Sat, May 26, 2001 page8

• Trust China's actions, not its words

  • By Paul Lin 林保華
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  Chinese Olympic Committee president Yuan Weimin (袁偉民) recently visited Taiwan seeking support for Beijing's bid to hold the Olympic Games. Beijing can mutter the sweetest words when it needs the backing of others, but no one knows for sure that it won't shift its position later. It was therefore necessary for Taiwan to be most careful about how it responded.

  By saying yes right away, Taiwan would have to accept the consequences. Flatly rejecting Beijing's request, on the other hand, risked provoking China and triggering a hysterical reaction.

  Some people in Taiwan, however, acted too rashly. It was only proper that the Chinese-Taipei Olympic Committee should give Yuan a hearty welcome, but not that it pledged its support so quickly. Some people invoked nationalism to explain the rush to support Beijing's bid, others said backing Beijing could win eight years of peace at no cost.

  A recent report in the United Daily News (聯合報) said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee meeting held in Beijing in mid-February had set a deadline of 2009 for resolution of the Taiwan issue. China has not denied the report. That means that if Taiwan still rejects unification in 2009, the PRC will attack Taiwan. So if Beijing wins the bid to host the 2008 Games, Taiwanese will have to face China's military invasion while still immersed in a honeymoon atmosphere after (perhaps) co-hosting the Olympics. That being the case, aren't the Games simply a hallucinogenic designed to weaken Taiwan's psychological defenses?

  Germany held the Olympic Games in Berlin in 1936, under Adolf Hitler's leadership, to create a peaceful and serene image. In September 1939, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland and started World War II. If the PRC attacked Taiwan one year after the 2008 Olympics, it would be turning its back even quicker than Hitler.

  Some people believe that if Taiwan supports China's hosting the Games, cross-strait relations will improve and China will alter the deadline. Let's again review history.

  In September 1990, one year after the Tiananmen Square Incident (天安門事件), Beijing held the 11th Asian Games. Despite some international opposition to its hosting those games, Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), a member of the Chinese-Taipei Olympic Committee was an active supporter. Lee argued that Beijing would repay Taiwan for its support by backing a later bid by Taiwan to host the Asian Games.

  But when Taiwan applied in 1995 to host the 2002 Games in Kaohsiung, Beijing was firm in its objections. Beijing had Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, exert pressure upon other members. What was originally to have been a secret ballot became an open vote. The countries which supported Kaohsiung but feared retaliation by China had no choice but to vote for Pusan, South Korea. Kaohsiung lost to Pusan by a vote of 37-5.

  When it needs others' backing, Beijing will mouth the sweetest words. But "politics first" seems to win in most situations, as evident during Kaohsiung's bid and when former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) wanted to watch the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima. Beijing was quick to object in both cases, raising the issue of "two Chinas." But isn't it true that the ROC and the PRC have always existed at the same time?

  However, the recent "City-to-City Forum" (雙城論壇) between Taipei and Shanghai clearly implied that Taipei was just a municipality under the PRC. The recent "Beijing-Taiwan Technology Forum" (京臺科技論壇) -- not the "Beijing-Taipei" or "cross-strait" forum -- implied that the two cities on either side of the Taiwan Strait are not on an equal footing.

  In 1990, Taiwan demonstrated its goodwill by supporting Beijing's Asian Games. At that time, despite the international economic sanctions imposed on the PRC because of the Tiananmen Square massacre, some businesspeople from Taiwan continued to invest in China. Cross-strait relations, however, did not improve. Indeed, China repaid Taiwan by performing large-scale military drills and launching ballistic missiles near the island.

  If the PRC believes in nationalism, it should discard Marxism-Leninism. How is that the PRC government can have slaughtered tens of millions of Chinese? How is it that the Tiananmen massacre could occur? How can it be possible that President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) signed an agreement with Russia to give up sovereignty over 160 million hectares of Chinese land (equal to 44 Tai-wans)? Are the Beijing leaders who want to make a good killing by hosting the Olympic Games still "patriotic?"

  Beijing should host the Olympics -- with Taiwan's help -- but not now. Beijing must first build a peaceful, fair, humane, corruption-free country and then it will have a truly patriotic image.

  Paul Lin is a political commentator currently based in New York.

  Translated by Jackie Lin
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