Declaration of Youth and Students in the Asia-Pacific Region on Education and Employment (Part II)

Our Commitment

We, the participants of this camp, thereby express our firm commitment to advance and uphold the right of the people to education and employment.

We affirm our conviction that education is a fundamental right and not a privilege. It must be free, compulsory, scientific, practical, competitive, nationalist, people-oriented and must respond to the people’s needs and interests. We demand that the budget for the military, for the repression of our people, be channeled to the much more necessary and productive use of educating our people. We recommend the introduction of an education tax coming from high-income earning people and sale of liquor and cigarettes/tobacco.

We demand an end to the commercialization and privatization of education and other dictates of neo-liberal globalization. Education should not be used as a means of getting profit but to serve the nation and people.

To this end, we call for a curriculum that is scientific, secular, and knowledge-based and also adopt sound and scientific examination system. It should be a curriculum that shall teach students to become nationalists, critical thinkers and progressive-minded. It must serve not the demands of the foreign job market but the needs of our countries.

Discrimination of women, indigenous peoples, cultural and gender minorities should be ended. Mother language or mother tongue education should be promoted and protected to enrich our people’s culture and make education more accessible for them.

Our teachers should be given necessary and up-to-date trainings as well as reasonable and standard salaries. The appointment of education ministers, heads and officials should be based on their merit and qualifications, not political biases.

We call on the government and school administrators to end their intervention in student affairs. Students should be given full academic freedom, which means freedom to publish, organize, speak, hold rallies and assemblies. Student publication, councils and governments should be fully independent, without intervention and fully supported by school administrations and governments.

With regards to employment, we call on our governments that all capable individuals be given full employment according to their qualifications, regardless of their sex, gender and race. Differently-abled individuals should be given full social security including living allowances, health care, etc.

The capitalist dictate of contractualization should be stopped immediately. All workers and employees in the private and public sector should be given full job security.

We demand for food sovereignty and security and the protection of the ownership of seeds to the farmers.

The labor-export policy of the government should also be stopped while the rights of migrant workers should be ensured and protected. We demand the free movement of people. Overseas workers should be paid salaries equal to those of the local workers in the respective countries.

The rights of women should be respected in the workplace. They should be given equal treatment, opportunities and equal wage for an equal amount of work. Discrimination, abuse and harassment should be stopped and apprehended.

The government should ensure that child labor be stopped and that working children be sent to schools to study.

The rights of workers should be respected and upheld according to the conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

We believe that the ultimate solution to these problems on employment and poverty is the end of feudalism along with autocratic, orthodox state and foreign intervention in our countries. Genuine and comprehensive land reform as well as national industrialization should likewise be realized. The process of industrialization and development should also be environmentally-friendly and sustainable. National sovereignty and the people’s right to self determination should be asserted and protected. All unequal treaties and agreements with capitalist nations should be ended and our countries should have an independent foreign policy.

In pursuit of these demands, we shall hold forums, symposia, rallies, demonstrations and peaceful mass movement to pressure our respective governments and involve more students and youth in our fight for our rights to education and employment.

These we declare in solidarity with all students and youth in the Asia-pacific region and the world who face, stand up to and unite to frustrate the onslaught of neo-liberal globalization.
Education is a fundamental right, not a privilege!Employment for all!Long live students and youth movements of Asia and the Pacific!Long live international solidarity!

Declaration of Youth and Students in the Asia-Pacific Region on Education and Employment (Part I)

Approved by all 30 participants of the Regional Youth Camp: You Act on Education and Employment held in Dhulikhel, Nepal on December 12-15, 2007

We, the young people from the Asia-Pacific region, gathering in solidarity with one another during the four-day (December 12-15) “You Act on Education and Employment Youth Camp” organized by the Asian Students Association (ASA) and host by All Nepal National Free Students' Union (ANNFSU) in Dhulikhel, Nepal, recognize the impacts of globalization and neo-liberalism on the education and employment of the youth and students in our region.

We recognize the impacts of the social and political crisis being experienced by our countries that have aggravated the condition of the youth and students. These include the fascism and repression being experienced by the peoples of Burma, Malaysia and Pakistan from their respective countries, and the state of undeclared Martial Law in the Philippines and militarization of the Northeast region, India. We know that minorities and oppressed nationalities are experiencing discrimination in their countries from their governments. We demand that the national emergency be withdrawn with all democratic rights returned to the people of Bangladesh as well as a transparent and credible election to be held to transfer the power to a democratically-elected government. We strongly condemn the Malaysian government for its repressive crackdown on the democratic movement and the minorities struggling for their rights and freedoms.

We also have expectations on the government of Nepal to respect the demands of the people after the successful April Revolution, which has led in the successful overthrow of their kingship and is in the process of nation-building and unifying their people for a future Democratic and Federal Republic of Nepal through the process of Constitution Assembly Election. We also demand that Burma saffron revolution led by Buddhist monks, students and people, democratization should be ensure through genuine dialogue. We demand that the suspended judiciary of Pakistan shall be restored and a free, fair and transparent election should be held under their supervision.

As we realize the political stability is vital in ensuring education and employment rights, we are strongly against the usage by the state of mechanism to crackdown on the youth and people movement.

On Education

We have identified commercialization and privatization, both of which are dictates of capitalist powers and the trend of neo-liberal globalization as a major commonality and trend in our countries. Both of these have raised issues of accessibility and quality of education especially for the underprivileged and the poor, making education a privilege to be enjoyed only by the few and the powerful.

In most countries, more and more students are dropping out of school or are unable to enter schools because of the rising cost of education. Our governments are reducing the budget and subsidy of our schools leading to a loss of necessary facilities and infrastructures such as classrooms, textbooks, teachers for quality education. These necessary funds are instead being transferred to military funds which are being used to suppress the people.

The lack of state subsidy on education and the manipulation by military governments and religious fundamentalists of curriculums have also caused a problem in the quality of education. Our schools are being used to train docile and semi-skilled workers for foreign markets or to become submissive to the government instead of being critical thinkers and nationalists.

Gender and racial discrimination are prevalent in our schools. Women are neglected in schools. Indigenous youth are refused their right to be educated in their own language.

Academic freedom is being suppressed in our schools and universities. These include the right to establish and run an independent student council/union and student publication, the rights to organize, assemble, hold protest rallies and speak against the injustices that we see in our land. Besides, we believe that the “freedoms to teach, research, publish and to speak extramurally” are the basics of academic freedom and should never be violated.

On Employment

We, too, face great problems with regards to our right to decent employment. In most countries, there is a great lack of employment opportunities and so our graduates and professionals are being forced to work in another land. As stated, our schools, universities and institutions are used to produce labor according to the demands of foreign nations and multinational corporations.

Wages and salaries remain low and barely enough for the survival of families for their daily livelihood. In our countries, the increase in the minimum wage, if there is any, fails in comparison to our country’s inflation rate and the rising cost of living.

Job security is also a major problem that we face. As imposed by the World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Economic Forum and Asian Development Bank, “contractualization” has become a matter of policy for employers, be it the government, private sector or multinational corporations.

The predominance of the feudal mode of production in our countries causes underemployment. Many people are being hired to jobs lower than their qualifications. University degree holders become mere clerks or service men. It has also forced our professionals to work in the bubble economy of Business Process Outsourcing such as call center jobs which one day shall implode leaving thousands upon thousands jobless.

Forced labor migration is a growing problem caused by unemployment. Instead of ensuring employment by creating new jobs that would hire our people, our governments encourage the export of cheap-labor as a source of foreign remittances to boost our nation’s sinking economies rather than use these productive labor force for the benefit our people and our nation.

There is a lack of necessary agreements between our governments and those of receiving countries, and as a result, migrant workers face great hardships in foreign nations and do not receive protection and support from our governments. Their jobs are usually characterized by three Ds (dirty, dangerous and difficult). They face discrimination, extreme exploitation, physical and mental abuse and are paid extremely low salary when compared to local and workers from the first world working in the same jobs. More so, they do not receive protection from both sending and host governments.

The situation of women workers continues to worsen. Their rights in the workplace are ignored. They are not provided with equal job opportunities as those given to men. They usually receive less for the same amount and quality of work done. They face gender discrimination in the workplace, especially sexual and physical harassment from other employees and employers.

Because of extreme poverty, the practice of child labor continues. Children are being forced to work in sweatshops and garbage collectors, become domestic helpers instead of going to school to become educated.

In factories, shops and the workplace, the rights of workers and trade unions are intentionally being denied by multinational corporations and local exploiting industrialists. Some are being denied their rights to hold strikes and pickets and to negotiate their demands.

China's Role in Burma Crisis

In response to Burma’s ruthless crackdown on pro-democracy protests, which has generated condemnation from the international community, Taiwan Thinktank held the seminar titled “Peace Forum: China’s Role in Burma Crisis” on October 8th at National Taiwan University Alumni Club. Peace Forum invited the following experts as panel participants: Chih-Cheng Lo (Member of Executive Committee, Taiwan Thinktank), Cheng-Yi Lin (Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica), Juo-Yu Lin (Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Tamkang University), Shih-Chung Liu (Vice Chair, Research and Planning Committee, Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and I-Chung Lai (Director, Department of International Affairs, Democratic Progressive Party).

Professor Lo, who served as the moderator, opened with his remarks on China’s attitude: China’s diplomatic and strategic calculations explain its silence on this crisis. China is currently negotiating the establishment of “Yunnan-Burma” oil pipeline with the military junta. Since the pipeline will allow China to diversify up to 80% of oil transportation risk (from over-relying on the route through Coast of Malacca), China hesitated expressing any negative sentiments against the Burmese junta. Professor Lo further pointed out that, as early as the end of last September, Taiwan’s government has issued an official press release condemning Burmese junta’s repression and advisory discouraging tourists from visiting Burma. Professor Lo saw this as indication of Taiwan’s awareness and concern over regional development. Perhaps Taiwan’s condemnation would not bring any concrete result, but this should not serve as an excuse for Taiwan to remain silent.

Research Fellow Lin viewed China’s response from another perspective. Besides worries over energy diplomacy, China is equally aware of Burmese junta’s long-term violation of human rights against the Burmese citizens. If China condemns the junta’s behaviors, it might incite domestic protests against its own human rights abuse. Lin pointed out that China is surrounded by Burma, North Korea and other Central Asian countries—all of them are authoritarian countries known for their extremely bad human rights records. However, this also acts as a protective shield—condemnation from the West is often “absorbed” by these countries, so the final impact on China is minimal if not non-existent.

Director Lai commented on Taiwan’s response to this crisis. He pointed out that the Democratic Progressive Party has signed onto statements made by several international organizations in additional to official statement that demanded China to adopt a more proactive attitude towards this crisis. Director Lai further suggested that law concerning political asylum, which is first drafted by Taiwan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, is still waiting to be passed by the Legislative Yuan. The latter should quicken its review and passage of this law, which is prerequisite for more complete and comprehensive regulations concerning political asylums.

Professor Lin, a Southeast Asia specialist with extensive field experience in Burma, stated that China is currently playing a two-pronged strategy: while it assists the Burmese junta, it also expresses willingness to transfer its support to Aung San Suu Kyi, if the latter returns to power. Professor Lin further stated that long-term struggles among military junta, democratic force headed by Aung San and minority groups have increased ASEAN members’ incentive to balance Burma and to prevent its internal struggle from affecting its neighbors. The ASEAN’s agreement to establish a human rights body reflects such intention.

Professor Lo concluded that this crisis consists of a dilemma for the international community: the latter is forced to choose between a drastic solution that is risky or a “wait and see” move that does not solve the problem at once but is safer. International community’s call for a talk between Aung Sang Suu Kyi and the military junta seems to indicate the latter. The military junta’s response to international pressure resembles China’s—repressing protests and activists unless noticed or condemned by the international community. Professor Lo stressed the importance of human rights issues. As human rights issues transpire any national border, it is an important topic for Taiwan as well. This crisis should prompt every Taiwanese to come up with ways to use human rights and freedom as basis to communicate with the international community.

Brief Comments on the Third-Term Election of District Councils of Hong Kong

Establishment of the District Councils of Hong Kong

The District Councils, known as District Boards before 1999, were the local consultative bodies serving the “administrative absorption of politics” goal for the British colonial government of Hong Kong. They were established accompanied with the Sino-British negotiation over Hong Kong issue in 1982. The official functions of the 18 District Boards of Hong Kong include 1) serving as a channel for Hong Kong people to have their say on local matters to the government; 2) improving bureaucratic efficiency through administrative coordination; 3) using the public funds allocated to the District for environmental improvements and the promotion of recreational and cultural activities. As a matter of fact, the establishment of District Boards, in addition to the Executive Council (ExCo) and the Legislation Council (LegCo), implies the “against China with democracy” attempt of the British colonial government.

Changes of District Council elections after 1997

In 1996, China set up the provisional LegCo and provisional District Boards after the proposal package of changes for the 1995 LegCo elections being deemed unconstitutional by Beijing. All members of District Boards remained seats, while the Chief Executive was given the power of appointing a fifth more new members to each District. In November 1999 the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) had the first District Boards election. There were a total of 519 District Boards members, of which 27 were ex officio members (Rural Committee Chairpersons in the New Terrotories); 102 were appointed members, and 390 returned by direct elections in the 18 Districts. Most of the appointed members were pro-China. On 2nd December 1999, under the then-Chief Executive Tung Chee Hwa's plan to streamline and centralize municipal services as part of his government's policy reforms, the HKSAR government decided to dissolve the Urban Council and the Regional Council. Since then, the name of District Boards were changed to District Councils, implies the administrative upgrade of the bodies.

In June 2006, in order to strengthen the local administration, the new Chief Executive Donald Tzang proposed to enlarge the power of District Boards of superintending local facilities, including libraries, community halls, recreational sites, gyms, swimming pools and minor construction funds. In addition, he set up the annual administrative meeting (chaired by himself) to enhance communication. Four Districts, including Wan Chai, Wong Tai Sin, Sai Kung and Tuen Mun, were selected for experiment of this proposal. The proposal is scheduled to take force in all 18 Districts in 2008.

The 2007 District Council elections result

The election result of District Councils was released on 18th November 2007. The pro-government Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) won a quarter (115) of seats out of its 177 candidates. Comparing with the 30% success rate in 2003, the 65% rate this time implies the increasing support of the DAB.

To the contrary, the pro-democracy camp lost seats in general. The Democratic Party, the biggest winner in 2003, won 59 seats out of its 108 candidates and made Lee Wing-tat, its vice-chairman, to resign. The Hong Kong Association for Democracy and People’s Livelihood (ADPL) lost eight seats this time, got 17 seats out of its 37 candidates, which made Fung Kin-kee, its chairman, to resign. The Civic Party won only eight seats out of its 42 candidates for its first time to join the District Councils election. The League of Social Democrates (LSD) won six seats, and the Liberal Party won 14 seats out of its 56 candidates. The Chairman Tien Pei-chun commented that the Liberal Party successfully remained its vantage.

Nevertheless, the election result is opposite to the expectation before the election. The reasons are as follows:

1. The July 1st effect has vanished after the recovery of Hong Kong stock market due to the political change agenda (proposed by Chief Exeutive Tzang), the CEPA and China’s allowing its tourists to visit Hong Kong;

2. The successful grassroot mobilization of the DAB since July 1st, which significantly increases the support for important DAB figures such as Ip Kwok-him (who supported Article 23 of Hong Kong Basic Law) and Choy So-yuk. However, the pro-democracy camp’s keeping putting an emphasis on political issues, such as June 4th and July 1st, and overly relying on political stars, leads to losing seats.

3. The different natures and levels of District Councils and LegCo—District Councils aim at providing immediate services for local communities; it has become DAB’s niche with financial support from Beijing.

4. The worsen income disparity—the Gini index is approximate 0.5—has reinforced reason 3.

5. The difficulty in negotiation within the pro-democracy camp—although Parties established the “Alliance of pro-democracy District Council Elections,” they competed against each other in seven Districts. The thorny part is too many young candidates competitng for too few seats.

6. The low turnout rate (38.83%, relative to 44.4% in 2003) is unfavourable to the pro-democracy camp. In addition, on the eve of District Council elections, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao announced the brake of stock policy and led to the slump of Heng Shen index; which significantly affected people’s interests in vote.

Haste brings no success in Hong Kong's democracy?

Since the interpretation of the dual general election by National People’s Congress (NPC), Hong Kong people have realized that democarcy requires proper sequence and have become more pragmatic. The triumph of DAB in 2007 might relieve Beijing’s misgivings about local democracy and allow HKSAR governments more room to promote democracy. And the failure of pro-democracy camp does not mean it has been repelled by the people; it means that the camp should revise its tactics in the two following aspects:

1. Democracy does not necessary guarantee votes; rather, to enhance the grassroot mobilization is more important;
2. Shifting focus to concrete structural issues.

On 2nd December it would have Hong Kong Island Legco by-election. The two front-runners are Anson Chan, the so-called “the conscience of Hong Kong” and Regina Ip, the former security minister who pushed the Article 23 of Hong Kong Basic Law. It is believed that the result of this by-election is an important symbolic index of democracy development of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s “democracy in the cage” cannot be put on a par with Taiwan’s democracy. To develop democracy with Beijing’s doctrine of “across the river by groping the stones” implies dangers. As the Chief Executive Tzang said, Hong Kong’s democracy is at the crossroad and needs to develop at proper pace; otherwise, it would arouse social discontent. This implies huge potentiality for pro-democracy camp.

The impact of the Inter-Korea Summit on the Korean Peninsula Security Environment

Right after the conclusion of the new round of the six parties talk that claimed to start the second phase of “disabling and dismantling” the North Korea nuclear weapon program, the Inter-Korea Summit began at early October in Pyongyang. Though this is the first summit seven years after the previous one, the observers in and out of the South Korea all seem to believe it will not achieve much.

Some observers believed that the reason for the out going President Roh to pushed for this summit is due to the need to improve the election momentum for his party’s presidential candidate, and to secure Roh’s own personal legacy. This is nothing more than Roh’s personal political show, as the argument goes. Some people also believe that the reason for Kim Jong-Il to agree on holding this summit is also to influence the upcoming South Korean presidential election on December 19th this year. Knowing that the opposition party (Grand National Party, GNP) candidate, the former city Mayor of Seoul, is having a big lead and that he might not be as accommodating as the North Korea wished to be, a summit whether that might set the tone for the next South Korean new president’s North Korean policy or that might bring down the momentum of GNP’s presidential candidate, is a task might be worth trying.
In a word, this Roh-Kim summit lacks the historical significance as the previous summit in year 2000, and people also question the adequacy of the timing. It was viewed from the outside as part of the Roh’s election agenda aiming to influence the South Korean domestic audience, not much strategic significance has been attached to it.

As the Inter-Korean Summit went on, it received criticism that the gesture was wrong (Why not wait for Kim Jong-Il to fulfill his promise to reciprocate a visit to Seoul seven years ago but going to Pyongyang instead?) and that it has been silent on the denuclearization of the North Korea. They also criticized the one-sidedness of the summit declaration: no qualification required on the North Korea part in order to obtain the South Korea assistance.

This leads to the outside suspicion that the South Korea has unilaterally decided to provide assistance regardless of the North Korea’s behavior in the denuclearization process defined in the six parties talk. This could give the decisive blow to the denuclearization effort. Thus, the Inter-Korean Summit has been regarded to pose negative impact upon the North Korea nuclear issue.

Despite the lack of direct mention of denuclearization of the North Korea, the most direct security impact of the summit declaration is the stated goal to transform the status quo of the Korean Peninsula from current armistice to a permanent peace regime. This effort corresponds to the fact that no peace treaty was signed after the 1950-1953 Korean war, only the temporary armistice reached between China, the North Korea and the United States.

Obviously, the task of transforming the temporary armistice into a permanent peace regime is a huge and complicated one. There are several issues to be sorted out. First, the North Korea has not accepted the legitimacy of the South Korea till today. How can a peace treaty be signed (with the South Korea in it) to replace the armistice in which the South Korea was not a signatory back in 1953 presents some interesting political and legal complexity.

Second, the roles of the United States and China cannot be ignored. Not only both of them are the signatories of the 1953 armistice, but the two major defense treaties of the Korean Peninsula also involve both parties: the Sino-North Korea defense treaty and the US-ROK alliance. The consequence of the permanent peace regime is the question whether the Sino-North Korea defense treaty and the US-ROK alliance can continue as such. Especially the defense of ROK from the North Korea attack is the reason for establishing the US-ROK alliance and justification for the presence of the US forces (as part of the overall United Nations peacekeeping force) in South Korea, the establishment of the peace regime will throw the legitimacy of the PRC-DPRK alliance and the US-ROK alliance into question.

Third, the whole bilateral hub-n-spoke security architecture the United States constructed in Asia could be put into question as well after a Korean Peninsula permanent peace regime being established. The US-ROK alliance is one critical leg of the US East Asian security architecture, besides the US-Japan alliance and the ANZUS treaty. The existence of the US-ROK alliance will automatically trigger the review of the whole security strategy the U.S. constructed along the bilateral defense treaty during the Cold War era.

Fourth, for the peace regime to gain any credibility, the denuclearization of the North Korea needs to be accomplished first. When the inter-Korea summit avoids touching upon the denuclearization issue and jumps to the task of establishing a permanent peace regime, it still needs to answer the question of how to settle the denuclearization problem. It is inconceivable that the countries like Japan, the United States (and China to a lesser extent) can be content with a peace deal in which the North Korea is allowed to retain its nuclear arsenal or even remain nuclear weaponry capable. No peace regime in the Korean Peninsula can be constructed without a satisfactory solution of the North Korea nuclear weapon problem.

This is not to say that a peace regime in the Korean Peninsula is not worth trying. It just highlighted how complex and difficult this issue is. All those factors mentioned above complicated a great deal of the peace regime proposal. With the seemingly lack of political support from major regional players, the inter-Korea summit does not seem to exercise much security impact in the foreseeable future. However, it did highlight one serious strategic loophole in the security consultation mechanism within the six parties talk framework: the inter-Korea relationship.

In the last 2-3 years, the U.S. policy circle tended to place the blame on Taiwan, South Korea and Japan for the worsening its bilateral relationship with the United States. The U.S. policy circle tended to accuse those three countries for prioritizing domestic needs than the geo-strategic consideration in which the U.S. national interest has a stake. However, it seems that the current state of the U.S. Asian policy decision and implementation provides no assurance either. The Northeast Asia diplomatic scene now presents a very interesting picture: the United States is quarrelling with Taiwan and the South Korea; the Japan is complaining about being ignored (some even charged betrayed) by the United States; China has been praising how well the coordination it has with the U.S. right now. The ironic picture that the U.S. found its best friend in Asia not in its treaty democratic ally, but in the most populous dictatorship is not very reassuring to many people in this region. Thus, how can the four major Asia-Pacific democracies: Taiwan, U.S., Japan and ROK, find a way to address this issue in the face of a rising China and a seemingly assertive North Korea, is a question pressing for immediate answer.

Taiwan should place greater emphasis on its relationship with Australia

Over the last few decades, Taiwan has placed most of its emphasis on its diplomatic relations with the US and Japan. It is true that the US has played the most important role in keeping Taiwan away from Communist aggression and providing peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Japan, as the US’s most important ally in Asia, has also played an important role in keeping the region’s stability with her economic strength as well as providing military bases, despite its non-aggression peace constitution. Therefore, it was natural for Taiwan to place greater diplomatic emphasis on these two countries.

But such diplomatic preference also has its downside, and that is it tends to overlook the importance of other nations, which may appear to have increasing influence on the international arena. Taiwan’s relationship with Australia could be the best example of such negligence.

Unlike the US-Japan or US-China relations often being put in tension over trading conflicts, Australia has always enjoyed an all round cosy relationship with the US. Australia has been the US’s most trusted ally in the Asia-Pacific region for a long time. They are both English speaking nations and have a lot in common—both of them have been allies since the Second World War, and now still enjoy close military ties through the ANZUS treaty. Plus, Australia’s deployment of military forces in Iraq and its firm cooperation and participation in the war against terror have further strengthened their military connections. It can be said if any military crisis in Asia that will cause the US’s intervention, Australia will be likely to stand side by side with their American counterpart in the trouble spot.

Besides formal military ties, Australia’s exertion of influence in the South Pacific is also in accordance with the US’s interests in the region. That is why President George W. Bush once described Australia as US’s “deputy sheriff” in an interview with The Australian newspaper. It simply shows the closeness between Australia and the US, especially between Bush administration and Howard government.

The South Pacific region is one of the regions where Taiwan enjoys higher diplomatic recognition as several nations having formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. However, if Taiwan wants to keep building further diplomatic recognition in the region, Taiwan will certainly need the goodwill from Australia. In addition to Australia’s military and political influences in the region, ever increasing demand of natural resources has given Australia more weight on the world stage. As China is developing its energy strategy, Australia’s standing in the region has imperceptibly lifted by this wave of resource boom. China has been keeping an eye on the resource rich state of Western Australia and recently set up a new consulate in Queensland, which is also targeting at its rich mineral reserve. Undoubtedly, with ever increasing bilateral trading figures, Australia and China will become more and more economically dependent on each other, and it is possible that China will try to influence Australia’s attitude towards Taiwan.

In comparison, Taiwan’s trading relation with Australia is gradually falling behind Australia’s other trading partners, and by constantly having frictions with Australia in the South Pacific region, Taiwan is alienating itself from the region and degrading its relationship with Australia.

Taiwan fails to develop a long term diplomatic strategy, and has been overlooking the importance of Australia in the Asia-Pacific region for a long time. It is because Taiwan has a diplomatic myth of leaning towards the US and the figure of nations with formal ties.

If Taiwan genuinely wants to improve its international standing, Taiwan should rethink its diplomatic strategy, place greater emphasis on Australia and make efforts in working with Australia to keep the region’s peace and stability.

We strongly support "Free Burma," while China doesn't

In September, rising oil prices in Burma led the Burmese including monks to massively protest against the military government. The protest was similar to the objectives of the democratic faction leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which hoped to end the military dictatorship as soon as possible. This was the biggest challenge posed to the military government in Burma after the bloody suppression of 1988. However, the Burmese military government ordered military troops to surround the main Buddhist temple of the capital Rangoon, while also arresting several monks.

Concerning the Burmese suppression, U.S. President George Bush appealed to the international community at the UN General Assembly to impose severe sanctions against the Burmese government. He also requested UN members to assist in ending the 19 years of terror reign in Burma. Besides focusing on the Burmese military government, global media emphasized China’s relationship with Burma as well. The UN Security Council called an emergency meeting on September 26, proposing to impose international sanctions against Burma. However, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, Wang Guangya, said that sanctions would not be helpful to the situation. Wang said that the Burmese military government needed to restore stability. His logical deduction on Burmese government’s suppression was to protect political power and to restore back the normal state of affairs. Even though Beijing called on the Burmese military government to restrain, Wang Guangya said, “The circumstances did not constitute an international or regional threat to peace.” Nevertheless, during President Bush’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Yang Jiechi, Bush demanded China’s intervention in assisting Burma’s democratization.

For a long period of time, China has being ignoring the Burmese military government’s suppression over human rights. On the surface, China did not want to get involved in Burmese domestic affairs, but in reality, China has its own strategic interests. The first one is that as soon as they criticized Burmese military suppression, it would be difficult to wash away the history of their own 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. The second reason is that Burma is China’s second largest trading partner. According to Chinese official statistics, trade between China and Burma reached US$1.4 billion in 2006. Chinese multinational corporations conducted ten major contracts involving the mining of jade, petroleum and natural gas with Burma. The third reason is that China has been involved in aiding Burmese military modernization, providing more than $1 billion worth of weaponry. China and the Burmese military government have maintained a close relationship (as shown in exhibit 1). The fourth reason is that China places a strong importance in the geo-political position of Burma, striving to make use of Burma’s vantage point at the harbor of the Indian Ocean and its proximity to African and Middle Eastern oil resources. This strategy will prevent a marine transit block in the South China Sea in case of a crisis.

◆ Exhibit 1 Exchange Visits between Chinese and Burmese High-Level Officials

Visits to Burma by Chinese Defense Ministry Officials:
Minister of Defense Chi Haotian (July 1995); Central Military Commission’s Vice Chairman, Zhang Wannian (April 1996); Lin Guanglie, Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (October 2006).

Visits to China by Officials of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar:
Than Shwe, Commander in Chief of Defense Services (October 1989); Vice Senior General Maung Aye (October 1996 and August 2003); Lieutenant-General Tin Aye (November 1994 and April 2000); General Thura Shwe Mann (December 2002 and January 2007); First Secretary Thein Sein (July 2004); etc.

Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China

China’s standpoint toward Burma is equal to China’s long-term assistance to Sudan and North Korea. The international community does not identify with China’s standpoint and has criticized China, hoping that China would take greater responsibility. On the other hand, Taiwan has protested against the suppression of democracy by the Burmese military government; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately showed critical concern for the Burmese people, delivered censure to the Burmese government and appealed to the international community to support the Burmese’ pursuit of freedom and democracy. The MOFA was “determined to support any efforts that would help Burma’s democratization.” In addition, Taiwanese civic groups have been providing care for a long-time at the Thai-Burmese border of Mae Sot by training local teachers and conducting computer initiation classes. The Mae Tao Clinic, which has also established a digital center of learning, is a collaborative effort between Taiwan and the Burmese refugee Dr. Cynthia Maung. One can easily observe that both sides of the Taiwan Strait have different viewpoints regarding the democracy development of Burma and different methods in handling the issues of Burma, of international peace and of human rights.

Notes on the Burma Issue

I. Reactions from major nations:

1) United States: The U.S. refused to issue visas for military officials and frozen Burmese Military Commander Than Shwe and 13 Burmese officials’ financial assets in the U.S. The U.S. has also urged China to exert its influence on Burma.
2) China: However, China along with Russia prevented the UN Security Council from imposing sanctions on Burma. China hoped that Burma could resolve the problem on its own, and addressed that China did not want to intervene in other countries’ domestic politics. China is Burma’s largest and most important trade partner, as well as economic and strategic ally. Burma is the most important axis for Chinese oil resources, as China experienced problems in transporting oil through the Strait of Malacca. Burma and China also made plans for building an economic zone stretching from Yunnan through Burma.
3) EU: The UK requested the EU to impose sanctions, and France summoned Burma’s envoy in France.
4) ASEAN: Representatives of the 9 countries in ASEAN (except Burma) drafted a strongly worded resolution on September 27, calling on the Burmese military government to exercise great restraint and to search for a political solution.
5) UN: The UN dispatched former UN Chief Political Deputy-Secretary Ibrahim Gambari as the “UN Secretary-General’s special envoy” to act as mediator and to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.

II. Measures by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Taiwan):

1) End of September—The MOFA informed representative in Thailand to remind more than 100 Taiwanese businessmen in Burma to watch out for security. Emergency measures were also established with domestic airliners for a possible evacuation scenario.
2) September 27—The MOFA raised the status of travel to Burma to “orange warning” (to defer travel).
3) September 28—The MOFA issued a press statement condemning the Burmese military government for its actions suppressing protesters.

III. Measures by the Presidential Office (Taiwan):

1) September 28—President Chen Shui-bian, representing the Taiwanese government, expressed strong condemnation and regret towards the anti-democratic, anti-human rights and anti-humane acts of violence by the Burmese military government. He also appealed to the world’s democratic forces to intervene in order to bring the people of Burma freedom, democracy and peace.
2) October 1—Vice President Annette Lu summoned the “Forum to Express Support for Burma Democratization,” announcing to combine public groups and under the Democratic Pacific Union (DPU) to establish the “Oceanic Network of Support for Burma Democratization.” This network is meant to use Taiwan’s democratic experience to assist Burma in taking the road to democracy.

IV. Actions that Taiwan can adopt:

1) Taiwan should appeal to the UN and the international community to keep paying attention to the Burma issue, and support foreign embassies and international organizations to impose sanctions on Burma.
2) Taiwan can create a join-declaration statement or a formal letter through the “Global New Democracies Conference” (to be held in January of next year) to express its support for Burma’s democratic movement.
3) Through human rights, volunteer and religious NGOs, Taiwan must continue to assist the Burmese democracy movement, and especially help the Burmese people to learn to use the Internet.
4) Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan should pass a resolution supporting democracy in Burma or establishing a U.S. and EU parliamentary link. For example, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, along with 16 U.S. Senators, sent a letter of support to Aung San Suu Kyi. Taiwan’s 44 female legislators can make a similar statement.
5) Various political parties need to support Burmese democratic activists; for example, the DPP supported Burma to be a member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) and Liberal International (LI).
6) Taiwan has to strengthen international communications and point out China’s tolerance towards the Burmese military government’s suppression of its people. Taiwan also should call for international support towards Aung San Suu Kyi to request China to take a greater responsibility in pressuring Military Commander Than Shwe and the Burmese government’s anti-democratic actions. In any case, Beijing Olympics should not become an “Olympics of Massacre.”

Reality and Hope in Burma (Part II)

The people of Burma were forced to move out from their home land, so as to find better lives and to get jobs supporting their love ones back home. 4 millions of illegal Burmese immigrant workers are in Thailand now; several millions of Burmese had also fled to Asia, Europe and North America for economic and political reasons over the past two decades.

International and regional communities have been trying to accept the military regime’s political roadmap, after the NLD was brutalized and its leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for twelve years. For a long period of time, the Burmese had no hope to restore democracy and freedom in Burma under the world’s longest constitution drafting.

Nonetheless, economic failure and political suppression were linked with SPDC’s price hike on basic fuel and natural gas in August 2007. The regime increased 500% of energy price ignited people’s anger, and student activists openly challenged the regime by demonstrating in Rangoon. The protest had spread around the country soon in late August, and major demonstrations thus took place in September 2007. To respond, the SPDC regime arrested students and NLD leaders, but it did not expect that religious institutions would turn a new political page.

Finally, Buddhist monks took a lead in the demonstration, chanting “Loving Kindness or Mitta Sutra” during peaceful demonstrations in Rangoon and other cities. People therefore joined monks’ protest under heavy rain for about one week during the second week of September. Buddhist monks also decided to call for three demands, asking the government to free all of the political prisoners, to seek for national reconciliation, and to create economic equality and stability.

Sadly, the reaction from military regime was simple—including firing at demonstrators, beating monks and killing many students on the streets. Furthermore, the regime used predawn attacks on Buddhist monasteries and arrested monks. Meanwhile, the Burmese government also used scary door-to-door search to look for demonstrators and political activists at night.

However, what the military regime failed to realize is that nowadays the information technology plays a very important role in supporting democracy and people’s uprising worldwide. This time, new generations of young Burmese have been using digital cameras, cellular phones and cam-recorders to send the world through the internet the information regarding the regime’s brutality and killings. The whole world witnessed this regime’s barbaric behavior and saw how its security forces abused monks and people.

The U.N.’s Security Council then intervened and condemned the regime’s crackdown, and it also pressured those generals to have dialogues with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and with other political actors. The whole world did not stay quiet and had called for democratic reform, asking the junta to share power with those political activists. The regime’s strong supporter, namely China, also called for the regime to use civil means to solve the domestic problems. Thus, international pressure against the regime has been maximized. Although the regime tried to resist these pressures from both internal and external domains, it seemed fail to do so.

In my view, the military regime’s ruling for almost two decades will come to an end eventually due to failing economy, corruptions, wrong economic policy and political suppressions against political reformers. During the past 20 years, the military regime used its military domination and intentionally created ethnic conflicts. The junta appears to be the main political actor at the political roadmap that it invented, and a new constitution seems to be no longer available. This year finally, the Burmese people expressed their support of a new political system; their action was witnessed by the international community, and even interest countries called for political reconciliation. There is no doubt that 54 millions of the Burmese certainly have the right to seek for better lives, in the hope that democracy and freedom will come in reality.

Reality and Hope in Burma (Part I)

It has been almost 20 years after the “September Revolution” or “Saffron Revolution” took place in Burma. Once again, this year the people of Burma and Buddhist monks joined together to resist the suppression from military regime under the economic disaster. Joining by political and religious leaders, the Burmese fulfilled the civic responsibility to resist the brutalization. What is more, they sacrificed their lives, which surprised the whole world after two decades of quietness. Indeed, military regime’s suppression seemed to be working for nearly two decades; however, people’s power and their resistance of military dictatorship has appeared to be renewed.

The history of Burma and its political landscape could be examined in the conflicts between ethnic minority and the majority Burmese, as well as the military dictatorships and democratic movement lasting for more than five decades. Ethnic armed forces fought with the central government, but they never extended the war zone beyond their own ethnic areas. The civil war in Burma simply created stronger Burmese army and allowed those Burmese generals to become influential political figures in Burma’s political arena. Unfortunately, the rural areas’ economy became much worse, due to the civil war and so-called “Burmese way to socialism.”

After the popular uprising in 1988, Burma’s military dictators renamed themselves as “State Peace and Development Council” (SPDC) and came to power. After the bloody suppression in 1988, this military regime had promised to initiate political reform by allowing people to form political parties (the right had been banned since 1962) and conducting democratic elections. In the 1990 elections, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of Burma’s independence hero, led National league for Democracy (NLD) and won 82 % of parliament seats, while the military regime supported former socialist government’s party, National Union Party, which secured only 3% of the seats. Nevertheless, the military regime refused to transfer the power to the NLD and arrested the NLD’s top and first lineup leaders; thousand of supporters were also jailed.

Why could the regime refuse to do any political reform and economic liberalization? There was a similar case of Taiwan also—Burma’s government has been receiving the People’s Republic of China’s support, just like the KMT regime in Taiwan received major political and bilateral security supports from the US government during the Cold War period. Therefore, under the support from other countries such as China and Russia, Burma’s military regime has enjoyed killing, arresting, and torturing dissidents, and international pressure seems to be ineffective.

Burma is the poorest country in Southeast Asia now, although it was once the richest country in the region. After gaining her independence from the British colonial rule in 1948, Burma has been under different forms of military predomination, and it mainly depends on agriculture and natural resources.

Although the military regime claimed that it introduced “open market economy” after the bloody crackdown in 1988, in reality it created more economic hardships for the people of Burma, on the grounds that the military regime still refused to change the previous socialist regime’s economic policy and to have an economic liberalization. The regime’s fake open market policy was unable to install any political freedom either. These factors only allowed Burmese generals’ families and their cronies to enjoy benefits under the regime’s restrictions on rules and regulations of Burma’s market economy.

The Growing Co-Dependent Relationship between Burma and China

The breakout in Burma has become the most critical revolutionary wave in Burmese history. Not only monks but also young students and activists have taken to the streets to protest the current military government. Moreover, the images of the assassinated Japanese journalist were broadcasted in media all over the world, which has incited the international community to unanimously condemn Burma.

At the UN Security Council, China at first did not stand behind imposing sanctions against Burma, but due to international pressure, China issued a suggestion to the Burmese government that “they hoped the Burmese government communicate with opposition factions.” However, following UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari meeting with Military General Than Shwe and twice with the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, China instead addressed that “the issue of Burma did not constitute a threat to international and regional peace, and Burma’s future could only be properly resolved by the efforts of the people and their government.”

Regarding Burma’s street protest, international attention was also given to Burma’s relationship with influential countries such as China, India, Japan and Russia. Burma’s geographical position in the triangular region of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, and this shows the strategic importance of Burma. In recent years, Burma has been excavating natural gas and oil resources. Among these, a major turnpike linked with China elevated Burma’s strategic position even higher, showing China and Burma’s cooperation has grown stronger.

We must emphasize that China is a vicious and behind the scenes manipulator; for a long period of time, China has provided economic and military assistance to Burma. For instance, in the last ten years, the discovery of natural gas and oil resources in the external Burmese seas and China’s demand of energy resources for its “Western improvement” policy have shaped China’s favorable diplomatic strategy towards Burma. Under Chinese shelter, it is very unlikely that the Burmese military junta will abandon the military regime and allow any democratic elections to take place. Besides, an additional plan announced by Burma two years ago allowed for foreign companies to take part in 30% of the product share if they mutually developed Burma’s oil resources. So far this plan has attracted foreign companies from Singapore, China and the U.S.

In geo-political influence, India and China have both engaged in acquiring Burmese oil benefits. India has a military post near the Andaman Sea, while China has an explosive detection station in Burma’s Coco Island. China has actively pursued opening up oil channels as seen through the Mongolia, China, India, Burma Economic Cooperation Forum (BCIM), in which a channel is opened through the Yangtze River's channel—from the Indian Ganges to the Mekong River—highlighting China’s wish to link up with Burma and aiming directly at the strategic consideration of the Indian Ocean.

When observing the relationships between China and Burma, one can see that China’s foreign policy resembles international politics of the 1950s and 1960s. China and Burma, relying on the present mutual economically beneficial and strategic requests, will never support the opposition’s demand for “freedom, democracy and human rights.” In my view, the development of China-Burma relations, whether or not it will be transformed, will depend on the following factors: 1) the life span of the military regime, 2) the development of Burma-ASEAN relationship, and 3) the policies of the UN, USA, UK, EU and India towards Burma after the assassination of the Japanese journalist and Burma’s crackdown. Certainly, the USA, UK, EU and other Western democratic countries have been dissatisfied with Burma’s military government for a long period of time. If the military government fails to properly handle this situation, these Western countries will not exclude the possibility of using international force to eliminate the legitimacy of Burma’s junta, and China’s attitude towards Burma might change due to this influence.

EU taking tougher sanctions against Burma's junta

Burma's junta already faces an EU travel ban and a freeze on assets. Nevertheless, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown calls for more sanctions, as the killings of monks as well as commoners and human rights abuses are still taking place in Burma.

EU foreign ministers are together at their monthly meeting in Luxembourg to discuss tougher sanctions—such as to ban imports of timber, metals and gemstones from Burma—against Burma's junta, since the crackdown on pro-democracy activists continues.

However, European sanctions have had no serious impact on Burma, because more than 90% of the country's trade is with its Asian neighbors. Moreover, these new measures cannot prevent the French energy giant Total from having business with the junta.

The UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari is currently back to the region and plans to visit Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, India and China for an Asian tour aiming to put more pressure on Burma.

Although the UN Security Council condemned the junta’s crackdown on the protests in Burma, the regime said it "deeply regretted" the statement. In addition, Burma’s military regime dismissed a UN statement calling for dialogue with the pro-democracy opposition, insisting that it would follow its own roadmap toward “reform.”

Asia-Pacific Security and Security Cooperation among the US, Japan, Australia and India

During September 4 to 9, 2007, the Unite States, Japan, Australia, India and Singapore conducted a massive joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean, which mobilized 27 warships, including 2 aircraft carriers from the U.S. and one from India. This is the latest multi-lateral defense cooperation conducted by the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific alliances after last joint drill co-launched with Japan and India off the Japan coast this April.

Such deployment of multi-lateral security cooperation by the U.S. and its Asia-Pacific alliance was initiated in 2005 and put into concrete interoperation in 2007. During the past two years, the U.S., Japan, Australia and India have moved forward to strengthen their diplomatic tie and security cooperation, and resulted in some remarkable developments. The examples are as follows: the U.S. and Japan declared their joint strategic goals in the Asia-Pacific region after the U.S.-Japan “two-plus-two strategic dialogue” on February 19, 2005; the “New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship” was signed on June 8, 2005; the U.S.-Japan-Australia “Trilateral Strategic Dialogue” was formed on March 16, 2006; India entered into defense cooperation agreements with Japan on May 25, 2006; Japan and India set up strategic partnership on December 15, 2006. In addition, the “Japan-Australian Security Consultative” was just declared on March 13, 2007.

Based on the formed multi-lateral security ties, there are two points for observing the following development of Asia-Pacific security circumstances: what does the strengthened cooperation imply in terms of security concerns? What would China react to such situation?

First, such series of cooperation on defense affairs showed that the United States, Japan, Australia and India are moving forward to certain consensus on the security threat faced in the Asia-Pacific region. Besides, it reflected that their concerns over China Rise are escalating. For example, Australia used to be silent on China Rise issue, but this July, it firstly pointed out in its National Defense Review that China’s military expansion would increase the regional instability, and China’s test of anti-satellite weapon launched in January would also escalate region-wide unsteadiness and misunderstanding. For the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, the uncertainty caused by China Rise is due to China’s ambiguous strategic intention and increasing investment in defense affairs. Therefore, they have to hedge against the security threat caused by China’s military expansion.

Additionally, the US-Japan-Australia-India security tie also signaled a structural change on the cooperation made by the US and its Asia-Pacific alliance. That is to say, the US has moved from bi-lateralism to multi-lateralism. Since after the Cold War, the US had taken the “US-Japan Security Treaty” as the most remarkable pillar in terms of maintaining the Asia-Pacific regional security. However, faced with the impact on regional power structure caused by China Rise, the U.S. and Japan tend to extend their original bi-lateral defense cooperation to a multi-lateral level, especially with those countries that share common value with them. Although currently, the cooperation has not been upgraded to the multi-lateral alliance level, and a joint action plan responding to crises or warfare is still wanting, but various strategic partnerships, joint security declarations and national defense cooperation agreements mentioned above also show that the security ties among the U.S., Japan, Australia and India are still on the move to institutionalization.

So far, China has taken two measures to respond to the power extension of the “U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.” The first is to make friends with Australia and India, preventing the two countries from tilting toward the U.S. and Japan. In fact, in order to retain the strategic ambiguity, Australia and India had not set up any formal cooperative relationship with the U.S. or Japan, but recently, India has developed strategic partnership with the U.S. and Japan by signing a national defense cooperation agreement. Moreover, Australia not only declared the “Japan-Australian Security Consultative” but also claimed that its closest alliances in the Asia-Pacific region were the U.S. and Japan. Responding to such strategic adjustment, China’s leader, Hu Jintao, paid his first visit to India last November, calling for a strengthened diplomatic tie and defense cooperation between the two countries. This September, when participating in the APEC summit in Australia, Hu Jintao suggested Australia and China should form an “annual dialogue mechanism” to enhance their security dialogue. Besides these gestures, there were still other related measures to prevent Australia and India from joining the operation of “U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.”

On the other hand, China also started to strengthen the military cooperation with Russia and Central Asian countries by means of exercising joint military drills. For example, the SCO, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, had recently echoed with China’s advocacy to conduct the largest joint anti-terror drill by scale, “Peace Mission-2007.” All the leaders and Defense Ministers of the member states of the SCO also attended the exercise, stressing its political significance of being a counter-force to work against the U.S.-Japan deployment in the Asia-Pacific region.

In brief, the US-Japan-Australia-India security cooperation has changed the strategic relationship in the Asia-Pacific region. The four countries share common interests and have various kinds of cooperation with China, by which they can avoid breaking off the relationship which China. Nevertheless, a hedging strategy also starts to be formed. Competition of the two strategic partnerships is gradually surfacing.

What is the true face of the 2008 Olympic Host?

Myanmar has been misruled by incompetent leaders who have been indirectly enabled by China. According to many Burmese in exile, China is a “monster” who actually harms Asia’s democratic development.

The Myanmar issue can tell us a lot about what kind of global power China wants to be. The international community has been urging China to pressure Myanmar. However, in China, the media almost ignored the crisis. Indeed, it is ironic to persuade the Beijing authority to influence other countries on human rights grounds, due to its lack of respect for human rights and freedom of speech. Not to mention during the past decade, China’s main policy has been to pursue its own interests all over the world, including the acquisition of natural resources. As such, it certainly wants to stay away from the trouble taking place in Myanmar.

Western countries hope that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games can be one point of pressure on China; nevertheless, their efforts appear to be futile. China did call for a peaceful resolution to Burma’s situation, but nothing more.

The truth is that Myanmar has been misruled by incompetent leaders who have been indirectly enabled by China. According to many Burmese in exile, China is a “monster” who actually harms Asia’s democratic development. For example, Chinese weapons sales to Myanmar helped consolidate the military regime and created a huge gap between the rich and the poor over there. In addition, China has rushed into tap Myanmar’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas; this has also propped up the authoritarian regime.

As Myanmar’s most important ally, China has come under increasing pressure to use its regional influence to urge Myanmar’s ruling junta to show restraint in dealing with the protests. The United States also wanted China to do what it can to prevent further bloodshed.

However, even after the violent crackdown on the protests took place in Myanmar, China still blocked the UN Security Council from condemning the government’s actions by claiming the problem at this stage has not yet constituted a threat to international and regional peace and stability.

But, is “stability”—as China emphasized—good for a country like Myanmar? What is China’s standpoint on democratic rights that those Burmese demonstrators are fighting for? Surely, how China responds to the current Myanmar crackdown will tell us more about this emerging global power.

Protest in Malaysia against Myanmar’s violent crackdown

Call for international pressure on Myanmar
Malaysia has been hosting a large number of migrant workers from Myanmar. Last Friday, about 2,000 Myanmar people gathered outside the embassy of Myanmar in Malaysia for a protest against the violent crackdown on peaceful anti-government protests in their homeland.

The protesters were from Aung San Suu Kyi's party, namely the National League for Democracy (NLD), as well as from other Myanmar groups including the umbrella organisation, All Burmese Democratic Force.

A two-day crackdown on mass protests in Yangon has left at least 13 people dead and hundreds behind bars.

These protesters shouted in Burmese and English, "Don't kill our monks," and "Stop crackdown." They also held pictures of Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and said “We want democracy!”

The protest is to let the world know that the evil military government in Myanmar has cracked down on monks. According to the demonstrators, they would like the international community as well as the UN to stop that.







March to the embassies of China and Russia
The protestors also marched to the embassy of Myanmar's close ally—China, where the demonstrators delivered a copy of their written statement.

They also stopped at the embassy of Russia; the country previously said the Myanmar crackdown was an “internal matter.”

Demonstrators’ statement
In a statement, the demonstrators said they "strongly condemn the regime's brutal crackdown against peaceful demonstrators and urge upon the military regime to calmly settle the crisis in Myanmar."

In addition, they called for international pressure on the junta, and demanded the military regime release political prisoners and enter into a dialogue.

The Role of China in Sudan

China, disregarding objections from international societies, aggressively opposed to any international sanctions against Sudan and continues its financial support as well as supplies to the Sudanese government; this costs even more causalities.

Last week in U n WHO blog, we addressed the role China plays in Burma and examined why China is reluctant to lean harder on Burma’s military regime. China has been supporting and forming close ties with various authoritarian countries such as North Korea, Burma and Sudan. Previously, the attempts to pressure China over Darfur were futile. Thus, many Western countries have been pointing out that China in fact “coddles” authoritarian regimes. What exactly is the role of China in Sudan?

Sudan’s Civil War

Let’s explain the situation in Darfur first. In 2003, civil war was broken out in Darfur region of Sudan resulting in the highest number of the death in the twenty-first century. The outbreak of civil war, also recognized as an ethnic-cleansing campaign, resulted from the fighting for the oil, land, and water resources. The war brought about numerous problems such as illness, starvation, and military conflicts, which further cost the lives of 200,000 people and displaced nearly three million Sudanese. Hundreds of thousands of people sought refuge in neighboring Chad and Central African Republic.

Sudan lies south of Egypt and borders the Red Sea. With an area of 2,505,810 square kilometers, it has population of 41 million, consisting of 52% of black African and 40% of Arab. Its average annual per capital GDP in 2006 was 2,400 US dollars and the life expectancy in 2007 is 49. Sudan was originally a colony of Great Britain, but it formally declared its independence in 1956.

Following the declaration of independence were a series of successive civil wars and coups. The first civil war occurred before its independence and ended in 1972. The second civil war, beginning in 1983, resulted in a death toll of 2 million; it was the longest war in the twentieth century. Through the mediation by the US Government, the Sudanese Government and the rebel group, Sudan People’s Liberation Army (Armée Populaire de Libération du Soudan), eventually agreed to cease fire and officially signed the Peace Agreement in Geneva, Switzerland on January 19, 2002.

Immediately after the official signing, the two rebel groups, including Sudan Liberation Army (Armée de Libération du Soudan) and Movement for Justice and Equality (Mouvement pour la Justice et l’Égalité), began another insurrection against the pro-government militia. This government-supported militia aggressively used weapons to engage in assassination, rape, kidnapping, and destroying villages. Their acts were similar to the Genocide happened in Rwanda and Bosnia in the late twentieth century. This conflict was acknowledged as the worst humanitarian crisis in the early twenty-first century.

China’s influence over Sudan

One of the key roles for the most-recent civil war, which resumed in 2003, is the Janjawid—the government-supported militia. Primarily consisting of Arabs, the main force of this militia is selected from Abbala tribes, and they receive financial support as well as supplies, including arms, from the Sudanese government. In fact, these resources mainly come from the People’s Republic of China. Two thirds of China’s oil is imported from Sudan, and this makes China a critical sponsor to the Sudanese government. In addition, China is aggressively opposed to any international sanctions against the Sudanese government. Like China, Russia also sells weapons to the Sudanese government regardless of the objection from the UN. The result of successive wars and coups has caused refuge issue in surrounding countries, especially Chad, which further brought about the turmoil in this region.

The other key role of the civil war consists of two rebel groups, which are the Sudan Liberation Army and the Movement for Justice and Equality. This anti-government force not only gains support from Sudan People’s Liberation Army, but also gets sympathy from the US government.

To protect Sudanese people based on the passed resolution of the UN, a peacekeeping force was implemented by the African Union. Unfortunately, this peacekeeping force inched closer toward its goal; thereof this mission was not successful. At the end, volunteers all over the world from different non-government organizations, including human rights organizations such as Red Cross and Doctors without Borders, are drafted to help people in Sudan.

In fact, to resolve conflict in Sudan is extremely complicated and tough. Several reasons contribute to the unrest in Sudan, including fighting for land, water, oil, and energy resources, population explosion, draught and desertification, conflicts among different tribes, disproportionate access to resources, and the oppositions between the Chinese and the US governments over this issue, etc.

Darfur was an independent kingdom in early days currently with an area of 510,000 squares kilometers and population of 6 million. The major problem in this area stemmed from Black African and Arabs’ striving for natural resources. Moreover, China, disregarding objections from international societies, continues its financial support as well as supplies to the Sudanese government; this costs even more causalities.

Responses from the international community

In the upcoming Olympics game in 2008, China’s stance toward Sudan’s situation may be attacked by the human rights organizations. The image of China may also be harmed by its continuous financial and military support to the Sudanese government. The leader of Socialist party in France, Segolene Royal, proposed to boycott Beijing’s Olympics game. In addition, Cecilia Sarkozy, the current President of France, criticized China’s acts toward the Sudanese Government. Angela Markel, the Chancellor of Germany, also condemned China for its human rights policy during his visit to China. China’s policy toward Darfur along with Beijing’s Olympics games in 2008 has been a hot issue in international societies. At any rate, whether China will change its stance in Sudan’s situation also tests the morality and conscience of international societies.

Taiwan, Burma, China, and U.N.—Is the U.N. controlled by China?

How influential China can be in the U.N.? Two cases might give us the answer and some insights.

This year, once again, Taiwan's U.N. bid was not included in General Assembly agenda, and Taiwan suffered another setback in its quest for representation in the world body.

When the U.N. General Committee met to set the agenda for the General Assembly's 62nd session, discussions were made on whether or not to include—as a supplementary item on the agenda—a motion filed by 16 of Taiwan's formal diplomatic allies last month requesting that the Security Council process Taiwan's membership application. However, China expressed its strong and brutal opposition to include this issue into the agenda. As Taiwanese, we were wondering why the U.N. is always restricted by China’s every move and fails to end political apartheid. In any case, the Taiwanese government and its people will continue to call on the world body to stand behind the principle of equality and to grant U.N. membership to democratic Taiwan.

This critical issue—the fact that the U.N. is restricted by China—manifests itself again when the political crisis is worsening in Burma at this very moment.

US President George W Bush has led international condemnation of Burma for its crackdown on the mass protests, and he also announced a tightening of US economic sanctions and a ministerial meeting involving the Americans and the 27 European Union countries called for UN Security Council action, ensued by an informal gathering.

Ban Ki-moon's envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, was urgently dispatched by the secretary general in the hope that he can get into Burma and speak to all sides. Nevertheless, it is still hard to see what practical and significant impacts these steps will create.

The US and the EU have long imposed sanctions against Burma's military regime. However, it is paradoxical that some countries, including China, India and Russia, still have trading relations with the military regime, not to mention Russia even plans to sell a nuclear research reactor to Burma.

More importantly, as Burma's biggest neighbor, China plays the most crucial role in this matter, on the grounds that China, for its own strategic interests, aims to maintain the stability of Burma and its strong ties with Rangoon. It can be seen evidently that as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China keeps helping to limit the relative isolation or sanctions that the Rangoon military regime needs to face.

Meanwhile, the strengthening of the relations between Burma and China also has prompted India to establish stronger ties with Burma's military regime, so as to counter-balance China's growing influence over the region.

Furthermore, Burma's energy resources—oil and gas fields—have caught everyone’s attention and made Burma such an attractive trade and strategic partner for Chinese, Indian and Russian governments and firms. Ironically, Burma's energy resources make it almost impossible to isolate the Rangoon military regime.

Indeed, so far the US and European ties to Burma have declined, while those of China, India and Russia have increased. As such, China has become the key player of this issue. However, Beijing has begun to face pressures when the 2008 Beijing Olympics is approaching. China not only needs to maintain its energy and strategic access to the Indian Ocean via Burma, but also has to keep its own stability and good reputation abroad.

Yet, few days ago China's U.N. ambassador Wang Guangya readdressed China's standpoint that Burma’s crisis was not a threat to international peace and sanctions would not be helpful for dealing with the problem. As Burma’s most important ally, China still refused to condemn the military regime.

In our opinion, the U.N. needs a stronger voice for Burma and Taiwan issues. It is a pity, however, from the aforementioned two cases one can see a weak U.N. that is strongly influenced by China and China’s allies. Mr. Ban Ki-moon once declared that “Our changing world needs a stronger UN.” We urge the U.N. to take stronger action to deal with the unfair treatment Taiwan has been suffering in the world body and against Burma’s military regime and those countries that protect Burma only for their own interests!

Taiwanese see China's diplomatic blockade as unfavorable to cross-strait relations

According to a poll conducted by the China Credit Information Bureau from June 9 to June 11, 2007, 85.3% of the Taiwanese public (88.7% pan-blue; 94.3% pan-green) believes that China prevents Taiwan from participating in international organizations and lowers Taiwan's international status, which adversely affects the development of cross-strait relations.

Furthermore, 62.4% of the Taiwanese public feels angry about China’s diplomatic sway that caused Costa Rica to end diplomatic relations with Taiwan. 64.4% of the Taiwanese public (66.3% pan-blue; 80.6% pan-green) believes that China needs to take responsibility for the deterioration of cross-strait relations.

In this public poll, 78.2% of the Taiwanese public (75.4% pan-blue; 94.7% pan-green) believes that the Chinese government is not sincere. 60% of the public agrees (56.1% pan-blue; 80.2% pan-green) and 24% of the public disagrees (32.3% pan-blue; 13.6% pan-green) with the following statement: “China's cross-strait policy aims at eliminating the ROC and the annexation of Taiwan. Furthermore, it is impossible for the Chinese government to formally allow Taiwan to rule itself with sovereignty. Thus, people should not have false hopes in the Chinese Communist Party.”

In the past, when China established diplomatic relations with other countries, China requested them to “recognize” Taiwan as a part of China. As for international organizations, even though they accepted China's membership, they rarely made statements on Taiwan's and China's position.

However, recently China has begun new practices that greatly affect Taiwan's ability to enter or maintain their memberships in international inter-governmental organizations. This has sent a warning to Taiwan and the United States. For example, the Republic of China [Taiwan] has been a member of the “World Animal Organization” as early as 1954. On May 2007, 169 members of the organization voted to acknowledging China's stance that the People's Republic of China [China] represented the sole legitimate government of China, including Taiwan. As a result, Taiwan could only participate in the activities of the World Organization for Animal Health as a “non-sovereign regional member.” The activities, documents, publications, and websites of the World Organization for Animal Health there note Taiwan as "Chinese Taipei" [中華台北].

If countries silently default to the idea of “Taiwan is a part of China" or "China represents Taiwan," Taiwan’s ability to participate in international organizations will be strongly restricted.

The sudden rise of China’s wealth and power presents a greater challenge to Taiwan’s policies on bilateral and multilateral diplomacies. In our opinions, the fact that the United States, Japan, and many other countries and international organizations have not made an official statement referring Taiwan as a part of China means that Taiwan government, its people and diplomats need to be more vigilant.

Japan-Taiwan Strategic Cooperation－A Taiwan Perspective

Taiwan and Japan in their best interests should cooperate beyond the issue of security in Taiwan Strait. Both countries share similar concerns about an increasingly aggressive China, and Japan is especially concerned with the situation in the Korean Peninsula, such as a deteriorating US-ROK Alliance and the unpredictability of the North Korean nuclear weapon development program. Moreover, Taiwan and Japan’s heavy dependence on foreign import of energy means that any disruption in Sea Lanes of Communication (SLOC) would put their economies in jeopardy.

The cooperation between Taiwan and Japan should be “strategic” in nature, and the strategic cooperation should be broad, namely, it must cover not only security but also economic and political issues. It should also be geographically broad in scope and not limited to “areas surrounding to Taiwan and Japan,” for the reason that Taiwan and Japan, both offshore maritime countries located beyond continental Asia, share similar geo-strategic interests.

The power configuration in Taiwan and Japan’s best interest would be a stable balance of power that tends to tip in favor of maritime democracies in Asia. Such configuration would require a strong maritime alliance acting as an offshore balancer to prevent continental powers in Asia from expanding its influence to the maritime, and to keep this area as open and inclusive to all countries in this region.

However, this configuration could be cast in military terms as well as economic and political terms. The regional economy is witnessing a dangerous tilt toward an exclusive bloc, since China is putting pressure on other regional players not to include Taiwan. Taiwan should be open to further cooperation with other regional players and make sure that the regional economy remains open, inclusive, and transparent. In my view, the first step of Taiwan and Japan’s strategic cooperation in the region would be facilitating a Taiwan-Japan FTA though the two countries should by no means be limited by it. Such cooperation must consider the ways Taiwan and Japan could further build economic relations with Southeast Asia and India.

On the issue of politics, I would like to bring up a somehow worrisome picture to your attention. By the end of 2008, leaders in Taiwan, U.S., Japan, South Korea and very possibly Russia would most likely be different. Only leaders of remaining communist countries like China and North Korea would remain. New leadership would require some time to start running their respective governments. More importantly, they would require time to familiarize with their neighbors in order to ideally build better foreign relations with each other.

It goes without saying that there exist numerous difficulties despite tremendous progress in relations between Taiwan and Japan. The problem is the continuing lack of institutionalized senior-level official meetings between the two. Though leadership in both countries is determined to push ahead cooperation between Taiwan and Japan, no such mechanism has occurred among senior-level officials. However, a stronger Taiwan-Japan relation would strengthen U.S.-Japan alliance and aid in coordinating better bilateral cooperation between Taiwan and the U.S.-Japan alliance.

In my view, India is another important player in this configuration. It would effectively function as a powerful balancer against the two major Asian continental powers of Russia and China. Moreover, India occupies a critical location crucial to the security of SLOC to both Taiwan and Japan. Taiwan should play a supporting role in strengthening US-Japan alliance as well as the bridge between India and US-Japan alliance. A strategically-connected India in the Asian maritime region would dissuade not only continental powers (i.e. Russia and China) from expanding into East Asian maritime region but also Southeast Asia countries, which will also provide some breathing room for these countries’ domestic reconstruction.

Reflection on Taiwan's Diplomatic Strategy (Part III)

Achieving the goals of Taiwan’s diplomatic strategy depends largely on the cultural structure of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the training of its new personnel. After the Cold War ended and globalization prevailed, many countries in the 1990s started to reform its foreign relations’ structures and administration.

Nevertheless, the transformation of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been extremely limited, and it is already falling behind in development and in doing the real necessary work required by the international reality. Much less, it is incapable of reflecting the special characteristics of a medium to small-scale country. For example, the amount of Taiwan’s consular offices in the U.S. is double the amount of China’s, clearly showing an absurd mentality that it is a conventional big country. In addition, not only many transnational emerging subjects—such as environmental protection, human rights, counter-terrorism and military affairs—cannot be processed alone by the existing regional units, but also units of policy analysts have not been able to show results, which is also a limitation on Taiwan’s attempts to plan its long-term foreign policy.

In summary, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must self-review its internal structure and division of duties, and even more, it must rationalize effectively its functions. Moreover, the Ministry must immediately change its way of selecting personnel by opening more diverse and professional people inside.

Overall, the past decades of Taiwan’s external relations has been influenced by the thinking of a greater China unification, and failed to show the special characteristics of Taiwan as an island nation. In promoting normalization for Taiwan, an objective realistic view must be taken in each aspect. Naturally, this must not only be confronted internally, but it also must be practiced externally. Therefore, the direction that Taiwan must take as an “island nation” toward the 21st Century should start by breaking away from the “One China” framework imposed by the PRC and by waking up from the previous self-hypnosis of a land power nation.