Mon, Aug 19, 2002 page8

• Editorial: Lu's trip a poke in Beijing's eye

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  When Xinhua, China's mouthpiece, ladles on the scorn, you know you have struck gold. Latest up for denigration is Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and her trip to Indonesia. "An absolute farce," said Xinhua. "She runs into a brick wall wherever she goes ... facts show that Lu is persona non grata and there is no way Taiwan independence can succeed." It reminds one of Ah Q's victories; proof positive that Beijing has just received a poke in the eye.

  Of course we cannot pretend that Lu's trip went without a hitch. The can-she-enter-Jakarta-or-not nonsense at the beginning showed either a massive misunderstanding on the part of the agencies in Taipei that arranged her trip or last-minute cowardice on the part of the Indonesian government. If the latter there is nothing that can be done, if the former then somebody in Taipei has earned a demerit or two.

  In the end, of course, Lu's trip worked out. She got to see whom she wanted to see. She was allowed to enter Jakarta and the embarrassment of having to shop in Bali for a day while the Indonesian government decided what to do, was forgotten.

  But something still rankles about the trip, beyond, of course, the international pandering to the whims of China that restricts the places to which Taiwan's democratically elected leaders may travel and the guise in which they may go.

  That something is the glee with which the local media and, of course, their blue camp cronies jumped on Lu's embarrassment and used it to belittle both the vice president and her trip. About the least offensive remarks among these critics were that the government should be spending more time on the economy than on aggrandizing diplomatic trips.

  This last argument is particularly stupid -- though from the KMT one can expect little else -- since the main reason for the economic downturn is 10 years of "put all of your economic eggs in the high-tech-sales-to-the-US basket" policy from the KMT, something that will probably require the best part of another decade for the DPP to reverse.

  More widespread seems to have been the argument that Lu was wrong for trying to go to Indonesia in the first place because it left Taiwan open to a slap in the face. This is also absurd. The party in error here, and quite categorically so, is Beijing for having the temerity to try to interfere in and make demands concerning the bilateral affairs of Taiwan and Indonesia. There is a familiar blue camp logic at work here in which it is always Taiwan that is to blame for "provoking" China, it is never China that is at fault for its reaction.

  Lu's trip to Indonesia was little different from many trips made by KMT figures in the past. We remember how former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had to make trips to the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand in 1994 on the pretext of playing golf, in order to meet their heads of state. In 1995 Lee went to the Middle East but pressure from China ensured that the heads of state of the United Arab Emirates and Jordan canceled plans to meet him at the last minute -- something almost as embarrassing and certainly a greater waste of time than Lu's experiences last week.

  The point is that if Taiwan wants diplomatic relations, in the current climate of Chinese antipathy it has to take risks and face setbacks. If the KMT is interested in the survival of the ROC -- always a very debatable matter these days -- it will have no other choice but to do exactly the same thing if it ever regains power. Of course with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) determined to run for the presidency again, this won't, thank goodness, be for some time.
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