Joseph Wu urges China to be more open

Outgoing Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) yesterday urged China to improve the transparency of its increasing military budgets and respond to the world's worries about its "peaceful rise" during its upcoming National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The CCP will hold its 17th National Congress in Beijing this fall which will be the first time that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) has hosted the party's National Congress since he took the post of party secretary-general.

China's National People's Congress and National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference only finished recently and judging from the conclusions made in those two meetings, it is predicted that the Congress would focus on issues such as adjusting the economy, balancing social structure, solving people's livelihoods, strengthening its ruling power and opposing Taiwan's "legal independence," Wu said at a forum on cross-strait relations held by the Friends of Hong Kong and Macau Association and Fu-Hsing Broadcasting.

However international society is more concerned about whether China's rise is really a "peaceful rise" and whether its political reform is moving towards a direction that is freer and more open, Wu said.

"Whether China's economic development can be integrated into the world economic system under globalization and China's military modernization, especially its increasing arms budgets, can be more transparent and whether cross-strait relations can go on a peaceful and stable track are the focal points that the international society wants to see after the congress meeting is held in the fall," said Wu, who will leave for the US next month to take up his new position as Taiwan's de facto ambassador to the US.

Chinese political dissident Ruan Ming (阮銘), an adviser to the Taiwan Research Institute, told the forum that he predicted the CCP's 17th National Congress will follow Hu's political line and will stress the core values of "adhering to the route of the central authorities" and "keeping consistency with the central government."

"There would be no significant change of its policy toward Taiwan, since Hu settled it when the `Anti-Secession' Law was promulgated," Ruan said.

Raymond Wu (吳瑞國), vice president of the Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation, said China would work to appease the doubts of the international community aroused by China's rapid rise in economic and military power, adding out that China spent about US$45million on its military budget last year, which has increased by 17.8 percent.

"The world is actually uneasy about this fact," Raymond Wu said. "I think the Chinese authorities will combine domestic and foreign policies to fashion its so-called `peaceful policies' in every aspect."