What's changed since Copenhagen?

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

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.

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

Is the yuan too pricey?

The value of China's currency, the yuan, is one of the most hotly contested issues in US-China relations. The US says a high yuan is costing American jobs. But it also keeps consumer items, like TVs and computers, inexpensive. Will China soon adjust the value of its currency?

Christian Science Monitor, April 13, 2010

Washington agreed to postpone releasing a report that would have labeled China a currency manipulator. On Monday, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and President Obama spent little time discussing this source of ongoing tension in US-China relations. Many analysts suspect that China will soon quietly adjust the value of its currency, the yuan.

Here's a short Q&A on this complex issue:

How does the value of China's currency affect the average American?

The value of China's currency, the yuan or renminbi, affects the price of Chinese-made goods sold in the United States by retail stores such as Wal-Mart.

A cheap yuan makes Chinese products cheaper in the US. A stronger yuan would make TVs, computers, and other things made in China more expensive for American consumers.

Goods from China now make up nearly 20 percent of America's imports. In 2009, top imports from China included electrical equipment, apparel, toys and games, and furniture.

But US manufacturers are hurt by a cheap yuan. They say Chinese goods are sold at a sharp "discount" in the US. For example, a Chinese-made chair should sell for $100 in the US if the yuan was fairly valued, but now sells for $75, they say – undercutting American competitors, and thereby costing American jobs.

Is China's yuan really undervalued?

Most economists say, "yes." As evidence, they point to China's massive foreign-exchange reserves and its huge trade surplus.

The rapid growth in China's foreign-exchange reserves means China's central bank has bought huge numbers of US Treasury notes and other foreign currencies to keep down the value of the yuan. Last year alone China's foreign reserves increased by $450 billion, to total $2.4 trillion.

China's trade surplus means it's selling the world far more stuff than it's buying. Some observers look at that growing gap and infer that Chinese goods are too cheap abroad – and therefore, that the yuan is also too cheap.

The International Monetary Fund has also said that China's yuan is undervalued.

But a few prominent economists dispute this notion. They include Goldman Sachs's chief economist, Jim O'Neill, and Shanghai-based independent economist, Andy Xie. Mr. Xie says it's wrong to conclude from China's trade surplus that the yuan is undervalued. And he says China's yuan may even be overvalued due to speculative "hot money" that's fueling a property bubble in China and putting sharp upward pressure on its currency.

"China is in a huge mania," says Xie. "The No. 1 issue isn't the exchange rate, it's financial mania."

But don't market forces determine currency value?

China's currency markets are not free or completely open. China's central bank intervenes in its currency market to control the value of the yuan.

Here's how it works: Chinese exporters accumulate US dollars or other currencies from foreign customers. However, they need to pay their Chinese employees and suppliers in yuan.

Chinese exporters go to China's currency market to swap their dollars for yuan. With thousands of firms doing this, the demand for yuan is high. In a free currency market, this would push up the price of the yuan as demand outpaces supply.

To prevent that from happening, China's central bank increases the market supply of yuan. It sells as many extra yuan as the market wants, targeting a rate of around 6.83 to the US dollar.

"It's a massive operation," says Nicholas Lardy, a top expert on China's economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C. "For a big economy like China's, the scale of intervention in the market is without precedent in global history."

Why is China keeping its currency undervalued?

The short answer is that it keeps Chinese exports cheap. That helps Chinese firms make money and keeps China's export-driven factories humming. A cheap yuan also means political stability in a nation where tens of millions of Chinese peasants need jobs.

Economists say China didn't necessarily set out with the goal of a cheap yuan. In the late 1990s, the yuan was pegged to the US dollar at about 8.28 to 1. No one complained then, Mr. Lardy says, because the US dollar was strengthening.

The problems started around 2001, he says, when the US dollar weakened and took the yuan with it. The US and other trading partners watched with concern as China's trade surplus grew and its foreign-exchange reserves ballooned.

By that time, a powerful interest group had formed in China in support of a cheap yuan. This group included big exporters and politicians in China's coastal provinces, Lardy says. China's currency policy fueled export sales, and kept the money rolling in and the economy booming in those regions.

The US has been pushing China to revalue the yuan for years. When might China change its policy?

China has already changed its currency policy once before. In 2005, after a few years of pressure, it allowed the yuan to begin appreciating slowly. (Policy wonks call this a "managed float" policy.) From then until 2008, the yuan quietly gained more than 20 percent against the dollar.

China stopped doing this when the global economic downturn hit. It returned to a de facto peg to the US dollar. It did this to protect its exporters and ensure economic stability amid tough global conditions.

Now, economists say Beijing is waiting for clearer signs of a strong global recovery before going back to the "managed float" policy.

Lardy expects that China may begin allowing the yuan to appreciate against the dollar "in the next few weeks," and that we could see a 4 to 6 percent appreciation against the dollar by the end of the year.

"There are a lot of good domestic reasons for China to allow the renminbi to appreciate," says Lardy, including fighting inflation and helping create more service-sector jobs.

Xie also thinks Beijing may allow the yuan to appreciate this year, but only by a small amount. "China will not be able to make a change big enough to make Americans happy – it's impossible," Xie says.

Original site

Japan labor reforms panned

Reforms to protect temporary workers – now about one-third of the workforce – were met with criticism on both sides. Firms say they need a flexible workforce, while laborers say too many loopholes remain.

Christian Science Monitor, March 22, 2010

Nagoya, Japan -- Japan's center-left government approved a bill limiting the hiring of temporary workers Friday, in a bid to reverse years of labor deregulation that it says went too far in favoring big business at the expense of workers.

But the proposals have drawn fire from all sides. Businesses and some economists say firms need flexible labor to remain lean amid fierce global competition. Meanwhile, some workers and small unions argue that the reforms don’t go far enough.

The cool reception reflects growing disillusionment with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which took power last year with lofty ambitions but is now being dealt a reality check on some of its pet policies.

It's been forced to retreat on several issues – scaling back a populist pledge to slash highway tolls, for example, and cutting in half its proposed child-rearing subsidy, from 26,000 to 13,000 yen ($145), at least in the first year of implementation.

Meanwhile, the DPJ cabinet's approval ratings have plunged to 34 percent, from around 70 percent when it took power, according to the latest poll from the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.

The labor bill is just the latest example of the DPJ's struggle to balance competing priorities while playing complex coalition politics.

"People are getting more and more frustrated about increasing inequality, and the DPJ has to take care of this national frustration," says Koji Murata, a professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, about the labor bill.

"But this type of regulation may decrease Japanese companies' competitiveness. That's a Catch-22 for the Japanese economy."

Promises, promises

The measure fulfills a campaign pledge made by the DPJ during last summer's election campaign.

The bill approved by the cabinet Friday will ban "dispatch" work, or short-term contract work arranged through a third company, in the manufacturing sector. That rolls back liberalization measures in 2004 under the more business-friendly Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government.

The new measures would also ban one-or two-day dispatch work contracts.

The bill now goes to the Diet, or parliament, where it is expected to pass within weeks.

Such measures are a response to widespread indignation over the mass firing of dispatch laborers when the recession hit in 2008.

Dispatch workers, along with part-time, subcontract, and other nonpermanent labor, now make up about one-third of Japan's 56 million-strong workforce.

The labor reforms are supported by Rengo, Japan's largest trade union confederation and a pillar of DPJ support. Most of its nearly 7 million members are permanent, full-time workers at big-name firms like Toyota and Panasonic.

But former dispatch workers, activists, and smaller unions representing temp workers say the changes won't take effect for three to five years, and that firms will easily find ways to sidestep the new measures.

‘Just in time’ workforce

As recently as the 1980s, Japan was famous for its social bargain. Salarymen gave firms long hours and unquestioned loyalty, and in return, companies took care of them for life.

Firms began relying on temporary labor in the late 1990s, with the help of LDP-led deregulation, says Yasushi Iguchi, a labor expert at Kwansei Gakuin University. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policies accelerated that trend.

Firms took on more part-time workers, dispatch labor, migrant labor from depressed regions like the northern island of Hokkaido, and foreign labor, especially Brazilians of Japanese descent and low-paid Chinese "trainees."

In 1999, 26 specialized sectors were allowed to hire dispatch labor, he said, and in 2004, dispatch work was allowed in manufacturing firms. Dispatch labor boomed, peaking at 2.2 million in 2007, only to plunge during the global recession as firms shed workers.

Mr. Iguchi called such dispatch labor a "just-in-time" workforce, complementing the famous "just-in-time" manufacturing model of Japan's corporate titans like Toyota. Workers are hired only when needed, and cut when orders are slack.

Such an arrangement has helped Japanese firms control costs. But it provides little security for workers, who are paid less and receive fewer benefits than permanent, directly hired employees.

Skeptical workers

At a union office in Japan's manufacturing heartland, one tousle-haired former dispatch worker, who did not want his name used, told a typical tale.

He worked for 6-1/2 years as a dispatch worker for Mitsubishi Electric in Aichi Prefecture. He clocked 60-hour weeks and had the same responsibilities as permanent workers. But he earned less than half of what they made, only 1,120 yen (about $12.40) per hour.

Mitsubishi sometimes gave two or three dispatch workers permanent jobs, giving hope to the rest. "Me and my co-workers thought, maybe one day we'll be taken on, too," he says.

Instead, in December 2008 he and 40 other dispatch workers in his unit were summoned by Mitsubishi bosses and fired, with a week's notice. The recession had hit with full force and they were no longer needed; the unit's 20 permanent employees would stay on.

Now, he's supporting his wife and child with a job training allowance provided by the government, which he can receive for six months.

He and two other former dispatch workers have taken legal action against Mitsubishi. They're asking for 6 million yen ($66,000) each in compensation. They argue that under labor regulations, Mitsubishi was required to offer permanent employment after three years of work. Mitsubishi Electric declined comment, saying the case was still in litigation.

The worker says the DPJ's reforms don't go far enough. "They're no good," he says flatly. "People will still be able to be fired easily, and in practice nothing will change for workers like me."

The wrong solution?

Chie Matsumoto, a Tokyo-based labor rights activist, agrees. "There are other temporary employment systems in Japan that would still leave working conditions unstable," she says.

Iguchi, the labor economist, says firms will simply turn to other avenues of hiring nonpermanent workers. He says that improving unemployment benefits would have more impact.

The government should also enforce equal pay for equal work, he says, to close the wage gap between regular and "irregular" workers. He cites research showing that a full-time male worker in Japan typically makes more than three times what a part-time female worker makes for the same work.

"The idea that if you ban dispatch labor you'll have no 'working poor' – it's an illusion," he says.

Saichi Kurematsu, chairperson of the Aichi Prefectural Federation of Trade Unions, says some of the new measures were welcome, such as banning one-day contracts.

But he says 70 percent of the dispatch workers fired during the recent recession were on monthly contracts, not daily ones. He called for better unemployment benefits, and said companies should be required to offer permanent employment to any temps who work for them for longer than a year.

"During the Koizumi government, the liberalization of labor rules created a very difficult situation for workers," says Mr. Kurematsu. "We were very happy to see that administration thrown out. But after six months [of DPJ-led government], we're less happy."

"We think the reforms are insufficient," he says. "They don't deal with the real problems."

Original site

Bluefin battle heats up

Bluefin tuna ban tops concerns at CITES endangered species meeting

Christian Science Monitor, March 16, 2010

The bluefin tuna battle is heating up, with Japan saying it has China's support in opposing a ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna.

If true, that would set the two Asian powers against the US and the European Union over the divisive issue.

Japan has been pushing its case as the meeting in Qatar of the 175-nation Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) gets under way, reports Agence France-Presse.

IN PICTURES: Controversial foods

Japan on Tuesday said it has China's support in opposing a global ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna that is now being debated at an international meeting in Qatar.

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said that "we will do our best" to block a trade ban, which has US and European Union support, at the world talks on wildlife protection.

"China has not announced its stance officially, but is actively lobbying other countries to oppose" the ban, Akamatsu told reporters in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, the radical antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd, fresh from its harassment of the Japanese whaling fleet, says it will now send ships to the Mediterranean to protect bluefin tuna by cutting fishing nets, reports Australia's ABC News.

The proposed ban is the hottest issue at the CITES gathering. The issue will be debated this week. A two-thirds majority is needed to pass the ban.

The bluefin tuna ban is among a number of initiatives being considered at CITES because of growing concern over sustainability, according to the UN Environmental Programme.

Many of these proposals reflect growing international concern about the accelerating destruction of the world's marine and forest ecosystems through overfishing and excessive logging, and the potential impacts of climate change on the biological resources of the planet. The UN General Assembly has declared 2010 the international year of biodiversity and the CITES Conference will be one of the key occasions governments will have this year to take action to protect biodiversity.

Activists said ahead of the CITES meeting that the vote was too close to call, according to New Zealand's TVNZ.

Japan, already in the hot seat for its whaling practices, is catching flak from environmentalists as the key country opposing the ban.

Japan consumes three-quarters of the global bluefin catch. Raw bluefin tuna is prized at Japanese seafood restaurants. Bluefin routinely fetch $10,000 for a single fish and sometimes far more at Tokyo markets.

Environmentalists say Atlantic bluefin are being fished at an unsustainable rate, and only a ban can save the species, argues Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, in the Huffington Post.

Shifting battle lines

The battle lines aren't quite the same as those over whaling, though. Australia -- one of Japan's fiercest critics on whaling -- has said it prefers more regulation to manage Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks, rather than an outright ban. Australia has its own lucrative industry fishing "southern" bluefin tuna.

The US supports a ban out of concern of the "longterm viability" of the bluefin tuna, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

While Western Atlantic bluefin spawning stocks have dropped by 82 percent from 1970 to 2007, those stocks have stabilized at “a very low” population level, the Interior Department reported.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks have continued to plummet 72 percent, with most of that drop occurring in the past decade. In 2007, just 78,724 metric tons of spawning biomass remained in the Eastern Atlantic from a peak of more than 305,000 tons in the mid-1950s, the department said.

Japan has said it would not comply with a bluefin ban, if passed.

Original site

Earthquake escalation?

The 6.4-magnitude Taiwan earthquake that hit on Thursday – on the heels of quakes in Haiti and Chile – raised concern of an accelerating trend. But the statistics say otherwise.

Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan -- The 6.4-magnitude Taiwan earthquake that hit Thursday on the heels of massive quakes in Haiti and Chile, has some worrying about a spike in seismic activity.

But there's no geological connection between those quakes, and nothing unusual in the number of recent big quakes, says Kuo Kai-wen, director of the Seismology Center of Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau.

"Because Haiti just happened, everyone's paying more attention to earthquakes," says Mr. Kuo. "But the activity is normal – it's not so scary."

IN PICTURES: Images from the Taiwan earthquake

About 64 injuries have been reported from Taiwan's quake, which hit about 250 miles south of Taipei at 8:18 am local time and was followed by several aftershocks. But it triggered power outages, halted high-speed rail service, and caused panic as people ran out of schools and homes.

Kuo says the Taiwan, Chile, and Haiti quakes involved different tectonic plates. Globally, he says, there's an average of one magnitude 8 or higher earthquake per year, some 17 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, and 170 to 180 of magnitude 6 or larger.

So far this year there's only been one quake higher than 8 – Chile's fearsome, 8.8 magnitude temblor. Last year there were 16 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, right at the average. And so far this year there have been three magnitude 7 or higher quakes, including Haiti's.

"From a global view, that's not especially a lot," says Kuo.

Taiwan is frequently rocked by quakes, experiencing one of magnitude 7 or higher every five years and a quake of magnitude 6 or higher every 100 days. "We've only had one like this so far this year, so that's still normal," says Kuo.

Kuo's numbers were from the Richter or "local" magnitude scale, which is slightly different from the "moment magnitude" scale used by the US Geological Survey.

Original site

Japan pushes nuclear power

Japan sees green in new nuclear power plants

Christian Science Monitor, March 1, 2010

Tokyo and Matsuyama, Japan -- Japan is pressing ahead with an expansion of nuclear power, despite public unease and vocal opposition from activists.

Poor in natural resources, the country has long dreamed of reducing its fossil fuel dependency through domestic nuclear power. Now it's casting nuclear energy as a key to the fight against global warming, an argument that critics reject.

Japan's debate closely mirrors those worldwide, as governments highlight nuclear power as an easier way to cut carbon emissions than boosting wind and solar power.

President Obama, for example, on Feb. 16 announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build the first nuclear reactors in the United States in 30 years – the first of many, he promised.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has pledged to cut Japan's carbon emissions to 75 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, if other major economies set similar targets. His government recently backed a plan for low-interest loans for new nuclear reactors.

"If we want to do this 25 percent reduction, obviously we need more nuclear plants," says Shunsuke Kondo, chairman of Japan's Atomic Energy Commission.

But the public isn't entirely convinced. According to the Japanese cabinet's own poll last November, 54 percent say they feel anxious or uneasy about nuclear power, with the top concern being the risk of an accident. Forty-two percent said they feel "safe" about nuclear power.

Meanwhile, activists criticize Japan's nuclear program as dangerous, expensive, and impractical. One concern is Japan's earthquake-prone geology, which they cite in raising the specter of a quake-induced Chernobyl. Just on Saturday, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit off Japan's southern coast, shaking Okinawa and nearby islands and rupturing water pipes.

In recent months, activists have focused their ire on the government's introduction of "pluthermal" fuel in nuclear plants. The term refers to the use of mixed uranium-plutonium fuel known as MOX (mixed-oxide) fuel.

The government touts pluthermal as a way to reuse spent fuel, saying it's more efficient and produces less high-level radioactive waste than normal reactors. It first introduced MOX fuel at a nuclear plant last year. That drew weeks of protests from activists.

A second plant, at Ikata, near the port city of Matsuyama, is set to use MOX fuel in March. "MOX fuel is many times more dangerous than uranium fuel," says Makoto Kondo, a longtime opponent of the Ikata plant. "When it comes to blasts or accidents, far more devastating damage would occur with pluthermal reactors."

Ambitious plans

Officials acknowledge they must work harder to win public trust. But they insist that nuclear plants are safe.

Japan now gets about a third of its electric power from some 54 nuclear power plants. It hopes to build eight more by 2018, boost capacity at its existing plants, and upgrade more plants into pluthermal ones.

The Atomic Energy Commission's Mr. Kondo and other officials say using MOX fuel allows Japan to recycle its energy resources. Japan currently sends spent fuel to Europe, where it is reprocessed into MOX fuel and shipped back. "The simple reason for using plutonium is because we want to use our resources as best as we can," Kondo says, adding that MOX fuel has been used safely in Europe for years.

He says Japan's plants were built to withstand all but a "once in 10,000 year" earthquake. But he acknowledges that since Japan switched on its first reactors in the 1960s, three quakes have produced vibrations exceeding design assumptions. (Large safety margins in construction prevented any major accidents in those cases, he says.)

According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), nearly a third of Japan's planned carbon reduction targets by 2020 will come from nuclear power, making it the biggest source of carbon-emission cuts after energy conservation (60 percent).

In contrast, the government expects less than 6 percent of cuts to come from renewable energies.

"Nuclear power is one of the important sources of Hatoyama's target," says Katsuyuki Tada, a deputy director at METI.

For Japanese planners, the goal is to achieve a self-sufficient "nuclear cycle," with fast-breeder reactors sending spent fuel to Japan's own reprocessing plants, to be turned into MOX fuel.

Public opposition

But critics say it's a costly and risky pipe dream. The fast-breeder reactor program is technically daunting and has been plagued by delays; 2050 is the current target for commercial use.

Japan is set to begin reprocessing this year or next, after many delays, and hopes to produce MOX fuel by 2015.

There's also a proliferation and terrorism risk. MOX fuel is a tightly regulated material that could be used to make a "dirty bomb." It's transported by custom-built, armed ships with an elite police detail.

Disposal is also a question. Like many countries, Japan has yet to establish a permanent storage site for high-level radioactive waste, and "not in my backyard" sentiment runs high.

But as even the activists admit, those concerns don't look likely to dissuade the government.

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Whaling on trial?

Two Greenpeace activists in Japan face up to 10 years in prison for tactics used in exposing black market sales of whale meat. Anti-whaling groups hope Monday's trial helps turn Japanese public opinion against the whale harvest.

Christian Science Monitor, February 14, 2010

Tokyo -- The menu reads like a "save the whales" activist's nightmare.

There's "gristle of the whale upper jaw" (750 yen or about $8). "Sliced raw whale heart" (750 yen). The variety platter: "five kinds of whale dainty bits" (2,800 yen).

At this elegant restaurant in Tokyo's bustling Shibuya neighborhood, some 20 customers dine on whale (kujira) as soft jazz plays. In more casual kujira joints on Tokyo's outskirts, a small, more working-class clientele does the same.

Such meals are at the heart of a perennial debate over Japanese whaling, and recently made headlines again with the collision of a ship from antiwhaling group Sea Shepherd and a Japanese "research" vessel.

Defenders of the practice here say whale hunting and consumption are part of a treasured heritage. Japanese antiwhaling activists dispute that, and join foreign critics, especially in the United States and Europe, who decry whaling as barbaric.

Now, Japan's antiwhaling forces are hoping to use a trial – that begins Monday – of two Greenpeace Japan activists to sway public opinion here against the practice.

Whaling as a cultural tradition

Konomu Kubo of the Japan Whaling Association – a nonprofit that promotes resumption of commercial whaling – says the controversy is stirred up by a few mostly foreign activists. "The Japanese people have used whale and whale meat as a valuable food source since ancient times," he says. "Such indigenous culture should be respected by other countries."

Commercial whaling was banned in the 1980s by the International Whaling Commission (IWC). But Norway still whales under a formal "objection." Iceland has also engaged in off-and-on whaling by that means and under the name of scientific research. Several indigenous groups are allowed limited catches, and non-IWC members Indonesia and the Philippines also catch whales in small numbers.

Japan's fleet has caught more than 500 whales per season in recent years in the Southern Ocean, and more than 350 in the North Pacific, according to Japan's Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs Japan's whaling program.

While the institute declined an interview request, Mr. Kubo of the Japan Whaling Association says the institute produces between 4,000 and 4,500 metric tons of whale meat per year from its research program. Most of that ends up on restaurant tables, likely including the Shibuya shop (the manager at the Shibuya restaurant declined a request for an interview).

Fried whale meat used to be served in school lunches, though that's now limited to a few coastal communities, Kubo says. He adds that Japan supports "sustainable" whaling, meaning it does not kill endangered or depleted species, but targets more abundant species like the minke whale.

He says Japan has a low "food self-sufficiency," and must secure its own food resources. He complains that the IWC promised to review the moratorium by 1990, but did not.

"Public opinion strongly supports whaling," asserts Kubo, though he acknowledges less support from young Japanese. "What we are afraid of is that the whale meat diet culture will disappear.

Reliable polls are hard to come by. The whaling association points to a 2002 survey by the prime minister's office, and could not provide more recent numbers. That poll found 76 percent support for hunting minke whales, if such whaling were "based on scientific evidence so that there was no adverse impact on whale resources." Ten percent of those polled were opposed.

The latest poll commissioned by Greenpeace Japan from 2008 found 44 percent of respondents were neither for nor against resuming commercial whaling; 31 percent were pro and 25 percent were against. But the poll, by the Nippon Research Center, only sampled those who signed up on a website.

Taxpayer money subsidizes 'research'

Greenpeace Japan says change is more likely under the new Democratic Party of Japan-led government, which has railed against wasteful spending.

Junichi Sato, an activist with Greenpeace Japan, says pro-whaling groups were "switching the argument" because their scientific research defense was not persuasive. Mr. Sato says Japan didn't begin large-scale whaling off Antarctica until after World War II, and used equipment and ships imported from Norway.

Sato argues that the government uses taxpayer money – 500 million yen per year (about $5.5 million), according to his group – to subsidize "research" whaling. He's one of two Greenpeace Japan activists who in 2008 alleged embezzlement of whale meat by research vessel crews.

The two were later charged with theft and trespassing over their obtaining of a package of whale meat at a transport depot, which they later turned over to prosecutors. They face 10 years' jail time, and their trial – with testimony from a "whistle-blower" inside the whaling industry and two whaling fleet crew members – is set to open Monday.

Sato and other activists hope to turn the event into a trial on Japanese whaling.

"The protests have to come from the Japanese public, saying 'This is a waste of taxpayers' money,' " said Sato. "We as Japanese citizens are losing so much respect from the international community on this issue, and more Japanese are starting to realize that."

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Japan builds 'hydrogen highway'

Japanese carmakers, such as Toyota, are developing an affordable hydrogen car using fuel cells. Meanwhile, the government and energy companies are funding hydrogen refueling stations needed for the cars' widespread use.

Christian Science Monitor, February 1, 2010

Yokohama, Japan -- Fill 'er up -- with hydrogen.

It may still sound like science fiction to some. But Japan is taking a lead in making zero-emissions hydrogen-fueled cars a reality.

It's part of the country's aspiration to cut its carbon emissions 80 percent by 2050; nearly a quarter of those emissions come from transportation. And it's a more urgent task in a country that imports all of its oil.

Japan leads Asia in early hydrogen-car infrastructure and is a world-beater in emerging fuel cell technologies.

"Hydrogen is still in very, very early days," cautions Ashvin Chotai, London-based managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia. "But in the area of green cars, Japan has been investing a lot further ahead than the Western companies in the last few years, and they have an edge."

Take Toyota. Last year they announced they hope to retail an "affordable" fuel-cell car by 2015. It would be next step toward what the firm calls the "ultimate eco-car," after today's popular hybrids like the Prius, the "plug-in" hybrids that just came on the market, and fully electric vehicles.

Long term, Toyota sees hydrogen-fueled cars as ideal for long-haul driving, with plug-in hybrids better for mid-range driving and electrics best for short-range commuting.

That's because fuel-cell cars have a much longer range from one fueling: more than 500 miles already, in a test run of a Toyota vehicle last year in Japan, compared to a maximum 125-mile per charge range with electric vehicles.

Building hydrogen highways

But as with electric vehicles, the biggest hurdle is a lack of power stations. "Fueling infrastructure is the joker in the whole thing," says Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco. "You can't have fuel cell vehicles without the infrastructure, and you can't have infrastructure without fuel cell vehicles."

The Japanese government is stepping in to address that chicken-and-egg problem. It's subsidizing fuel cell development and collaborating closely with energy and auto companies to build Japan's "hydrogen highway" of the future.

The government has subsidized 13 hydrogen stations for fuel-cell cars, covering at least half of the $5 million to $6 million per station cost, according to the Fuel Cell Commercialization Conference of Japan (energy firms have ponied up the rest). It hopes to build 40 to 50 more by 2015.

Japanese energy firms are actively working together with the government to build the hydrogen car infrastructure. Tomohide Satomi, of the Fuel Cell Commercialization Conference of Japan, says such firms are looking into the future and seeing a need to develop new products as gas sales decrease.

"To survive, they have to change the portfolio of their energy supply business," Mr. Satomi says. "So they're looking to the future. They have to seek new business areas besides gasoline."

He says Japan's hydrogen highway efforts are on par with those in the United States (particularly California) and Germany, and that it leads Asia, with South Korea close behind.

Not cheap, or 100 percent clean

At one such station in a harbor-side, industrial area of Yokohama City, the Japan Automobile Research Institute's Hideaki Matsushita showed off a fuel-cell demo model from Toyota. After a test drive, the car came to rest and a pool of water puddled under the exhaust pipe.

In fuel-cell vehicles, hydrogen fuel and oxygen flow over a fuel cell stack, producing the electricity that runs the motor; the byproduct is water. It's not a 100 percent "clean" energy source: currently one of the cheapest ways to produce hydrogen fuel uses natural gas.

Producing such fuel by "electrolysis" (combining electricity and water to create hydrogen) is the Holy Grail of green vehicles, but that's an exorbitant process for now.

At the Yokohama demo station, it's clear that fuel-cell vehicles aren't quite ready for prime time. The ideal customer is a millionaire – and a bodybuilder. For safety reasons, the pumping of high-pressure hydrogen fuel requires a heavy, rugged case and nozzle. A mechanical arm helps lift the nozzle to the car for fueling.

And a typical fuel-cell vehicle goes for about $1 million, according to Sayaka Shishido, of NEDO, the government's funding arm for fuel cell and other "new energy" development projects. Toyota leases its 14 fuel-cell vehicles in Japan for a cool $9,000 to $11,000 per month, to universities and local governments.

Target year: 2015

Ten years ago, the Japanese government hoped to have five million fuel cell cars on the roads by now. Satomi said that cost and durability issues were greatly under-estimated.

The new goal is more realistic, with a focus on building the necessary infrastructure for very small-scale commercialization by 2015.

Aside from infrastructure, other technical hurdles remain. One focus now is reducing the amount of expensive platinum used in each car. Many fuel cell vehicles now use around 100 grams; the goal is to whittle that down to just 10 grams.

Toyota says it's making progress: It has doubled the capacity of its hydrogen tanks in the past year, and sharply reduced the platinum it uses per car, to under 50 grams.

NEDO is funding research on reducing costs and improving fuel-cell durability. And it's confident about its commercialization targets, because auto and energy companies are on board.

"2015 – that will be the key year for Japan," says NEDO's Ms. Shishido. "This will be the starting year for utilization of fuel-cell vehicles by the general public.”

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Arms sale more symbol than substance

Riling China, the US's newest $6.4 billion sale includes 60 Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot missiles, and sophisticated command-and-control software.

Christian Science Monitor, February 18, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan -- The latest arms package for Taiwan, cleared for sale by the White House Jan. 29, has more political than military significance, military analysts say.

With Taiwan playing catch-up to a rapidly modernizing People's Liberation Army (PLA), the deal does little to alter a military balance that has tipped in China's favor.

But the arms do send a political message.

Beijing always objects loudly to US arms sales to the self-ruled island it views as its own. But China has reacted more strongly than usual to this $6.4 billion package, which includes 60 Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot missiles, minesweepers, Harpoon antiship missiles, and sophisticated command-and-control software.

And for the first time, it has threatened sanctions against firms involved in the deal, which include Boeing and Sikorsky Aircraft.

"It's not purely a military issue, it's a symbol," says Arthur Ding, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies (CAPS) in Taipei. "It signifies US support for Taiwan's democratic institutions, and for Taiwan this is very important."

Whatever the reason for China's sharper tone, it has little to do with the capabilities of the military gear offered to Taiwan, analysts say. "I don't think they're breakthrough items," says Lin Chong-pin, a professor of strategic studies at Taiwan's Tamkang University. "They're at most maintenance items."

Take the Patriots. China now has some 1,400 short-range ballistic missiles and scores of cruise missiles aimed at Taiwan. Lin said two or three Patriots are needed to knock out every Chinese missile; last week's package included 114 Patriots.

"It's a continuation of what we've been asking for, but not a great stride forward for our capabilities," says Mr. Lin.

The Blackhawks may be more significant for disaster relief on the typhoon- and flood-plagued island than for military use, he says. The command-and-control software has long been requested by Taiwan, and, according to Lin, "it doesn't make a huge difference."

Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief for Defense News, noted that the 12 Harpoon missiles were for training only.

He says the latest sale was for "legacy" weapons held over from the Bush administration; many of the others were released in 2007 and 2008. The Obama administration added nothing to the list of systems in the pipeline, he says, and left out Taiwan's more sensitive – and militarily significant – request for advanced F-16 fighters and submarines.

"There was nothing new in the release," says Mr. Minnick. "So the question is actually, 'Will the US continue to back Taiwan's defense needs?' "

Beijing has warned Washington not to sell the F-16s that Taiwan wants. And the submarines request has now likely been "killed," says Ding, of the CAPS.

US weighs its response

For several decades, Taiwan's vastly outnumbered military has counted on its edge in quality over the PLA. The PLA's modernization has erased that advantage, leaving Taiwan more dependent than ever on its chief deterrent: the US Navy's Seventh Fleet.

Now, China is developing and deploying submarines, destroyers, and missiles to keep the US out of a fight.

Of particular concern to US planners: an aircraft-carrier-busting antiship ballistic missile, now believed to be in development.

Those expanding capabilities have sparked a debate among Taiwan and US security analysts on how best to respond.

Taiwan's government touts a "preventive defensive" posture that it dubs the "Hard ROC" strategy, a play on Taiwan's formal name, the Republic of China.

In a 2008 essay that was widely discussed in Taiwan's security circles, retired US naval officer William Murray argued that the island should go further, adopting a so-called "porcupine strategy" focused strictly on hunkering down and hardening facilities.

Taiwan's own deterrent

But some in Taiwan say the island needs to strengthen its own offensive deterrent.

"If China continues to modernize its military force, they'll reach a level that our defensive-oriented posture could not withstand," says Ding. He argues Taiwan should develop precision-strike cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles as a deterrent, to "make China think twice" about any attack.

Tamkang University's Lin argues that Taiwan needs F-16s and submarines. But as a last resort, it should also develop a lower-tech deterrent to dissuade China from attempting an occupation of the island.

"Taiwan needs to develop its asymmetrical capabilities, because we cannot confront the PLA head-on," he says. He envisions home-grown, perhaps US-trained "cement jungle guerrilla warfare" units, consisting of trained reserves and snipers who can operate independently and harass PLA occupiers.

"When the PLA comes, let them in – don't engage in bloody, Stalingrad-type warfare," he says. "Give them one shot today, two tomorrow, and three afterward, so they cannot conclude a war."

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Scandal clouds Japan reform

The ruling Democratic Party of Japan vowed to shake up the country's powerful bureaucracy. Instead it's bogged down in a corruption probe against key strategist Ichiro Ozawa.

Christian Science Monitor, January 21, 2010

Tokyo -- Japan's ruling party is pushing back against a legal probe that could threaten its ambitious plans to reform the country’s politics.

The Democratic Party of Japan rode to power last August on a wave of populism. It vowed to take power away from bureaucrats and give it to the people's elected representatives, part of its lofty goal of making government more accountable and transparent.

But now, the party's main powerbroker, Ichiro Ozawa, is under investigation over allegedly accepting bribes and buying land with the money. Prosecutors raided his offices and arrested three former secretaries, and will question Ozawa himself on Saturday.

With its key strategist under a cloud, the party is casting the probe as the revenge of the bureaucrats for the new government's bid to curb their clout.

Ozawa himself lashed out against the probe in an address to party members last weekend, saying it "cast a shadow over the nation's democracy" and suggesting prosecutors may be politically motivated.

In a Jan. 15 interview at her office, Kuniko Tanioka, a DPJ upper house legislator, said she found it "puzzling" that prosecutors leaked so many details about an ongoing probe to the media. She suggested that some in the judiciary were trying to "extend some influence over politics."

"The bureaucracy looks at themselves as the victims of the change of government," said Ms. Tanioka. "[They're] forgetting the fact that they were themselves victimizing the people, and forgetting that the government is not theirs."

As one example of bureaucrats' past sins, she cited the recently revealed, secret deal by which Japan agreed to allow nuclear-armed United States vessels enter Japanese ports during the Cold war. As recently as last year, bureaucrats brought before the Diet insisted that no such deal existed, Tanioka said. "In other words, they were betraying the people."

Tanioka said the bureaucracy clings to an outdated mindset that has no place in 21st century Japan. "They still don't understand that the people are the rulers of the country," said Tanioka. "They are like tradition-worshippers – but society has changed drastically."

Locking the bureaucrats out

Since World War II, business-friendly coalitions led by the Liberal Democratic Party have governed through backroom deals and cozy relations with bureaucrats and big contractors. Often, LDP-appointed ministers were only figureheads, with the bureaucrats holding the real power.

Japan's new, center-left government promised to change that. The government's most visible champion of people power is Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a one-time human rights and environmental activist. He famously wrested from bureaucrats evidence of the spread of tainted blood when he served as health minister in the mid-1990s.

Kan was recently appointed to double as finance minister, a move widely seen here as a bid to tame one of Japan's most entrenched and powerful bureaucracies.

In Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's own e-mail letter early this month, he said the party had made progress in establishing more direct democracy. "The people's strong desire to change politics led to the change of government last year, allowing us to finally come to the starting line of a politics in which you, the people, will play the main roles."

Hatoyama cited as one example the scrapping of permanent vice-ministers’ meetings, "a tradition symbolic of the bureaucrat-led politics that had continued since the Meiji era."

The DPJ plans to increase the number of legislators appointed to vice-minister posts, increasing the clout of the people's direct representatives. Decisions are now made by such political appointees, with bureaucrats locked out of the room – a big change from the LDP days.

The bureaucrats have begun to grumble about the new order. In an article on Jan. 13, the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted anonymous bureaucrats from three ministries, all complaining about their reduced status, and more desk work.

"The ministry can't make decisions for hours because the three top-ranking politicians won't let any bureaucrats in," said one. "We now have to report every important matter to the minister and wait for his approval – it's time consuming," griped another. "Nothing can be done without the instructions of the three top-ranking politicians," said a third.

Other commentators have suggested that the DPJ may have gone too far in demonizing the bureaucracy, since it ultimately must rely on bureaucrats to implement its policies.

The DPJ is practicing "a kind of populism to appeal to the public by bashing the bureaucrats," says Mikitaka Masuyama, of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. "But in the long run, politicians and bureaucrats have to cooperate with each other."

But politicians losing appeal, too

The DPJ's revolution could yet prove short-lived. The Ozawa scandal, and the DPJ's mixed performance in power, have taken a toll: Polls this week showed approval ratings for the party had plunged to the low to mid 40s, from more than 70 percent after the party's election triumph last year.

The party faces an Upper House election in July that will test its hold on power. If Ozawa is charged and forced from his position as party secretary general, the DPJ would lose its "shadow shogun," the man credited as both the strategist who guided it to power, and the strongman who can enforce party solidarity.

The DPJ's Tanioka said the first half of this year would be a critical transition period, as the party establishes its "grip" over the bureaucracy and government. Despite the current troubles, she remains confident of victory in July, saying the public would give them more time to produce results.

"The Japanese people are very patient," said Tanioka. "They know that the rust and scars have accumulated for over 50 years, and the clean-up job is going to take some time."

Original site

Taiwan curbs US beef

Health concerns and angry protests have prompted partial bans on US beef imports in Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea – most recently by Taipei on Tuesday. The recurring dispute has strained relations.

Christian Science Monitor, January 5, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan -- Taiwan's restriction of some United States beef imports Tuesday highlights an ongoing source of friction in US-Asian trade relations.

In recent years US beef imports have become a lightning rod in East Asia, due to a potent mix of health concerns, nationalism, and political opportunism.

Beef has become a measure of whether governments are viewed as standing up for citizens' health or buckling to US pressure, says Koji Murata, a political science professor at Japan's Doshisha University.

"For junior partners of the US such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, this issue is a kind of symbol –of course, an exaggerated one – of American oppression," he says.

The move by Taiwan's legislature comes amid fears of mad cow disease, and criticism that President Ma Ying-jeou's government failed to consult the legislature or the public before lifting a partial ban on US beef in October.

The issue has strained Taiwan's ties with the US, even as the self-ruled island moves ever closer into China's economic orbit with a series of cross-strait commercial deals.

Taiwan legislators reached a consensus last week to revise a food law to ban the import of US ground beef, offal, and other beef products seen as posing a greater health risk.

That drew unusually harsh criticism from Washington, which accuses Taiwan of overturning an October deal that was signed after extensive negotiations and study.

"Science and facts – not politics or hyperbole – should govern our trade and economic relations," US trade and agriculture officials said in a statement. "This is a serious matter that concerns us greatly."

Politicized issue

Japan banned US beef imports in late 2003, after a single cow in the state of Washington was found to have mad cow disease. South Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian countries quickly followed suit. US beef exports plunged, hit especially hard by the ban in the No. 1 export market, Japan.

Japan reopened to some US beef imports in 2006, but restrictions remain.

South Korea's reopening to beef in 2008 under a US-friendly president sparked weeks of massive protests and a political crisis that had a nationalist, anti-American edge. Seoul ended up watering down a previous agreement with Washington, much as Taipei is doing now.

Park Kie-Duck, former president of South Korea's independent Sejong Institute, says anti-US beef protests were led by Web-savvy students who spread fears online. But the issue has resonated more broadly in East Asia because of countries' worry that their traditional agrarian identities are under threat.

"We see the agricultural industry as a kind of strategic industry, and people want to keep that industry safe," says Mr. Park. "That's why this issue is so sensitive."

In Taiwan, the scale of protests has been smaller, but emotions have also run high. Groceries and beef noodle restaurants have displayed anti-US beef logos.

On Tuesday, a man had the words "The people stand up" and a clenched fist tattooed to his back amid chanting anti-US beef protesters.

In late October, one student filmed himself eating what he claimed was a cow-dung burger in front of the Presidential Office, protesting that it was safer to eat than American beef. (See videoclip here.)

Lin Chong-Pin, a professor of strategic studies at Taiwan's Tamkang University, says resentful legislators from President Ma's own party had seized the beef issue to teach Ma a lesson.

"From Day 1 – Ma's inauguration – they felt they'd been ignored," says Professor Lin. "It's pent-up frustration that's finally found an outlet."

Promises of safety

US officials insist American beef is safe (see their factsheet here). They cite a 2007 World Organization for Animal Health decision, which said the US had appropriate measures in place to assure the safe export of its beef.

But the US has been embarrassed by export violations by its beef producers. Japan relaxed restrictions in 2006, only to renew them after banned bone parts were found in one shipment.

Last October, Japan banned beef imports from one meatpacking plant in Nebraska after banned parts were found in another shipment.

Such incidents have fueled distrust. "The perception is that the Americans are very sensitive to the import of Asian manufactured goods to the US but insensitive to exports of potentially dangerous food goods to Asia," says Doshisha University's Murata.

Washington has linked the beef issue with progress on a South Korea-US free trade deal – now languishing in Congress – and trade liberalization talks with Taiwan.

Those talks have been suspended since 2007, and observers say they may be further postponed over the latest beef controversy.

Original site

China-Taiwan talks hit headwinds

Taiwan and China unexpectedly nixed 1 of 4 deals during economic talks this week. The setback comes as Taiwan's China-friendly government is losing support – and has produced a rap video to try to win it back.

Christian Science Monitor, December 23, 2009

Taipei, Taiwan -- After a year and a half of ice-melting talks, Taiwan and China have yet to address political issues.

But even less-sensitive economic talks have now hit headwinds – a reminder of how difficult it will be to put aside a 50-year legacy of mistrust between these two longtime rivals.

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory, to be reunified, by force if need be.

The two sides signed three new agreements Tuesday, in the fourth round of talks since the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou took power in May 2008. The deals cover fishing workers, quality control for agricultural products, and standardizing product inspections and certifications.

But Taiwan's representative to the talks complained Tuesday that China has not fully implemented past agreements. And the two sides nixed a fourth agreement on taxation at the last minute.

That raised eyebrows, since such deals are generally negotiated and agreed upon well in advance of formal summits like Tuesday's.

"Sooner or later you're going to see this kind of failure to sign agreements," says George Tsai, a political analyst at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University. "But we were kind of surprised."

Taiwan's government blamed "technical problems" for the impasse, but local media reports suggested that the Chinese side introduced last-minute changes to the deal that were unacceptable to Taiwan.

Opposition to talks mounts

Meanwhile, a revitalized opposition mounted large-scale protests during the talks. It has slammed President Ma for conducting "black-box" negotiations with China that lack transparency and legislative oversight. And it has focused its fire on Ma's next agenda item, a trade deal with China.

On Tuesday, the two sides agreed to start talks on such a deal, the "Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement," with a target signing date of next summer.

The details of such a deal are still vague. Ma has said it would lower or remove cross-strait tariffs on a range of goods such as petrochemicals and auto parts.

But with support for his China policy appearing to slip and an election looming in 2012, Ma is now likely to move more slowly on cross-strait talks.

"Ma is going to take a more cautious and conservative attitude in dealing with China," says Professor Tsai. "That's why he's saying that ECFA has to be approved by the parliament, with more communication with the people."

Ma's party, the Kuomintang, did poorly in local elections earlier this month, which some saw as a repudiation of his China-friendly policies. A recent poll by one pro-KMT television station found that 52 percent thought Ma's policies "lean toward China too much," with only 27 percent "satisfied" with his performance.

Government tries a new tone

Faced with such numbers, Ma's government has shifted its tone to appear stronger on defending Taiwan's sovereignty.

"He's already blamed by many for pushing too hard too fast, and not getting enough in return," says Liao Da-chi, a political scientist at Taiwan's National Sun Yat-sen University. "This view is prevalent in Taiwan, and I think he got this message."

Taiwan official Chiang Pin-kung told Chinese officials and the media that the numbers of tourists and direct flights were below expectations. He chided China for failing to repatriate any white-collar Taiwanese criminals, as required by an agreement signed in May, and for failing to compensate Taiwan firms seeking damages from melamine-tainted Chinese products.

Taiwan's top official on China policy Lai Shin-yuan told China's negotiator that the hundreds of Chinese missiles deployed across from the island made Taiwanese "uncomfortable."

The government has even released a new, pro-Taiwan rap video, with such catchy lyrics as "The Republic of China [Taiwan's formal name] is a sovereign, independent country / Taiwan's fate will be decided by its 23 million people."

Cross-strait ties aiding economy

But Standard Chartered Bank economist Tony Phoo says that Taiwan had benefited from cross-strait deals, even if the change is slow.

"Cross-strait routes are beginning to become an important source of revenue for airlines," he says. “And Taiwan tourism is one of the few [markets] in the region where we still see growth in overall arrivals – and that's very much thanks to mainland Chinese tourists."

More than half a million Chinese tourists have visited Taiwan since a tourism deal was inked in June 2008, generating about $1 billion, according to government figures.

Some 270 cross-strait flights now take off weekly. And since a ban on Chinese investment was lifted in June, Taiwan has approved 22 cases totaling $37 million, according to the island's Investment Commission.

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