Fri, Jan 02, 2004 page8

• Editorial: Beijing's boondoggle on direct links

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  On Wednesday, less than three weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday, Pu Zhaozhou (浦照州) -- head of the Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China -- made a new proposal for cross-strait charter flights during the holiday period.

  Pu suggested an arrangement under which flights would travel without stopping in cities such as Hong Kong and Macau -- but only in one direction -- from Taipei to a handful of cities in China.

  According to Pu, this proposal comes with the condition that next year the charter flights will fly direct in both directions.

  Anyone who has been paying attention to the cross-strait deadlock over direct links can see that this offer is riddled with many tricks. The deadlock has come about because China insists on Taiwan's acceptance of the "one China" principle as a condition of any official cross-strait talks on direct links.

  The alternative would be to skip official negotiations between the governments, and leave talks in the hands of authorized private groups. The latter option is no different from the former because by skipping formal negotiations between governments, Taiwan would be conceding that cross-strait direct links are domestic links and that Taiwan is merely a "province" of "one China."

  After all, no international air links can be launched without involving the governments in question, because doing so would mean flying into foreign territories without authorization and violating sovereignty.

  The arrangement under which cross-strait charter flights were made last year did not have these problems. Not only were the flights one-way -- Taipei to Shanghai, which incurred virtually no security risk for Taiwan -- but even more importantly, while there were no changes of aircraft between Taipei and Shanghai, the planes were still required to make stops in places such as Hong Kong and Macao.

  So long as flights remained indirect, there was no sovereignty issue involved, and skipping government negotiation was possible.

  The proposal made by Beijing this year asks for "direct flights" from Taipei to several Chinese cities without any stopovers. This is something that would require negotiations between governments.

  Obviously, if Taiwan accepts one-way direct flights without negotiations this year, then it will have no reason to demand negotiations over two-way direct flights next year.

  Bluntly put, this is simply Beijing's way of trying to trick Taiwan into direct links under the "one China" principle.

  This seeming "concession" offered by Beijing is no concession at all.

  Statements made by Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), the spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, on Thursday -- the day after Pu's comments -- give a glimpse of what is on Beijing's mind.

  Zhang on the one hand harshly criticized President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) refusal to embrace the so-called 1992 consensus on the "one China" principle, and on the other hand reiterated Beijing's intention to provide more convenience for Taiwanese businessmen in China, not only in terms of travel but also in terms of investing in China.

  Obviously, after the arrests of Taiwanese businessmen on espionage charges recently, Beijing has decided to take steps to ease the fears of the Taiwanese business community.

  This new proposal on chartered flights -- unlikely to become reality -- is simply another one of Beijing's gestures to make amends.
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