Sun, May 10, 2009 page3

• Reliance could hurt sovereignty: forum

  POWER DRAIN Former minister of national defense Michael Tsai said that scrapping the military conscription system would further tilt the military balance in China’s favor

  • By Jenny W. hsu and Rich Chang / STAFF REPORTERS
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  Increasing economic dependency would endanger sovereignty at a time when President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policies are reducing the military’s defense capabilities, academics said at a forum in Taipei yesterday.

  US author Gordon Chang, who wrote The Coming Collapse of China, said the Ma government was responsible for a “rollback of democracy” and was creating a recipe for disaster by tying Taiwan’s economy to China’s.

  “As bad as the Taiwanese economy appears, China’s is worse,” he said at a forum on national security, sovereignty and diplomacy hosted by the World Taiwanese Congress and Taiwan Nation Alliance.

  Chang said Chinese economic growth was slowing at the fastest rate in the world. Chinese economic output is waning as consumer prices, exports, foreign direct investment and other indicators plunge, he said.

  An economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing would be “absolutely the worst thing Taipei can do at the moment,” he said.

  “For instance, why should Taiwan ... invest in Chinese banks when those banks are in the process of [granting] bad loans on Beijing’s orders to stimulate the economy? Western businesses are selling their stakes in these same Chinese banks for a reason,” he said.

  Chang called on Washington to establish a strong Taiwan policy and abandon “strategic ambiguity,” which he said had only emboldened China to test the US’ resolve to defend democracy.

  The only thing that holds the Chinese in check is the US, he said, and “Taiwan is the key in keeping the US in the game.”

  Former minister of national defense Michael Tsai (蔡明憲), another panelist, said Ma’s intention to scrap military conscription would further tilt the military balance in Beijing’s favor.

  Soochow University political science professor Luo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said Ma’s administration had harmed national security and sovereignty, citing a recent incident in which a group of Chinese tourists boarded a Taiwan-bound flight without entry permits yet were allowed into the country after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) issued landing visas upon their arrival.

  “Those tourists would probably never dare to demand entry to the US or Japan without a visa. Why do they think they can do it when it comes to Taiwan?” he said.

  Former representative to the US Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) questioned the wisdom of Ma’s “diplomatic truce” with Beijing, saying Taiwan’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA) this year was worrisome because “we don’t know any details of the cross-strait negotiations.”

  WHA participation was not secured through the assembly’s standard procedures but was probably arranged through Beijing, treating Taiwan as a subordinate of China, he said.

  If Taiwan follows the WHA model in bids to join other international organizations, this would support China’s claims to Taiwan, Wu said.

  At a separate setting yesterday, former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) called on the public to be vigilant concerning the government’s cross-strait policies.

  Ma is “in the process of unifying Taiwan with China,” he said.

  Hsieh made the remarks at a forum hosted by the Taiwan Thinktank on the Ma administration’s performance on the eve of its one year anniversary in office.

  “From the time when Taiwan was under the rule of the two Chiangs [Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國)] to the former DPP government, Taiwan was at least able to maintain the status quo and protect Taiwan’s sovereignty,” Hsieh said.

  Since the Ma administration took office, cross-strait policies have favored China, he said.

  “As a result, China’s Taiwan policies have also shifted from combating Taiwanese independence to pushing for unification,” he said.

  In light of the apparent erosion in Taiwan’s sovereignty, economy and democracy, Taiwan could regress from democracy to dictatorship, Hsieh said.

  Another panelist at the forum, Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), an assistant professor in the department of political science at Soochow University, described Ma’s presidency as a “democratic dictatorship,” in which democracy is present in the form of an election, but the public will on issues such as sunshine legislation and cross-strait relations go largely unheard.

  ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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