signed or ratified the U.N. Convention on the rights of migrant workers. (Forty-three countries are party to the convention, including the Philippines, according to the U.N.'s website. Qatar is not among them.)

The International Migrants Alliance's Lestari said there are also ongoing discussions on a draft international convention for domestic workers, which could provide a mechanism to better protect migrant maids' rights.

Original site

Japan's FM in the Fire

2011-08-15T10:30:00.001+08:00

Japan's PM Out of the Frying Pan, but Fire Awaits

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Sept. 14) -- Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan today survived a leadership challenge in a party vote.

The embattled leader's win could help stabilize his center-left ruling party as it struggles to guide Japan out of its long-running economic doldrums, at a time when the yen is at a 15-year high and debt is running at about 200 percent of gross domestic product.

But analysts cautioned that Kan now faces a tough battle in pushing his policies through a bitterly divided parliament.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan was re-elected as the president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan

"Now he's got to heal the party, roll up his sleeves and get to work on addressing Japan's real problems," said Jeff Kingston, an expert on Japanese politics at Temple University, Japan. "But I have to say, I'm not optimistic."

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan's poor showing in July Upper House elections resulted in a "twisted" parliament, meaning the DPJ controls only the Lower House and must engage in complicated coalition politics and horse-trading to pass measures through the upper house.

"Most likely we're going to see gridlock, politicians floundering and the public getting more frustrated," Kingston said.

He expects further pressure on Kan to step down next year and call new elections.

The challenge to Kan from the party's so-called "shadow shogun," Ichiro Ozawa, became a much-hyped drama in Japan's media, due to the two leaders' distinctive personalities and long, tangled histories.

Ozawa is deeply unpopular with the public and is seen as a consummate behind-the-scenes power broker and veteran of political intrigues. He's also a Karl Rove-esque strategist credited with successfully guiding the Democratic Party of Japan to power last year, ousting the Liberal Democratic Party in the first real transfer of power in Japan since World War II.

Kan, a hot-tempered former activist, has been seen as the poster boy for the DPJ's promise of change.

Both men back reforms to bring Japan's bureaucrats to heel and turn over more power to elected politicians, moves their party believes are needed to re-invigorate Japanese politics by making it more democratic and responsive to the public.

But Ozawa is associated with old-style, patronage politics and lavish public works spending (he backed new bullet trains and more road projects in his campaign, according to respected Japan-watcher Tobias Harris in comments on CNBC Asia earlier today).

Kan, by contrast, has emerged as a Bill Clinton-esque figure who has made fiscal discipline a priority. But he shouldered much of the blame for his party's poor showing in July elections, especially after he proposed a deeply unpopular hike in the consumption tax from 5 percent to 10 percent.

"Ozawa's goals may be good, but his style of winning elections isn't too pretty or clean -- that's the contradiction," said Tadahiro Ishihara, at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations in Taipei. "Naoto Kan is clean, but so far his performance isn't so good."

Many DPJ Diet members owe Ozawa favors, which had made today's race too close to call. Today's vote was limited to DPJ Diet members and other local party members.

One focus now will be Ozawa's next move. If the two party bigwigs reconcile -- perhaps by Kan tapping Ozawa and his supporters for top government posts -- the party could move forward more unified.

But some worry Ozawa could bolt the party and take his supporters with him, further destabilizing Japan's fractious coalition politics and stalling reforms. "There could be a party split, but it's not very likely," Ishihara said.

Kan's win boosts his mandate to pursue a pragmatic course that combines fiscal discipline with scaled-back versions of the generous social spending his party promised last year.

His victory avoids an outcome where Japan would have seen its third prime minister in less than a year and been governed by a man -- Ozawa -- whose public approval ratings hover near 20 percent.

"They dodged a bullet," Kingston said. "An Ozawa win would have been a disaster for Japan. But the problems facing Japan are huge, so Prime Minister Kan is certainly not out of the woods."

Original site

Truman Show begins

2011-08-15T10:26:00.002+08:00

For Chinese Activist, 'The Truman Show' Begins

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Sept. 13) -- A famous Chinese rights activist, recently released after serving four years in jail, now faces constant scrutiny that human rights groups compares to a more sinister version of "The Truman Show."

Chen Guangcheng, 38, was let out of jail Sept. 9 only to confront a regime of round-the-clock video surveillance, constant plainclothes police presence outside his home and monitoring or blocking of his and his relatives' cell phones. If he is allowed to go anywhere, he'll have a plainclothes police "escort."

Such surveillance, called "soft detention" (ruan jin) in Chinese, is what happens to activists whom the Chinese state deems not dangerous enough for jail but too dangerous to be left to their own devices. The treatment can last years, even decades.

The methods are illegal according to China's own laws, Chinese lawyers and rights activists say, and show how far authoritarian China still is from protecting citizens' rights that now exist only on paper.

"Illegal detention; conviction based upon fabricated charges; unlawful imprisonment," said Li Fangping, one of Chen's lawyers, in a statement from the New York-based Human Rights in China. "The case of this blind rights-defense lawyer bears witness to the sad state of the rule of law and human rights in China."

Chen was blinded by fever as a small child, according to The Associated Press. He came to the authorities' attention for preparing a legal case on how local government officials in rural Shandong province, southeast of Beijing, allegedly forced some 7,000 women to be sterilized or undergo abortions as part of harsh "one-child policy" family-planning measures, Agence France-Presse reported.

Such measures have been taken before in rural, poorer parts of China, even as wealthy Chinese in places like Shanghai use their wealth, connections or both to have two or more children.

China instituted its one-child policy in the late 1970s as a population control measure, but it is applied very differently in different areas of the vast country. A Chinese family planning official said in 2007 that less than 40 percent of the population was subject to the policy.

Chen was put under house arrest in 2005 and taken into custody in 2006 on what Human Rights Watch called "trumped-up charges" of destroying property and inciting a crowd to disturb traffic. The latter charge came after his supporters rioted over the first one.

On Sept. 9, police escorted Chen back to his home in the village of Dongshigu. Associated Press reporters on the scene said local authorities installed six security cameras last week, and a dozen agents watched his wife go shopping.

His relatives' phone lines were blocked, and about a dozen plainclothes cops blocked the main road of the village with a van, six of whom ran after journalists who tried to enter the village, the AP said. "After a brief scuffle with the journalists, the men jumped into their van and chased the journalists' car at high speed as they left the area," the AP report said.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia, Chen said he had been beaten severely at the beginning of his jail time. "[The beatings] were really bad at the beginning -- extremely severe in 2007," he told RFA. "Now, apart from the diarrhea, I'm not too bad. But my voice went a couple of days ago."

New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement, "Chen should never have been imprisoned in the first place. We expect that his full freedom will be restored and that the harassment of his family will finally cease."

But some analysts were pessimistic, saying that Chen would more likely face indefinite monitoring by the government.

"I am deeply concerned that following his release, Chen Guangcheng will be subject to this new form of low-visibility punishment, including round-the-clock and endless isolation enforced by government-hired thugs," said Jerome Cohen, an expert on Chinese law, in the Human Rights in China statement. (See a 2009 YouTube video of Cohen discussing Chen's case here.)

Chinese media made little or no mention of Chen's release, leaving the Chinese public typically in the dark about the sensitive news. An Internet news search using his Chinese name turned up only articles from Falun Gong-affiliated sites based outside of mainland China, as well as reports from the BBC and Deutsche Welle's Chinese-language sites.

Falun Gong, outlawed by China as an "evil cult," keeps up a steady drumbeat of criticism of China's human rights situation through its affiliated media based outside mainland China. See below a report from the Falun Gong-affiliated NTDTV on Chen's case.

Original site

China, Japan clash over islets

2011-08-15T10:22:00.002+08:00

China, Japan go toe-to-toe over islets

Analysis: Minor spat over fishing rights reveals shifting power balance in Asia.

Global Post, Sept. 9, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — China and Japan, now the world's No. 2 and No. 3 economies, have become embroiled in a nasty diplomatic dispute over a group of obscure islets northeast of Taiwan.

The tempest reflects China's growing assertiveness in defending its territorial claims, China's emergence as the world's fishing superpower and its bid to challenge Japan's dominance of East Asia, say analysts.

Most believe the two nations' greater-than-ever economic inter-dependence will ensure that cool heads prevail. But it's a prelude of things to come, as China's rise slowly but surely shifts the balance of power in Asia.

The spat began Tuesday when a Chinese fishing trawler twice collided with Japanese coast guard vessels near islets claimed by both countries and Taiwan. (Chinese and Japanese media give differing, "he-said, she-said" accounts of who exactly rammed who.)

But it quickly escalated when Japan on Wednesday arrested the captain of the Chinese boat (the crew were detained) and sent him to prosecutors today. He could stand trial, and Chinese media said he faces up to three years in jail.

China made several high-level protests, and a foreign ministry spokesperson made unusually shrill comments in a briefing today, saying Japan's handling of the incident was "absurd, illegal and invalid," according to the state-run Xinhua news service.

"We hope that the Japanese side thoroughly considers the seriousness and graveness of this incident, and release the crew and vessel immediately so as to avoid further deterioration of the situation and escalation," the spokesperson said, according to Xinhua.

"If not handled properly, [the issue] will seriously undermine the general situation of China-Japan relations."

Some 30 Chinese nationalists protested outside the Japanese embassy in Beijing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Chinese media are having a field day with the spat, with Sina.com and Huanqui.com (Global Times) dedicating multimedia web pages to the story, complete with maps, animation and video and all the latest breaking developments.

Chinese media reported today that the captain's mother, fraught with worry over her son's ordeal, had passed away.

Competing claims

The uninhabitable islets in question have a tangled history, and an outsized influence on regional affairs. The Chinese call them the Diaoyu, the Japanese say Senkaku and the Taiwanese call them the Diaoyutai island chain or simply the "Diaoyutai."

Nearby natural gas resources make the islets' location strategic. All three nations insist they're the rightful owner. But Japan has had greatest effective control, patrolling the area with coast guard ships after the U.S. turned over Okinawa (and, Japan argues, the Senkakus) to Japanese control in 1972. Right-wing Japanese groups have also built light houses on a couple of the islets, bolstering Tokyo's claim.

The dispute has long simmered on a low boil, with all sides usually having bigger fish to fry. But China's strong reaction to the latest incident reflects a newfound swagger, as the rising Asian power seeks to enforce a range of territorial claims, said Asia security expert and longtime China-watcher Willy Lam.

"Beijing wants to make the point that it's now taking a much more proactive stance about its sovereignty claims, not just in the Diaoyu, but also the Spratly and Paracel Islands," said Lam, referring to two island groups in another Asian flashpoint, the South China Sea. "It wants to show a harsher line."

China may also may be taking advantage of a "semi-vacuum" in Japanese politics, said Lam: Prime Minister Naoto Kan faces a leadership challenge from his own party's "shadow shogun," Ichiro Ozawa, next week and "no one seems to be calling the shots," he said.

Expanding fishing fleet

Another important factor is behind this week's tiff: China's emergence as a fishing superpower. In a paper last year, the U.S. Naval War College's Lyle Goldstein noted that by 2007, China's annual catch of 17 million tons of fish was four times that of its nearest competitor, and far greater than that of Japan or the U.S.

It boasts some 300,000 motorized fishing vessels, which have been involved in disputes with the U.S. Navy, the Indonesian coast guard and now Japan, and an increasingly aggressive Fisheries Law Enforcement Command, which has itself seized Vietnamese fishing vessels in the South China Sea, straining ties with that country too.

According to Goldstein, China is trying to reduce the fleet to some 200,000, because China's fisheries are "in a state of near collapse" due to overfishing. But in the meantime, the government is also subsidizing its "distant water fishing" fleet, to divert fishermen from depleted waters just off China's coast.

"The activities of fishing vessels and related enforcement authorities of the Western Pacific region represent one of the jagged edges of volatile maritime territorial disputes," Goldstein wrote. "Unfortunately, fishing tensions could aggravate these disputes to the point of military conflict."

"There is the unfortunate potential that a fishing dispute involving loss of life — which happen in East Asian waters with disturbing regularity — could serve as tinder for nationalists on one side or another, provoking actual hostilities between disputing, and well-armed claimants in the region."

Challenging Japan

Enter the Japanese coast guard and navy — or technically, its "Maritime Self-Defence Force," since Japan's constitution renounces the use or threat of force to settle disputes. In reality, its navy is viewed as the best-equipped and best-trained East Asian force on the water.

But it's facing an increasing challenge from the People's Liberation Army Navy or PLAN, the clunky name for China's sea forces. China has one of the world's most rapidly modernizing navies and also Asia's largest sea force, including more than 60 attack submarines and 75 destroyers and frigates, according to the Pentagon. And it's got an aircraft carrier in the works.

Japan has just 18 submarines — a number set to expand in response to the Chinese navy's rise — and about 50 destroyers and frigates.

Chinese subs have been popping up in unexpected places, and it has conducted naval exercises of unprecedented scale and sophistication in waters near Japan, bringing protests from Tokyo. Such exercises "send a very clear message to the region that it should be prepared to see a China unafraid to really test its reach and move into new areas," PLA expert Gary Li told the South China Morning Post in April.

Beijing's Fisheries Law Enforcement Command — its equivalent of a coast guard — has also been feistier. China's foreign ministry said today that ships from the command were steaming toward the Diaoyu, presumably to protect other Chinese fishing vessels in the area. According to Japanese media, one such fisheries command vessel had a showdown in June with the Indonesian navy, after it seized a Chinese fishing vessel.

Diplomatically, China has been taking a hard line with Tokyo, too. Since Junichiro Koizumi stepped down in 2006, the two sides have enjoyed warmer relations under more China-friendly Japanese prime ministers. In 2008, the two countries even signed a breakthrough deal on joint energy exploration in the East China Sea, where their "exclusive economic zones" overlap.

But China has since dragged its feet in upgrading that deal to treaty status, said Lam. "Negotiations have since been bogged down, according to the Japanese," he said. "The Chinese have since refused to follow this up."

Another wild card in the mix: a group of Chinese nationalists wants to sail to the Diaoyutai, and is planning a meet-up of like-minded groups from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan in Taipei on Saturday, according to Taiwan's Want Daily.

In the past, China's government has stopped the agitators from making such trips; and Taiwanese have refused to rent them boats. If the Chinese nationalists do succeed in reaching the islets this time, it could further inflame the situation.

Politics cool, economics warm

But a serious military showdown is unlikely, for many reasons. Perhaps the most important is the unprecedented economic ties between East Asia's two big powers.

In 2007, China surpassed the U.S. as Japan's top economic partner. Since then, the two countries haven't looked back: Two-way trade hit a record of nearly $140 billion in the first half of this year, a 34.5 percent jump from the same period last year, according to Japanese government figures.

Japan's exports to China are rising even faster than its imports, due to rising Chinese consumption that shows China's increased importance as a market, not just the world's factory. China's massive 4 trillion yuan ($590 billion) stimulus package during the global recession also helped boost spending on Japanese goods, with Beijing directing huge subsidies toward the countryside for purchasing white goods and TVs.

All of which suggests that Japan has a strong interest in resolving the current spat quickly, and, to the extent possible, to Beijing's satisfaction.

"Powerful voices in Japan are urging the government not to take a hard line toward China, and be more accommodating," said Lam, who said he was talking mostly about businessmen. "Some people argue that Japan needs China more than the other way around."

After all, there's only so far one's likely to push a minor dispute with one's best customer.

Original site

Chinese pilots faking it

2011-08-14T10:33:00.001+08:00

Probe Finds Chinese Pilots Faking Flight Histories

Sep 8, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Sept. 8) -- A government probe has found that at least 170 Chinese pilots have falsified their flight histories, renewing concerns over China's air safety in the wake of an Aug. 24 crash that killed 42.

That crash of a Henan Airlines flight, during a landing at a foggy airport in northeastern China, was the country's first major air accident in six years.

A firefighter searches for victims near a burning Chinese passenger jet after it crashed in Yichun in northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Aug. 25.

But the finding highlights how administrative overload, corruption and nepotism are plaguing China's commercial aviation industry as rapid growth outpaces regulators' ability to properly screen personnel and ensure better air safety.

Regulators' inability to keep up with roaring growth in today's go-go China has resulted in a proliferation of fraud, quackery and graft by individuals and companies.

China's freight turnover and passenger numbers hit new records in July, as aviation sector profits grew to $950 million, a 364 percent year-on-year increase, according to a China Business News report cited by the People's Daily Online.

Passenger volume totaled 126 million in the first half of this year, up nearly 18 percent year-on-year, according to a Xinhua report.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) announced the findings on pilots' padded resumes at an Aug. 26 conference, but it was first reported by the China Business News on Sept. 6. The CAAC began looking more broadly into the issue of pilots' qualifications in its probe of the Aug. 24 crash.

The Global Times, citing that report, said that more than half of the pilots who inflated resumes in 2008 and 2009 were from Shenzhen Airlines, which holds a 51 percent stake in Henan Airlines.

China has about 13,000 commercial pilots, the report said. The Global Times quoted an anonymous employee at Shenzhen Airlines who said pilots bribed officials and tapped relatives in order to avoid scrutiny and get good posts.

The source said that some 170 pilots had fudged their flying histories, "But only three pilots were punished and suspended from flying, as Shenzhen Airlines was in desperate need of pilots in its developing period."

In a recent commentary, the Institute of Chinese Economics' Justin Li said several high-profile scandals in China's aviation sector showed that "endemic corruption within the aviation industry exposes the Achilles' heel of China's economic reform and development."

Li Jiaxiang, the director of the CAAC, said at the conference that the lack of qualifications of the pilot and captain were to blame for the Henan Airlines crash, Global Times reported.

The China Daily quoted one aviation expert saying that aviation officials had to do a better job of checking pilots' credentials.

"The civil aviation administration should have stopped those who falsified their flying histories. If not, they are also to be blamed for their relaxed inner controls and lack of supervision over the airlines," said Liu Weimin, aviation expert with the Civil Aviation Management Institute of China.

"The pilot's documentations to apply for a certificate to pilot commercial planes should be strictly audited by the administration. Random checks should be carried out by the authority to check on these pilots," he said.

A pilot who only gave his surname, Xu, told the China Daily that falsification of flying history was rampant, especially by former military pilots hoping to land cushy jobs in the commercial sector.

"The rapid expansion of China's civil aviation requires more commercial pilots, and the gap was usually filled up by those pilots who drive military aircrafts but transferred to commercial flights," he said, according to the China Daily.

"These pilots were very likely to falsify their flying history in the military since it is hard to track and verify. By doing this, they can get promoted more quickly in flying commercial airplanes," he told the Daily.

"The airline companies only keep half an eye on this since they are happy to see more pilots certified by the administrative agency," he said.

The problem of inflating or faking credentials is hardly unique to China's aviation sector.

Sponsored Links
The Xinhua Daily Telegraph recently reported on a well-known Beijing proctology clinic that the report alleges misrepresented itself in advertisements, falsified the resume of its head proctologist, and made other fraudulent claims. The Telegraph's report was translated at danwei.org.

Individuals who "out" fraudsters run the risk of retaliation. In July, thugs wielding a hammer and antiseptic spray attacked popular blogger Fang Zhouzi, who became famous for exposing academic and scientific fraud.

Fang's most high-profile achievements were exposing a sham "cancer preventation" drug and debunking a former president of Microsoft China's claim that he held a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

The former Microsoft official later admitted his degree was actually from Pacific Western University in California, which the Christian Science Monitor described as "a diploma mill that sold academic credentials and required no classroom instruction," citing a 2004 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

In a bizarre twist, a doctor recently came forward alleging that Fang himself faked the hammer and antiseptic attack in order to promote himself and his books, according to a report in Global Times.

Original site

Anti-Fils backlash

2011-08-14T10:30:00.001+08:00

Anti-Philippines Backlash in Hong Kong After Rampage

AOL News

(Aug. 31) -- With anti-Philippines feelings running high in Hong Kong, the Philippines allowed police from the Chinese territory to inspect the bullet-riddled bus where eight Hong Kong tourists were gunned down last week.

Since the Aug. 23 shooting, Hong Kong and mainland China have sharply criticized the Philippines for the botched raid on the bus. The raid ended a daylong standoff after a former Philippine policeman armed with an assault rifle seized a busload of tourists in central Manila, demanding his job back. He had been fired over alleged extortion.

Photos of Philippine police and schoolgirls posing in front of the bus the day after the tragedy added fuel to the fire after they were posted on Facebook and other websites.

The tragedy has strained ties between the Philippines and Hong Kong, the semiautonomous Chinese enclave just across the South China Sea. The Chinese government has called on the Philippines to quickly wrap up its probe of the tragedy.

Hong Kong police on Monday examined the bus and inspected weapons used by police and the hostage-taker in the shootout, according to Agence France-Presse. The Philippines police command also issued a gag order on its cops before an official probe is complete, the news agency said, after one prematurely told the press Sunday that the assailant was likely responsible for all the hostages' deaths.

Some have questioned whether some of the hostages may have been accidentally killed by the Philippines police during the chaotic firefight aboard the bus in the final minutes of the showdown.

The Philippines government has already admitted to making errors. Today, it called on the media to work with it to restrain coverage of future stand-offs, according to AFP.

Philippines police were faulted for not better controlling media coverage of the hostage crisis. The hostage-taker was able to view live TV coverage from a monitor inside the bus, and began shooting hostages shortly after seeing on TV the police arresting his brother near the bus, according to AFP.

In Hong Kong, an anti-Philippines backlash was running high. One politician said she had fired her Filipina maid and encouraged others to do the same, according to a video posted to YouTube and translated at the EastSouthWestNorth blog. (More than 100,000 Filipinos work in the territory, most of them women working as maids.)

Hong Kong movie star Jackie Chan came in for a hail of Internet abuse from Hong Kong nationalists after he "tweeted" remarks that were viewed as too sympathetic to the Philippines police, such as the following: "If they killed the guy (hijacker) sooner, they will say why not negotiate first? If they negotiate first, they ask why not kill the guy sooner? So sad."

Chan later apologized in a statement posted on his website, but insisted his remarks had been mistranslated.

Tens of thousands joined a march in Hong Kong on Sunday to mourn the victims.

Meanwhile, one of the surviving hostages wrote a first-person account of the ordeal, published in Hong Kong's Ming Pao weekly and translated by ESWN. In the account, Lee Ying Chuen says the hostages at several points mulled the idea of trying to overpower the gunman.

"Why did we waver?" Lee wrote. "Because we were afraid, because we thought that the gunman did not really want to kill anyone, because we thought that the matter would be peacefully resolved and, of course, our biggest mistake was to overestimate the capabilities of the local police."

The gunman had also spaced out the hostages two to a row, one on each side of the aisle, to prevent them from more easily banding together, Lee wrote.

Hong Kong's Apple Daily produced one of its infamous animated news clips of the hostage crisis, using details from news reports and a dramatic re-creation to show what may have happened on the bus.

Original site

Small signs of progress

2011-08-14T10:23:00.002+08:00

Silicon Sweatshops: Small signs of progress

Migrant workers at an Apple supplier say conditions have improved. But they're the exception.

September 13, 2010

TANZI, Taiwan — It's just after Sunday morning Mass on an overcast day in in this industrial, non-descript town in central Taiwan.

About 25 women in their 20s and 30s sit on plastic chairs in a meeting room at the back of a Roman Catholic church, dressed in jeans and simple blouses or T-shirts. They're giggling, teasing each other and cracking jokes in Tagalog and English.

They've just listened, along with 400 to 500 other Filipina migrant workers in a packed hall, to a Sunday sermon on forgiveness, loving oneself and rising above one's difficulties in life.

For these women, the difficulties are many. They live hundreds of miles from their husbands and families, sleeping in crowded dorms, to earn money in a strange, foreign land where they have few rights and are routinely exploited — as reported previously in GlobalPost's series "Silicon Sweatshops."

The good news: since that report, conditions have improved for this one small group of Filipina workers at a company supplying Apple and other high-tech brands.

The bad news: it's business as usual for many of the other 370,000 southeast Asian migrant workers in Taiwan, including those assigned to companies in the supply chain of the world's high-tech giants: exorbitant "placement fees," additional "broker fees" deducted from workers' hard-earned pay; and second-class status.

The workers trade away basic freedoms and rights for the chance to earn better money than they could at home. The story's the same in Japan, South Korea and other wealthy East Asian countries, which increasingly import cheap labor from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere to fill low-end jobs that locals don't want.

A better deal

The 20-some workers at the Taiwan firm Wintek said they had each paid $1,000 to $1,200 in placement, processing and other fees to a Philippines manpower agency to come to Taiwan (Taiwan guidelines supposedly limit such fees to one month's minimum wage, or $540). Then they forked over an additional $45 to $55 per month, or nearly 10 percent of their gross salary, to their Taiwan broker, fees that can add up to $1,800 for each three-year stint abroad and lower their take-home salaries to below minimum wage.

But by March this year, the workers said, Wintek had stopped deducting the monthly "brokers' fee" from their paychecks. Some workers were even reimbursed up to four months of such fees in cash. Brokers gave them back their passports, which until then had been in "safekeeping."

"Please extend to Apple our thanks," one worker said, as other Wintek workers nodded and murmured agreement.

All these changes were made with no explanation from Wintek or the brokers, workers said. They complained that they still hadn't gotten their "chops" — stamps needed for some financial transactions in Taiwan — back from their brokers. There's still no hotline for them to air grievances anonymously.

Nadine Lebrilla. (Jonathan Adams/GlobalPost)

Apple spokesperson Jill Tan declined comment, pointing only to a progress report earlier this year in which the firm highlighted the issue of excessive placement and brokers' fees. The company says it now considers this a "core violation" of its supplier code of conduct. It said its limit for such fees is one month's net wages and said "as a result of our audits and corrective actions, foreign workers had been reimbursed $2.2 million in recruitment fee overcharges."

Wintek spokesman Jay Huang confirmed the changes in a phone interview, but denied that pressure from Apple or any other customer were behind them. "It's not [because of] any pressure from customers," said Huang. "It's because we need to comply with social accountability on workers' rights and benefits. Maybe before, we didn't focus too much on this."

Huang said the changes were part of company-wide measures begun last year to help Wintek earn SA8000 certification (a global "social accountability" standard for corporations developed by Social Accountability International, and in Wintek's case awarded by German certification body TUV, according to Huang). He said Wintek was now paying the monthly Taiwan labor brokers' fees.

Johara Santos, a 28-year-old from Tarlac Province, said she works in a three-woman unit cutting small screens for Apple. She said Wintek officials had not communicated with them about any of the changes, but did warn them that Apple auditors were coming in May. "They told us to clean, and said 'don't talk so much,'" said Santos. "They wanted us to behave."

Another Filipina who gave the name "Lei Ai" works in a four-woman unit making screens she believes are for Apple laptops and iPods. She works on the 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. graveyard shift, taking home $315 per month after deductions including "forced savings," which she can only access in an emergency and with her broker's permission.

She said three to five Apple auditors came to Wintek in May for a week, but didn't talk to the workers. She said she doesn't get enough overtime — she wants to make more money — and that recently Apple had cut its orders.

Little recourse

For the Wintek workers, at least there are some small improvements. But these workers seem to be the exception to the rule.

"Apple has responded," said Father Joy Tajonera, a Filipino-American Roman Catholic priest who runs a shelter in Tanzi and provides other services for migrant workers. "But the problem is, a lot of the other companies haven't."

Two other Filipinas in the group told stories that highlight the lack of rights for many such workers if their job situations turn sour.

Nadine Lebrilla, 25, from Bacolod City in the central Philippines, came to Taiwan last June to earn money. In the Philippines, she had worked on a temporary contract at a mall, earning just $220 per month. Brokers in the Philippines promised her double that in Taiwan, if she first paid them about $1,880 in fees.

But her dreams of riches quickly turned into a nightmare. She was assigned to central Taiwan as a caretaker for a 55-year-old man she described as "alcoholic, diabetic, depressive, a smoker, cannot control his temper." At nights, he would get drunk on Chinese rice wine — shaoxing jiu — then yell, bully and physically attack either his wife, Lebrilla or both. In June, he had a particularly nasty fight with his wife while Lebrilla was home.

He beat up his wife, then threatened Lebrilla, she says. "He told me that if I left my room he would kill me," she said.

Lebrilla's terrified calls to the Taiwan labor office, Philippines labor office and her own broker initially yielded little response — her Taiwan broker at first said he'd come by to check on the situation the next day, before relenting and taking her to a shelter that day.

Being assigned such a boss was a stroke of bad luck. But what followed shows migrant workers' lack of basic recourse in such situations. Lebrilla was told she could file a formal complaint with Taiwan authorities, but it could take six to eight months to resolve, during which time she could not work, and so would receive no salary.

Or she could settle privately with her Taiwan employer and Philippines manpower agency; if so she would have two months to try to find a new job in Taiwan. The catch: neither her Philippines manpower agency nor Taiwan broker had any obligation to help her secure new work.

She chose to settle. Unfortunately, she didn't find a job and so had to return to the Philippines. She had her $1,880 in placement and other fees returned to her, but received no other compensation and so essentially wasted more than two months of her time.

Nerissa Delos Reyes, a 33-year-old from Pagasinan Province and mother of two, was also lured to Taiwan by the promise of higher pay. Wearing a pink Polo shirt and sitting in back of the church in Tanzi, she told her story in a soft, shy voice.

She and her husband grow rice, tobacco and corn on their farm, but don't have enough money for fertilizer and so have a tough time making ends meet. So she said she borrowed $1,880 from friends and her godfather and handed it over to Infinity International Manpower Services, a well-known Philippines placement agency, to secure her work in Taiwan.

She signed a contract to do factory work at Peace Musical, a musical equipment store in Taiwan's Taichung County. She said she paid her Taiwan broker, Lec Chuen International Development, an additional $55 monthly brokers' fee, for doing little else besides helping her secure a Taiwan residence document and open a Taiwan bank account, then keeping her passport and bank documents in "safekeeping" for her.

When she got to Taiwan, however, she says she ended up working 15- to 16-hour days, including both heavy factory work for which she was ill-suited, and nanny work — cooking in the morning and evenings, house-cleaning, and taking care of two babies. She was allowed 5- to 15-minute breaks, and if she tried to rest longer than that her boss would yell at her, she says.

(Peace Musical declined repeated email and phone requests for comment, and one company representative said the person whose name is on Reyes' contract is no longer with the firm. The phone number given on her contract for her Taiwan broker, Lec Chuen, is not currently in service.)

The breaking point came when her boss got angry and accused her of breast-feeding one of the babies. She complained to her broker, saying this wasn't what she'd signed up for and she wanted to go home.

Documents reviewed by GlobalPost show what happens next for such a worker. Like Lebrilla, she opted to settle with her Philippines manpower agency, asking them only for a return of the $1,880 in fees she says she had paid them so that she could go home as soon as possible. She demanded no further compensation for her time or distress and made no formal complaint to Taiwan labor officials or courts.

In a July 16 letter from Infinity to the Philippines labor attache in central Taiwan, a copy of which was obtained by GlobalPost, an Infinity representative said, "We vehemently deny having charged said complainant with a placement fee. The only amount spent by the complainant relative to her application and deployment to Taiwan are her documentation expenses which are legally chargeable to her as per POEA [Philippines Overseas Employment Administration] Rules and Regulations."

The parties went back and forth through late July and early August, according to Reyes, before Infinity agreed to pay her 85,000 pesos (or equal to about $1,880, the amount of fees she says she paid Infinity) to settle her case.

However, she says she also signed an affidavit in Taiwan waiving her right to any future action, saying the "complaint was mistakenly filed by me as it arose from my misapprehension of the facts and circumstances," as well as a separate affidavit saying "what happened is beyond the fault of my Philippine agency, neither my foreign employer but due merely to miscommunication." Copies of both affidavits were obtained by GlobalPost.

In a phone interview, Infinity's Christina Layug said said the company had returned "all the money she [Reyes] was asking" for and "cleared up all the problems."

"The problem with her [Reyes] is she doesn't like to accept the work we gave to her," Layug said. "Some of the applicants and workers, once they agree and are deployed and then they feel they aren't happy, and they want to be repatriated immediately."

"There are a lot of workers in Taiwan, sometimes they do not like their work -- that's why they're complaining. They're not satisfied."

Infinity declined to comment further on Reyes' complaints and case.

"They love your smiles"

Reyes said she had learned alot from the ordeal, and might even consider returning to Taiwan to work again — but not through the same agency. She said she would be more careful about what she agreed to in the future, and offered advice to other Filipina migrant workers like her: "They shouldn't be afraid to ask for help from other people, and pray about their problems."

A fax to Reyes from May 31, after she had been assigned house work in addition to the factory work indicated by her contract, lists do's and don'ts for her new job. It includes some words of encouragement, in slightly mangled English:

"Please do not worry. The employer's family likes you very much. It is just that there are some things that they would like you to adjust a little. We all come from different places and have different habits in life. When living together, we all need some time for adjusting each other."

"They love your smiles. You smiles all the time. They like that. They want you to keep smiling."

Original site

Reform, or hot air?

2011-08-14T10:20:00.000+08:00

China Buzzes With Political Reform Talk -- or Is It Hot Air?

Aug 28, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Aug. 28) -- Is political reform afoot in China? Or did "Grandpa Wen" just forget to take his meds?

Popular Chinese Premier Wen Jia-bao, No. 2 in Beijing's political hierarchy, set the Chinese Internet abuzz this week with comments that China badly needs political reform.

The context was his visit to the southern boom town Shenzhen to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the city's founding as one of four "special economic zones" that have been on the vanguard in China's spectacular rise. But the folksy Wen dampened the festive mood when he said in unusually sharp and sweeping terms that China's political reforms had lagged too far behind economic reforms.

"Without political reform, China may lose what it has already achieved through economic restructuring, and the targets of its modernization drive might not be reached," said Wen, according to the Global Times, which is affiliated with China's state-run People's Daily.

China's communist autocrats remain firmly in the driver's seat, quickly quashing any organized challenge to their rule and often operating above the law. Several officials and commentators quoted by Global Times backed Wen's views, which followed similar eyebrow-raising remarks from a well-connected Peoples' Liberation Army general known for his maverick views.

"In the coming 10 years, a transformation from power politics to democracy will inevitably take place," wrote the PLA's Liu Yazhou in a Hong Kong magazine, according to a translation by the Australian newspaper The Age. "China will see great changes. Political reform is our mission, endowed by history. We have no leeway. So far, China has reformed all the easy parts, and everything that is left is the most difficult; there is a land mine at every step."

The comments made some Chinese wonder whether the winds of political change are blowing -- or whether it's all just hot air.

Some cynical Chinese bloggers leaned toward the latter. Taiwan's Want Daily described their reaction as "the east wind blows again" -- an idiom roughly meaning "same old song."

"It's two steps forward and three steps back," one wrote. "The key point in promoting political reform is whether normal people get any benefit," said another. "Inviting everyone to criticize would mean having to arrest and lock up the whole country," wrote another wit. "How can we really have criticism and monitoring [of the government]?"

Only Small-Bore Reforms Likely

Analysts also cautioned not to read too much into Wen's remarks. His personal views aside -- and he's generally seen as a sincere supporter of reform -- China is now ruled by committee, and a highly conservative and cautious one at that.

"I think he [Wen] is willing to experiment, but the problem is, he functions within a gigantic bureaucracy and a system of collective leadership -- and the party is concerned about stability," said Dali Yang, head of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing, in a phone interview.

"He speaks his heart, and that's what makes him endearing, but he's in his last two years as premier, and there's a limit to how much he can do," Yang said.

He said that China was already pursuing some political reforms that shouldn't be dismissed, such as experimental local elections at the village, township and even county level (though not yet for county chiefs); use of informal and formal polls to take the public's pulse on its leaders; and more competitive, open processes for civil service promotions in cities like Shenzhen to try to reduce bribery and nepotism.

But the reform process is likely to be incremental, slow and small-bore, and won't soon result in anything an American would recognize as democracy. Many reforms focus on how China's communist party functions internally, not on China's overall system.

It's not clear how much support Wen has in China's leadership, either. Party leader and President Hu Jintao has remained something of a cipher despite nearly eight years in power. His historical legacy is likely to be his key role in adopting a savvier, carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan -- helping to make the Taiwan Strait more stable than it's been in decades -- rather than any meaningful reforms or his clunky slogans about creating a "harmonious society."

Xi's Gotta Have It?

Hu's most likely successor, Xi Jinping, doesn't promise anything sexier, either. Veteran China watcher Willy Lam, who is writing a book about Xi, said that Xi is a shadow of his father, who was a noted, high-ranking liberal in the communist party hierarchy.

"Xi Jinping is a conservative -- he has not been able to pick up the liberal genes from his father," said Lam at a talk in Taipei earlier this year. "Xi lacks charisma and a strong base in the party. ... He was picked as a compromise candidate accepted by all [party] factions. He's not seen as a person who has strong values."

Xi is expected to be appointed soon to a post on China's powerful Central Military Commission, according to the South China Morning Post, which China watchers say is a sign that he's on track to take over the reins from Hu in the fall of 2012.

If anything, the role of the People's Liberation Army within China's system may become more important than any reform drive by civilian leaders. "The PLA is a very dangerous institution," said Lam. "There are no checks and balances. The generals have too much power; they are not subject to scrutiny."

For that reason, PLA Air Force Gen. Liu's high-profile prediction of "great changes" were of particular interest, but analysts were left scratching their heads over what he meant. Lin Chong-Pin, a China watcher in Taipei, said he believed that Liu had been invited to Beijing around 2004 and "recruited" or co-opted by the leadership after similar, outspoken remarks early this decade. That makes his re-emergence in the Hong Kong press something of a mystery.

Varied Media Response

China's media have a typically schizophrenic response to all the talk of political reform. Southern Chinese outlets known for their more freewheeling ways ran enthusiastic commentaries, while central, state-run media buried Wen's remarks or didn't report them at all, according to The Economist.

China's state-run Xinhua news service quickly produced excerpts of a 2008 speech from Hu Jintao also calling for reforms, in an apparent effort to show that China's two top leaders were singing from the same songbook, according to Taiwan's Want Daily. And the Global Times even ran an English-language commentary warning foreigners not to get carried away. "Overseas analysts should not get over-excited about the prospect of major political reforms," it said.

"Chinese leaders have made it clear that China will never directly copy Western-style political systems. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the country will explore its own socialist path that fits its own domestic situation," the commentary continued.

That's the kind of typical line that makes skepticism the default position for most longtime watchers of China's political scene. "The CCP will muddle through, but it is incapable of greatness, self-reflection or self-correction," said Lam.

"Imagine a party with this manifesto: We just want to hang on to power, period."

Original site

Tweaking the Old Masters

2011-08-14T10:15:00.002+08:00

A young painter is one of several artists boosting Taiwan's identity with classic techniques.

August 27, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — About seven years ago, when he was just 21 years old, Taiwan painter Lee Cheng-dao and his father — also an accomplished painter — took a trip to the famous Louvre Museum in Paris.

Lee had embarked on a painting career, and his father wanted him to see the best of the best. For several days, father and son studied the masters: Rembrandt, Ingres, John Singer Sargent, Rubens.

"It's very difficult for original paintings to come to Taiwan," said Lee, in an interview at his Taipei studio. "So we went from painting to painting, looking at all of them. The museum was open from something like 10 in the morning to 10 in the evening, and we spent it all there — eating lunch and dinner at the museum."

Over the next few years, back in Taiwan, Lee began to marry those masters' high techniques of light and shadow with earthy, at times risque subject matter — a group of mahjong players, pool players, over-weight people, karaoke-hall girls.

He often throws in the marks of "taike" culture, a once derogatory term for low-class Taiwanese culture that's since become a hip and trendy handle: bottles of Taiwan Beer, tattoos, flip-flops, short-sleeved floral-print shirts, cheap cigarettes, scooter helmets.

"Taike culture is Taiwan's most unique culture; what Taiwan has developed itself — its most impressive culture," said Lee. "It's very grass-roots, and very tacky, but it fits Taiwan's own style."

The resulting blend of high technique and low subject matter has earned him recognition as one of Taiwan's top young emerging painters, with a whimsically ironic style. He's one of several young artists who are both reflecting and promoting a distinctly Taiwanese identity that's grown especially strong in the last decade.

Lee had a group show in 2007 with three other artists also loosely linked with the "taike" trend, then his first solo exhibition in 2009.

Painting more down-to-earth, everyday subjects goes back at least to Jean-Francois Millet, who shocked his stuffy contemporaries by painting peasants working in the fields instead of the conventional subject matter of gods and heroes, Biblical figures, or kings and emperors.

But Lee's subject matter didn't immediately win everybody over. Among the skeptics was his most important teacher in college in Taipei.

"My teacher felt my paintings weren't at all impressive," said Lee. "They were too un-serious."

Lee's dad took some convincing, too.

"At first he thought, you should paint more beautiful, more grand subject matter, not such joking things," said Lee. "But later, he felt it wasn't so bad — and there are people who will buy these paintings. Today's people aren't the same, they can accept this type of art."

Indeed, they've snatched it up: Lee says he's sold 80 percent of his paintings, earning enough to pursue his art full-time. At least until Taiwan's military service obligations intervened.

In a July interview at this Taipei studio, Lee said he had just finished basic training and was about to report for the 10-month military stint that's still mandatory for young Taiwanese men because of the threat from China.

He had a deep tan and buzz-cut from training, and wore stylish flip-flops, red-framed Ray-Ban glasses, cargo shorts and a T-shirt with a Charlie's Angels silhouette and the English words "I feel welcome here," which he said was his brother's.

"I got a lot skinnier," in basic training, he said. "Now I can wear my younger brother's clothes."

Basic training was a big adjustment.

"If I was younger I could immediately enter this kind of life," Lee said. "But since I'm older, I couldn't stop thinking about outside things — what my friends were doing, what they were painting, what exhibits they were mounting."

He found ways to adapt — writing long letters, getting up at 4:30 in the morning so he could have some space and time to himself. His drill sergeant found out he was an artist and asked him to redecorate and fix up a disordered lounge, which spared Lee more unpleasant chores. He painted a portrait of the sergeant.

Lee's studio doubles as a classroom space for his father's art classes, and is stocked with the younger Lee's paintings, art books crammed on tall shelves, huge blown-up photographs from which he works, classical busts, a Giant racing bicycle slung on the wall in back. Lee sat at a table and explained his technique.

The series of paintings that won him attention, "King's Game," were inspired by humorous twists on the masters. Caravaggio's "The Supper at Emmaus" inspired Lee's "Toss the Dice" and "Mah-jongg." Lee's "Prince's Dessert" echoes Manet's "Olympia." His betel nut beauty is painted in the style of a saint.

He started to paint from elaborately staged, carefully lit photos, using friends as models. Some of his paintings come off as gags, albeit rendered in exquisite detail.

"I don't like things that are too serious, and bore everyone," he said. "I want to take very simple and common subjects and make them very 'jingcai'," said Lee, using a word that translates roughly as "brilliant" or "exquisite." "I want to paint things that people can understand. I don't think art should be so serious."

"You can think it's not high art, it's low art," he continued. "But in the contemporary art world, people don't care so much about that. So we have more freedom."

Lee went on to paint the series "Heroes' True Colors," showing fat men peeling out of superheroes' outfits, and a "Fighting Nymphs" series of scantily clad women, many also overweight. ("I like painting people that aren't good-looking," he said.)

He said he's part of a loose group of young, like-minded painters, including Lo Chan-peng, Yu Wei-yi, and Huang Pei-huang, who both reference and at times slyly mock Taiwan identity and youth culture.

Lo does ultra-realistic, photo-like paintings of Taiwan's "strawberry tribe," referring to those born in the 1980s; Yu paints young Taiwanese men in bathroom scenes; Huang paints up-close images of fatty flesh, as well as mutilated images of Barbie dolls and Doraemon, the Japan-spawned blue robot cat from the future that's wildly popular in Taiwan. The four were featured in a 2007 exhibit called "Fancying self as Taiwanese."

"When you talk about 'Taiwanese,' it's easy to get political," said Lee. "But our attitude and that of politicians is far apart. We're more indifferent, we have a more relaxed attitude."

Lee said the group is interested in exhibiting in China, but hasn't yet looked into it ("the mainland is very sensitive," said Lee.) And two of the group's members — Lee and Lo — will have to finish up their military service before they can figure out the future. "Our group hasn't yet thought about the next step," said Lee.

Original site

King coal = King jam?

2011-08-14T10:11:00.002+08:00

Coal May Be Behind China's Monster Traffic Jam

AOL News

(Aug. 25) -- China's surging appetite for coal may be behind the nightmarish traffic jam outside Beijing that's now in Day 12.

The jam has seen thousands of vehicles backed up along a 60-mile-long stretch of road between Inner Mongolia and Beijing. Motorists have reported travel times of up to five days to get through the king-sized snarl.

The immediate cause of the jam is road construction on National Expressway 110 (G110). But those repairs were needed due to damage from a recent surge in jumbo truck traffic carrying coal and some agricultural products, the Global Times reported.

There is another route from northwest China to Beijing, but it's open only to trucks 4 tons or lighter and charges costly tolls that transporters prefer to dodge, the Times reported.

"We are advised to take detours, but I would rather stay here since I will travel more distance and increase my costs," a coal truck driver surnamed Wang told the Global Times. "The number of roads from northwest China to Beijing are limited. ... Why should I pay the toll fee?"

China depends on coal for 70 percent of its energy needs, and that appetite shows no sign of slacking amid the nation's breakneck economic growth.

After authorities closed thousands of dangerous coal mines in Shanxi Province, Inner Mongolia has become China's largest source of coal, Bloomberg reported, providing 21 percent of output compared with Shanxi's 18 percent in 2009.

That coal is transported mostly by truck because of a lack of rail capacity, the news agency said, and it quoted an expert who expected the situation to improve in "three or four years" after new rail lines are completed.

For now, much of Inner Mongolia's coal is moved by truck in the Beijing area to ports such as Tianjin, and from there is shipped to power plants in southern China, Bloomberg said.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that many of the trucks crawling through gridlock are carrying coal illegally mined in Inner Mongolia. Drivers are taking the G110 route because it's free of coal checkpoints that would require bribing inspectors to ignore the illegal loads, the Monitor said, citing a report in the Beijing News.

The Global Times said the jam was hardly new: a similar tangle in June lasted nearly the entire month. It reports that construction is due to last through Sept. 13 -- meaning potentially weeks more of traffic pain.

China's traffic woes go beyond coal trucks, though. A study by IBM released in June rated Beijing and Mexico City the world's worst cities on its "Commuter Pain Index," with a 99 out of 100 rating compared to Los Angeles' 25.

The 20-city survey found that 69 percent of Beijing respondents had canceled or changed their travel plans due to bad traffic in the last three years, the highest rate of any city polled. That's despite having one of the world's highest bus-use rates, at 44 percent.

Beijing has 4.2 million cars on the road, a number expected to increase to 5 million by the end of the year, according to the Global Times, and 7 million by 2015, according to a transport official quoted by the Xinhua state news agency.

That official said average driving speeds in Beijing would slow to below 9 mph by 2015 from 15 mph now if trends continue.

Original site

Five bus hijackings

2011-08-14T10:05:00.003+08:00

Five Bus Hijackings Less Deadly Than Manila's

AOL News

(Aug. 24) -- The Philippines police are under fire over a botched effort to end a Manila hostage drama on a tourist bus that left the hostage taker and eight Hong Kong tourists dead. Buses -- rarely subject to security controls and easily controlled by a single assailant -- have often been prime hijacking targets. But other incidents in recent years have ended without the death of hostages. Some examples:

June 22, 2009, China. An apparently deranged man wielding a knife boards a bus in Hunan province. As the cool-headed female driver argues with him, the passengers leave via the rear exit. After the hijacker stabs her seat, the driver takes him a short distance, telling him to "calm down" and "sit down and relax." The man later exits, and the driver continues her route. No one is injured.

March 28, 2007, the Philippines. Armed with hand grenades and guns, a disgruntled owner of a day care center hijacks a bus with 26 day care children and four teachers, demanding the government give free education to the students and housing to their families. After day-long negotiations, he surrenders and releases the hostages. No one is injured.

May 31, 2004, U.S. After imbibing tequila, Antonio Hernandez-Hernandez hijacks a Greyhound bus in Utah after attacking the driver with a knife. His goal: to drive to Nebraska for a showdown with his estranged ex-wife. He orders the passengers off the bus, then leads police on a chase. The driver stops the bus and flees when Hernandez-Hernandez goes to the restroom; he later surrenders to police.

April 25, 2003, Germany. A Lebanese man seeking the release of one of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers seizes a bus with 16 hostages and leads police on a highway chase. Police stormed the bus and captured the assailant, whose gun fired only blanks. No one was injured. Two similar bus-jackings occurred in Germany in the same month, with no injuries.

Nov. 17, 1997, Egypt. Islamic militants hijack a bus after massacring nearly 60 tourists at a top attraction near Luxor on the Nile River. The bus encountered a military checkpoint, and a firefight ensued. One terrorist was shot and wounded. The others escaped to nearby hills, but their bodies were later found in a cave, apparent suicides.

Original site

Botched bus rescue

2011-08-14T09:59:00.003+08:00

Philippine Police Slammed for Botched Bus Rescue

Aug 24, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan (Aug. 24) -- The Philippine police came in for a hail of criticism today after a botched raid on a hijacked bus left the perpetrator and eight of his hostages dead.

Critics leveled a litany of charges about Monday night's raid, faulting police for a chaotic command structure, failure to secure the crime scene, and allowing media to film the raid. There was also consternation that they had brought the hostage-taker's brother to the scene but then taken him into custody, and that they had no better means at hand to break into the bus than a sledgehammer.

Members of a Philippines police SWAT team begin their assault of the tourist bus seized by dismissed police officer Rolando Mendoza Monday at Manila's Rizal Park, Philippines.

The raid came 10 hours after Rolando Mendoza -- a 55-year-old former policeman disgruntled over having been fired -- boarded a tour bus armed with an assault rifle. Mendoza held the tourists from Hong Kong as hostages.

The Globe and Mail reported that when Mendoza boarded the bus there were 21 tourists and four locals aboard. During the standoff, he released some for medical and other reasons. When the police raid began, Mendoza was reportedly holding 15 hostages. Mendoza and eight of the hostages died in the final minutes of the siege.

The victims included Canadian-Chinese dual citizen Kam Wing Leung and his daughters, Song Yi (Jessie) Leung, 14, and Chung See (Doris) Leung, 21, according to the CBC.

In the semiautonomous Chinese territory of Hong Kong, flags flew at half-staff in mourning as residents voiced outrage over what was widely seen as a mishandled rescue operation. The Associated Press reported that demonstrators changed "You caused the deaths of Hong Kongers!" outside the consulate of the Philippines.

"It's disappointing that Hong Kong residents tried to make a pleasure trip to Manila and ended up with death and casualties," Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang told a news conference. "This is very tragic. And the way it was handled and particularly the outcome -- I found it disappointing."

Pete Troilo, director for business intelligence at Pacific Strategies and Assessments, a Manila-based security and political risk consultancy, said the fiasco reflected the Philippines' lack of sufficient police resources.

"The Philippines National Police and [the Army] have been plagued by a lack of training and equipment for decades, and there's really no movement to change that," said Troilo.

As one example, he said one strategy for storming the bus would have been to use a "small, controllable explosive" device to blow off the door of the bus, then a lightning entry into the bus by commandos.

Instead, police were televised live repeatedly trying and failing to bash their way in through the bus' windows with a sledgehammer. "The only thing that did was obstruct the view of what was happening inside the bus," Troilo said.

He noted, though, that a bus is "not the easiest target to assault" due to the nearly 360-degree view of the situation from inside the bus and the difficulty of penetrating into a narrow aisle where passengers can easily be used by the hostage-taker as human shields -- a strategy the perpetrator used Monday night, according to remarks by Philippines President Benigno Aquino III in a midnight press conference just hours after the raid.

Troilo said the botched raid highlighted a broader problem of poor handling of a range of crises, including kidnappings. "In the Philippines, these types of crisis-management situations typically turn into a frenzy," he said. "You have not only the media, but different politicians and power brokers trying to portray themselves as a leader in the situation, and you often have family members involved, which was the case here."

"So all of this turns into a sideshow, and it really detracts attention from the safety and security of the victims, and bringing the case to a quick resolution," Troilo said. "Unfortunately, in this case the melodrama cost lives."

One Filipino official told a local radio station that Mendoza was able to see police approaching the bus via footage he could view on a television inside the bus, according to GMA News. He also reportedly became agitated after seeing television reports showing police taking his brother into custody.

The official, Jesse Robredo, told Philippines media that protocol for media and crowd control in such crisis situations would be reviewed.

A police official told a local radio station that the hostage-taker turned belligerent after police attempted to arrest his brother, who was at the scene. He said the police lacked better equipment to penetrate the bus.

"In our inventory, the sledgehammer was the only thing we can use in the situation," he told a radio station, according to GMA News. "What we did not expect was the bus' windshield was strong enough to withstand blows from a sledgehammer."

Several Filipino congressmen criticized the police's handling of the hostage crisis, with one slamming the lack of a clear chain of command at the scene, according to Inquirer.net, and another saying that "heads must roll" after the tragedy.

The Philippines human rights alliance Karapatan faulted the police for bungling the hostage crisis, and for not addressing the hostage-taker's "legitimate" grievances earlier -- though it condemned the manner in which he aired those grievances.

"The [Philippines police] grossly mishandled the hostage drama that caused the death of nine people and the wounding of others," a spokesman for the alliance said, according to the Manila Bulletin. "They should have handled this more delicately considering that many lives were at stake."

President Aquino offered his condolences to China and the people of Hong Kong for the loss of life in an address today. He promised more training for police forces to better handle future crises, and a full review of the botched raid.

Original site

Dance for the masses

2011-08-14T09:49:00.004+08:00

Could Gate is feted abroad. So what are they doing in the sticks?

August 3, 2010

CHANGHUA, Taiwan — The skinny, bespectacled man strides on stage, a slight figure facing tens of thousands on an overcast night in this central Taiwan city, where jumbled urban sprawl gives way suddenly to concrete-bound rice paddies.

"Da gei ho!" he bellows to the crowd — "Hello everyone!" in the Taiwanese dialect. "Ho!" comes the indistinct reply from the crowd, followed by thunderous applause.

This is Lin Hwai-min, one of Taiwan's best-known artists, revered for putting this small island on the map in the international arts scene. He stands alone on stage, a tiny illuminated figure from the perspective of the bleachers across the sports stadium, where bored local cops crack jokes and latecomers stream in, hunting seats.

("Wah-sei!" said one kid, using an expression roughly equivalent to "Whoah!", as he walked onto the bleachers. "There are so many people!")

Lin's troupe, the Cloud Gate Dance Theater, is now legendary in the world of contemporary dance for its distinctive blend of Western techniques (learned in New York City), Chinese culture and themes from Taiwan's own, unique historical legacy.

Cloud Gate has been anointed by the arts pooh-bahs in Manhattan and by critics in the most chic capitals of Europe. But tonight, the troupe is in central Taiwan, in a tumbledown town even most Taiwanese don't bother to stop in, to share high art with the masses — for free.

Lin goes on to tell the crowd, speaking in a mix of Taiwanese and Mandarin Chinese, that this is Cloud Gate's 22nd free concert in 15 years, and that by now they have performed for 2 million Taiwanese spectators. He thanks the show's volunteers, then turns the stage over to his performers.

Spectators up front — some of whom had arrived more than four hours earlier to secure a good vantage point — focus on the stage with hushed silence and rapt attention. On the fringes and in back, others chat and laugh, kids chase each other, and curious badminton players poke their heads in to see what all the fuss is about.

Changhua resident Adrian Liu, 37, talks and jokes with a group of cops just in front of the bleachers, his wife and 10-year-old daughter beside him. They ignore the start of the show, but later turn their heads stage-ward. "It's free, so we can come to this show," said Liu with a smile. "Usually it's too expensive."

Asked what he thought of Cloud Gate, "I think they can really represent Taiwan — everyone has heard of them and knows who they are."

On stage, a female dancer in green writhes, twirls her legs with spinning kicks, against a soundtrack of high, nervous strings, clacking wooden blocks and gongs.

The first dance piece — inspired by a Chinese folktale about a scholar seduced by a snake — ends. A brief film plays, explaining how the carved wood snake's nest used in the number had burned in a fire; earlier this year Lin Hwai-min found two craftsmen right here in Changhua County who made a new one. Everyone claps again.

Another piece begins, black-clad dancers leap and twist in the air, inspired by Chinese calligraphy. To one side of the audience, two kids toss around a fuzzy ball, their hands strapped into Velcro-lined paddles. Two other kids run away to race.

The deep, resonant strains of a Bach cello suite begin. A lone female dancer bathed in intense white light makes Tai-chi-like motions with her slight arms amid descending cello arpeggios. Kids and their parents begin to line up at the side of the audience for a chance to dance on stage after the show.

"Tony" and "Hannah" are two of them. Eight-year-old Tony says he doesn't really care to go on stage; older Hannah says she wants to, then shows off a cartwheel.

Intermission. A 52-year-old Changhua native stands in back and to the side, chewing betel nut, spitting out the juice now and then into a nearby trashcan. "It's OK," he says of the show. "It depends on what you like."

He says the show is funded by the Cathay Financial Group, one of Taiwan's biggest banks and insurers, as a tax write-off.

"They just want to pay less tax," he said, then spat out another stream of brown-red juice. "Everyone here is from Changhua," he said; asked how he knows, "Because they're all wearing flip-flops." Other, less laid-back Taiwanese "wouldn't dare do that" at a special event like this.

The first time he saw Cloud Gate, the 52-year-old, who works in a health products factory, said he had to look at the program to understand what was going on. He says he once saw them perform a dance the program said was about Taiwan's White Terror (during martial law, 1949-1987), but he couldn't tell from looking what it was about. "But they performed really well," he added.

His beer-bellied friend comes by, clad in a dark blue polo shirt and holding a fan printed with slogans promoting the new China-Taiwan trade deal; they were passing those out for free, too. The first man says his 19-year-old son is at home, ("He prefers to watch TV in air-conditioning"), his daughter is still at work. Light rain begins to fall; the two men leave.

The last number wraps up, one with male dancers lifting up female dancers in bright pastel costumes, as bright pink paper in the shape of flower petals blows onto the stage from the wings; a petal downpour. The show ends, Lin comes out to take a bow with his dancers.

Then spectators are led on stage in groups, mostly kids and teens or 20-somethings, but a few older types, too. They run back and forth, dancing and throwing the pink paper around with excitement.
Little boys start flower-petal wars, throwing huge fistfuls in other kids' faces.

"The free concerts began 30 years ago, at first they were in front of temples, in the countryside," said Cloud Gate marketing director Liu Gia-yu. "Fifteen years ago Cathay started supporting it."

"He [Lin] wanted people who don't normally see dance to have a chance to see it," Liu said. "When he was young, nobody was promoting contemporary dance in Taiwan. No one understood what contemporary dance was."

"He thought the Taiwan public could understand contemporary dance, it's just that no one had performed it for them before."

These days, Cloud Gate is famous in global dance circles, and much in demand abroad. A second troupe, Cloud Gate 2, stays closer to home and to Lin's roots. "They don't go abroad, they spend all their time in central and south Taiwan, in the countryside or at schools and universities," Liu said. "All their concerts are free, except one during the Lunar New Year."

Back on stage, a spectator has lost his eyeglasses somewhere amid the pink petals. They have to clear the stage while staff comb through the pink jumble, looking for them. A father comes on stage and calls out for his lost daughter over a microphone.

The MC holds up one temple arm from the lost pair of glasses; it must have been ripped from the rest of the frames in all the stomping and running. A few minutes later the other temple arm is found, but not the lenses.

"This means there may be broken glass, so we can't let anyone else on stage," the MC said, apologizing to the last group of hyper kids and other would-be Baryshnikovs, still waiting for their moment.

Original site

China gets disaster-savvy

2011-08-14T09:46:00.002+08:00

China Gets Savvier With Disaster Coverage

AOL News

TAIPEI, Taiwan (July 29) -- When a massive blast from a damaged gas pipeline rattled the Chinese city of Nanjing on Wednesday, killing at least 13 and wounding 120 more, the state-run media that might once have cooperated in a cover-up was all over it. But critics say what looks like a new openness is really part of the government's drive to stymie more troublesome independent news outlets.

Within hours of the explosion, Xinhua, the state-run news service, released a detailed account of events in both Chinese and English.

But when a local TV station tried to get video at the scene, an official stopped the crew, saying, "Who gave permission for you to conduct a live broadcast?" and making them turn off the cameras, according to a post on the popular blog EastSouthWestNorth. That exchange was aired on live TV and itself soon went viral on the Internet.

The unequal treatment shows Beijing's unique, narrow concept of "press freedom" these days, and highlights the increasingly complex media landscape in today's China.

Once ham-handed censors who employed sweeping news blackouts, China's government is now playing an increasingly sophisticated game of message control. It is allowing national state-run media much more leeway in reporting disasters, in order to get ahead of the Twitter-clones and other sites before the Internet rumor mill gets out of hand and causes public disturbances.

But at the same time, the government is limiting other, independent media coverage -- either blocking it outright or ordering journalists to use officially sanctioned reports from state-run media instead of their own reporting.

"We are not seeing more openness so much as much more clever management of disaster reporting," said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based China watcher and scholar, in an e-mail. "Officials are becoming more adept at getting ahead of the notification curve -- the coverage on the Internet and through cellphones."

Greenpeace / AFP / Getty Images

The game played by officials has become increasingly complex as it seeks to balance the state's overriding interest in social stability with the desires of China's 420 million Internet users to express themselves more freely in chat rooms, blogs and micro-blogs, in line with China's modernization.

"Officials worry about too much information flying in different directions, so they want to control the message," said Dali Yang, head of the University of Chicago Center in Beijing. "In the Nanjing case, they were worried -- especially with Twitter and all that -- that they would lose control of the message and let rumors get ahead of the facts."

Twitter is blocked in China, but similar services run by Chinese companies have recently boomed in popularity.

"So officials are trying to respond to the need for information, but also to restrain media by making them follow the lead of Xinhua and the China Daily," Yang said.

China has adopted that approach for a variety of bad news. When a recent spate of suicides at a factory in southern China drew widespread attention, for example, China at first gave the media a free hand. Journalists crowded the campus of the company Foxconn, where the suicides occurred.

But on May 27, according to the South China Morning Post, a directive came down from central and provincial propaganda units to local media outlets: There was to be no more independent reporting on the Foxconn suicides; use Xinhua reports instead.

In the case of another recent disaster, the situation is murkier. On July 16, two oil pipelines exploded in the port city of Dalian, on China's northeast coast, leading to massive fires and what Greenpeace China says is China's worst-ever oil-spill.

Yang Ailun, head of climate and energy for Greenpeace China, said in a phone interview that she didn't know if or to what extent the government had controlled media coverage, but that the accident hadn't received the press it deserved.

"We felt quite puzzled," said Yang. "With a disaster of this scale, there was not enough domestic media attention to this. It could be part of media censorship."

She said Xinhua was covering the story, but its reports were not sufficient in terms of warning the public which beaches and areas would be affected by the spill.

"For a disaster like this, you need daily reports to warn people," said Yang. "We noticed only a couple of state media, and [Communist] Party media were active. And other media were not as active."

Original site

U.S., Vietnam get closer

2011-07-31T12:36:00.002+08:00

Clinton's Visit to Vietnam Highlights Warmer Ties

AOL News

(July 23) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton discussed military cooperation with Vietnam in Hanoi today, in the latest sign that relations between one-time bitter enemies are warming.

The two countries are forging better ties, pushed in part by mutual concerns over China's expansionism in the South China Sea, as well as a desire to expand trade and investment.

But Clinton also raised concerns about human rights in Vietnam, highlighting the sharp differences that remain between Washington and Hanoi's autocratic, communist-party-controlled state, which sharply limits dissent.

Paul J. Richards, AFP / Getty Images

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held a news conference in Hanoi with Pham Gia Khiem, Vietnam's deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

Clinton is in Vietnam to attend the 27-nation ASEAN regional forum. She discussed defense cooperation with Vietnam, according to Bloomberg, and said Washington is prepared to take U.S.-Vietnam relations to the "next level," according to a transcript of her remarks from the State Department.

"The United States will continue to urge Vietnam to strengthen its commitment to human rights and give its people a greater say over the direction of their lives," Clinton said in Hanoi, according to The New York Times. "But our relationship is not fixed upon our differences. We have learned to see each other not as former enemies but as friends."

Some 58,000 Americans and at least 3 million Vietnamese were killed in the Vietnam War, which ended in 1975. Clinton said in Hanoi that the U.S. would also boost aid for Vietnamese still suffering effects of the widespread use of Agent Orange in that conflict, according to the Times.

Washington's ties with Hanoi were normalized in the 1990s during the presidency of the secretary of state's husband, Bill Clinton.

Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief for Defense News, said China's muscle-flexing in the South China Sea was helping to push the U.S. and Vietnam closer.

"There are still bumps in the road in U.S.-Vietnam relations," Minnick wrote in an e-mail. "There are still legacy issues with the older leaders of Vietnam who fought in the Vietnam War and still harbor anger at the U.S."

"But the opportunities for Vietnam greatly outnumber the negatives, and it's clear that many in the Pentagon see China's aggressive moves in the South China Sea as a plus for better ties with Vietnam," Minnick said. "The old saying still holds true: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'"

Both Vietnam and the U.S. had run-ins with China in the South China Sea last year.

Vietnam was incensed when China unilaterally declared its annual fishing ban in the South China Sea, then seized Vietnamese ships and detained two dozen Vietnamese fishermen for several weeks.

Also last year, Chinese fishing vessels harassed two U.S. Navy ships on patrols in the South China Sea, nearly causing a collision.

The U.S. conducts naval and air patrols off China's coast to establish the precedent of freedom of navigation and to spy on China. Washington insists such activity is legitimate as it is conducted outside China's territorial waters, defined as waters up to 12 nautical miles from a country's shoreline, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

But China views its territorial waters as extending 200 miles from its coast, the extent of its "Exclusive Economic Zone." It views U.S. patrols as a violation of its territory and has demanded that all ships or planes request Beijing's permission before traversing the South China Sea.

"China's assertiveness has caused anxieties in the region," Carlyle A. Thayer, professor of politics at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra, told Bloomberg.

China claims virtually all of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea as its own, and analysts say it has recently upgraded its claim to a "core interest," putting it on par with Beijing's claims over self-ruled Taiwan and Tibet.

China's claims overlap with five other countries (see map here.) It has fought two naval skirmishes with Vietnam over those claims, in 1974 and 1988. China won both engagements and now controls the Paracels. But Vietnam still claims those islands and views China as an occupying power.

Driving tensions in the South China Sea are potentially huge but unproven oil and natural gas resources (see factsheet from the U.S. government here). Energy-thirsty China pressured U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil to withdraw from a joint oil exploration project with Vietnam in 2008 in waters also claimed by Beijing, according to the U.S. State Department.

In Hanoi today, Clinton called the resolution of territorial disputes in the South China Sea a "leading diplomatic priority," according to Bloomberg, and called for negotiations.

"The United States supports a collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion," Clinton said, according to Bloomberg. "We oppose the use or threat of force by any claimant."

China has been pursuing a rapid and far-reaching military buildup with an eye toward backing up its claims and denying the U.S. Navy access to waters close to its shores.

Though still far from matching the U.S. military in overall capabilities and technology, it has been pouring money into submarines, including nuclear-armed subs, a new aircraft carrier expected to enter service in 2012 and other hardware.

China is also building up its cruise missile and short- and medium-range ballistic missile arsenal, and is believed to be developing an anti-ship ballistic missile, sometimes called a "carrier-buster," which one Washington think tank says that if deployed "could alter the strategic landscape in Asia-Pacific region and beyond."

Original site

Hungry Ghosts

Betel nut brouhaha

Double Jeopardy

Love Motel 2.0

Japan: Just-in-time workers

Red light fight

Taiwan's China envy

Asia's unsung flower power

Double jeopardy: Asia's death penalty debate

Double jeopardy: victims' families seek justice

Double jeopardy: trend toward abolition

Double jeopardy: Presumed guilty

Double jeopardy: A matter of 'face'

Keep your 'frenemies' close

China's military head games

Asia and Wikileaks

Red light fight

Who'd down with TPP?

Taipei After Hours

What's changed since Copenhagen?

Tough road ahead

Some progress

Alternatives to a deal

Losing patience with Pyongyang

Meet China's dolphin tribe

Underworld justice

What cross-strait thaw?

Famous Taiwanese actress Vivian Hsu was reduced to tears — and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Global Post, Nov. 1, 2010 TAIPEI, Taiwan — In terms of international news, it was barely a blip.

Japan besieged north and south

Asian space race heats up

The Asian space race is moving along slowly, but steadily – and China is in the lead, with technology that could give it a military advantage over the US.

The Asian space race

Is China's space exploration a military strategy?

China pulls ahead in moon race

Chinese Internet no threat to regime

Commercial bloggers cash in

Cartoonist Wanwan shows how enterprising Taiwanese turned blogs into big business

Brother gymnast goes viral

Black hand of Beijing

The Yellow Priest

North Korea's PR-challenged leader

Asia silent on Nobel winner

More than just business

China-Japan spat rattles nerves

Chinese Twitter clones

A promising islet

East Asia showdown

Plane baby sparks debate

Japan's FM in the Fire

Truman Show begins

China, Japan clash over islets

Chinese pilots faking it

Anti-Fils backlash

Small signs of progress

Reform, or hot air?

Tweaking the Old Masters

King coal = King jam?

Five bus hijackings

Botched bus rescue

Dance for the masses

China gets disaster-savvy

U.S., Vietnam get closer

Famous Taiwanese actress Vivian Hsu was reduced to tears — and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Global Post, Nov. 1, 2010

TAIPEI, Taiwan — In terms of international news, it was barely a blip.