Month: December 2008

Taiwan’s Ma Tries To Have His Sovereignty And Eat It Too

From Monday's China Post:

President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday the delivery of two giant pandas from China was not an internal / domestic transfer as described by a United Nations agency, as the animals went through customs and into quarantine when they arrived in the country.

Ma's position is unfortunately untenable.  Pandas are endangered species, and according to international law, cannot be given away as gifts FROM COUNTRY TO COUNTRY — they can only be loaned.

However, Taiwan did not accept the pandas as a LOAN from China.  Ma's government instead accepted them as a GIFT.

The only time international law allows this is when the endangered species are given away as gifts WITHIN A COUNTRY'S OWN DOMESTIC BORDERS.  Province-to-province, as it were.

So to recap:  President Ma accepted a GIFT of two pandas, which was advantageous to him because it allowed Taiwan to avoid paying astronomical $1 million a year panda loan payments to China.  But that gift came at a cost, because it could not be legally accepted under international law without admitting that the transfer was a domestic one.

Then to assuage voters, Ma the politician found it convenient to maintain the opposite.  The transfer wasn't domestic at all, because "the animals went through customs and into quarantine".

What logical contortions the poor man puts himself through in order to maintain his country's sovereignty . . . while destroying it at the same time.

UPDATE:  I would also like to direct the reader's attention to Article III (Sec. 3c) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora:

An import permit shall only be granted when . . . [the government of the importing state] is satisfied that the specimen is
not to be used for primarily commercial purposes.

Of course, the loudest arguments in favor of Taiwan accepting the pandas were the commercial ones.  They'd be boffo box office at Taipei's Mucha Zoo.  They'd draw in over 6 million visitors.  They'd bring in foreign tourists.  Oh, and don't forget the merchandising . . .

By the way, how much of all that money, money, money will go towards panda conservation? 

Not one red copper New Taiwanese dollar.  Because they're gifts, not loans, remember?  Taiwan's on the no money down, no yearly fees program.  In contrast, at least 50% of the fees America pays to China for loaned pandas must be directed towards preserving the animals in their native habitat.

My point here isn't really that the wild cousins of Taiwan's new pandas are getting the short end of the bamboo shoot.  I'm simply saying that the importation of these creatures was illegal under international law, since it's clear they were brought into the country for "primarily commercial purposes".

UPDATE #2:  The American Fish and Wildlife Service has a number of requirements for reviewing panda importation applications.  One of these is that the application must include:

a bona fide scientific research proposal, i.e., one that is properly designed using scientific methods focusing on a specific topic, that advances and/or supplements the scientific knowledge of panda ecology, and that is specifically relevant to the expertise of the institution.

Now, we have been told that the Taipei Zoo will conduct research on their new arrivals.  But I AM curious:  Has the zoo submitted its research proposals?  Have these proposals been peer-reviewed?  Are they available for public criticism?  And if not, why not?

Oh yes, and one final thing.  Does the zoo have "a plan to ensure that the public display of pandas will not interfere with the research activities"?

Or would such a plan interfere too greatly with the animals' primary function of income generation?

Taiwan Accepts Pandas From China; Sacrifices Sovereignty

From today's Taipei Times:

Two giant pandas made a trip from Sichuan Province, China, to their new home in Taiwan yesterday. Tuan-tuan (團團) and Yuan-yuan (圓圓), both four years old, arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:02pm.

The pandas, whose Chinese names, when put together, mean “to reunite,” were offered to former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) during his visit to China in May, 2005.

"To reunite".  Wow.  Almost as subtle as Spain sending a couple of Iberian lynxes (collectively named "Columbus rocks") to Bolivia.

An analysis piece at the Times describes the game that's afoot:

With all eyes fixed on the arrival of the two endangered animals in Taiwan yesterday, few paid attention to China’s maneuver to bypass the international export treaty for endangered species classifying the transport of the two pandas as a “domestic transfer.”

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) of Wild Fauna and Flora stipulates that the transfer of endangered species
between two countries must abide by the covenant. The CITES Secretariat, however, said on Monday that it considered China’s export of the two pandas as “domestic trade.”

Taiwan Society secretary-general Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the importation of the two animals was an overt attempt by Beijing to push toward its goal of Taiwan’s de jure unification with China and part of
its strategy to “internalize” the Taiwan question.

“The former Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] government internationalized the Taiwan issue, but the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] administration cooperates with Beijing to internalize it,” he
said.

It is manifest in the four agreements signed by the both sides, Lo said. Taking the example of direct cross-strait flights, all airports open for such services are “domestic.” The cross-strait food safety mechanism does not need to go through the international health organization either, he said.  [emphasis added throughout]

Years ago, I had an online exchange on another blog with a disagreeable Aussie leftist on the subject of Taiwan.  The details have been lost to the ether and my own fading memory, but part of his argument was that Taiwan is part of China (China says it's so, so it must be true!).  And because it's a domestic affair, other countries should just butt out.

I find myself thinking more about that conversation lately.  Because I think if we were to have that same conversation now, he would find himself heavily armed with Beijing's arguments.  Taiwan accepts pandas from China on the basis of DOMESTIC transfers.  Check.  Taiwan accepts flights from China as DOMESTIC in origin.  Check.  And last, but not least, Taiwan now publicly refers to itself as a REGION of China.

How would I respond to my interlocutor now, I wonder?

Welcome, little Tuan-tuan and Yuan-yuan.  Willkommen kleiner Ans und Chluss.

POSTSCRIPT:  All of my posts on the pandas may be found here.

The Presumption Of Innocence

Some confusion over what that means from a letter-writer to the Taipei Times:

You guys on a daily basis keep pushing the “innocent until proven guilty” thing regarding former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). You even have academics reminding your readers that it’s a basic human right. Correct?

Astonishingly, your same paper on a daily basis keeps pushing the “Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) selling out Taiwan’s sovereignty” thing based on your assumptions that closer ties with China lead to unification with China under China’s terms. Now isn’t this branding the KMT “guilty until proven innocent?”

No, actually, it's not.  "Innocent until proven guilty" is a presumption that applies to courts of LAW, not to the court of PUBLIC OPINION.

Big difference.

Look, literally MILLIONS of people believed O.J. Simpson was guilty of murdering his ex-wife and Ronald Goldman.  And in the court of public opinion, people are entitled to hold whatever opinions they like about criminal suspects.  But in courts of law, things are supposed to work a little differently.  In a court of law, the onus is on the prosecution to prove that the defendant is in fact guilty of the crime with which he has been charged. 

Personally, I DO think that the KMT is selling out Taiwan.  That's my own opinion, and that's a POLITICAL opinion.  But should the day ever come that some ambitious prosecutor decides to prosecute KMT President Ma Ying-jeou in a court of law on the charge of treason, then they will have to PROVE in a courtroom (beyond a reasonable doubt) that Ma did, in fact, "sell out Taiwan".

Until they do so, Ma Ying-jeou is innocent before the eyes of the law.  But what about before the eyes of the citizenry and foreign observers?  Why, they are at liberty.  At liberty to keep their own counsel on the matter.

UPDATE:  Just move along, there's nothing to see here.  KMT politicians in the Taiwanese city of Taoyuan produce a calendar featuring a People's Republic of China holiday (National Day — Oct 1st) as well as a make-believe, non-existent holiday called "Reunification Day".

But since the KMT isn't trying to sell out Taiwan to Communist China, there's absolutely nothing to worry about.

The Daily Gut On Chiu Yi

Heh.

Just to flesh out the story a bit:  Chiu Yi tries his damnedest to get a former president's secret service protection revoked –  a president who was shot at in 2004 and physically assaulted in 2008.

But suddenly Chui Yi gets his rug snatched, and he appears on national TV.  Cries about it like a little girl.  Oh, and he won't step foot out of the house now without police equipped with riot shields and helmets and batons and everything.

The Arquette Sisters are right, though.  "Yakety Sax" DOES make everything better.  Even "The Phantom Menace".

(ESPECIALLY "The Phantom Menace".)

UPDATE:  Fixed the links.

Lame Excuse Of The Week

As part of his Peace-Through-Powerlessness policy, President Ma Ying-jeou on Thursday reduced the frequency of Taiwan's military live-fire exercises, so they'll now be held biannually biennially instead of annually.

Give the government points for creativity, however.  They're not reducing Taiwan's military readiness to ingratiate themselves with the Butchers of Beijing.  Why heavens, no.  They're doing it because all that analysis stuff is just too darn hard:

The military will stage its major war games every other year instead of holding them annually, Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) said yesterday morning.

“Because the cycle of the live-fire Han Kuang Exercises is too short, making it difficult for the military to have adequate time to correct and adjust shortcomings found in each drill, we have decided to hold the series of drills every other year instead of annually,” Chen told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.  [emphasis added]

Fortunately for Western civilization, the planners of Operation Overlord weren't quite so dilatory after live-fire exercises in anticipation of the Normandy landings were conducted at the end of April '44.

Had Eisenhower and Montgomery followed the KMT's standard, D-Day might still have happened — sometime in 1946.

As it was, the military planners of D-Day instead put their noses to the grindstone, figured out what went wrong during Exercise Tiger, and launched the invasion.  And they did all that not in two year's time, but in ONE MONTH'S.

It's an unfair comparison, really.  Because the allies in 1944 were serious about their nations' defense, while the KMT of 2008 is most assuredly not.

POSTSCRIPT:  The runner-up for this week's award would have to be the reason floated for not renaming a couple of Chinese pandas, which will soon arrive in Taiwan.  (Their names, when spoken together, sound like the Chinese word for "Unification").  From Tuesday's Taipei Times:

. . . Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) [said on Sunday that] the rights of the two giant pandas China has offered as a gift to Taiwan should be respected. Hau was referring to the pandas’ names, which he said could not be changed without violating the animals’ rights.

[…]

In this political burlesque, government officials harp on the rights of pandas and request a police motorcade to ensure a smooth drive from the airport to Taipei Zoo. Limbs of Taiwanese can be broken, blood of Taiwanese can be spilled, Tibetans can be spirited to the hills of Neihu (內湖) in the dead of night, but the pandas must be comfortable. Men can be jailed, beaten, drugged or executed without a word of condemnation, but we should respect the names the pandas have grown accustomed to in order not to confuse them.

A more likely explanation is that Beijing has communicated that VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN if the pandas are ever given new names.  But instead hearing the truth, Taiwanese are treated to cock and bull excuses that these animals have some sort of "right" to the names Beijing's propagandists cynically attached to them.

Which reminds me of my mother's dog.  The one I've dubbed, over my mother's objections, "Stinky".

A cruel animal abuser I must be.  But it's a funny thing:  Whenever I call him that, he never gets QUITE SO CONFUSED OR OFFENDED as to turn down the the dog biscuits I give him . . .

KMT Begins Purge Of Citizenry

The front page of the Taipei Times featured a story about police home searches of Taiwanese who have been involved in independence-related activities.  The story speaks for itself, but there were a couple points I'd like to mention.  From the Times:

The agents prevented [the news desk director of an independence paper] from taking pictures as they searched [his house], and he engaged in a verbal dispute with them.

“An agent who appeared to be the leader told me that I could be charged for interfering with official duties and asked me to delete all the pictures that I took,” [Chen Tsung-yi] wrote. “I didn’t know much about the law, so I deleted the pictures.”

For purposes of comparison, in America it is apparently OK for people to take photos of the police.  Legally it's a mixed bag, however, as FlexYourRights.org explains:

Videotaping or photographing police in public places is usually legal [What about within PRIVATE places, such as your own home? — The Foreigner], so long as you don’t interfere with their activities. Nonetheless, doing so will often get you arrested.

Police don’t like to be watched or documented in any way, so they’ll sometimes bend the rules to stop you. We’ve heard many stories about people who got arrested for taping police, and the charges are usually dropped. If you’re taping or photographing police, make sure you don’t interfere, because “obstruction” is the most likely charge, and you’ll want to be able to defend against it.  [emphasis added]

Despite the risk of arrest, we don’t discourage the taping and photographing of police. Video evidence is uniquely effective in exposing police misconduct. If you acquire video or photographic evidence that warrants an official investigation, create and secure copies of the evidence, then forward it to local police monitoring groups such as civilian review boards, ACLU, and NAACP chapters. You should also obtain legal representation for yourself in case the police department retaliates against you.

Nonetheless, that's America and this is Taiwan.  I've no idea what the local law is regarding the matter.

Getting back to the Taipei Times' story:

Meanwhile, political columnist Paul Lin (林保華) penned an article in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Wednesday in which he said police from his local precinct had come to his house for no reason.

Paul Lin said he suspected the visit had something to do with recent articles he has written on police abusing their power and disregarding human rights.

In response, police said they were on a routine household visit and that it had nothing to do with Paul Lin’s background or his political opinions.  [emphasis added]

Err, I was under the impression that the Japanese-era law permitting police "household visits" was laid to rest just last year.  In fact, I went out of my way to PRAISE the KMT for repealing the law, which I regarded as a license for law enforcement to go on legal fishing expeditions.

Since the law is obviously still in force, I withdraw my previous compliments.

UPDATE:  It just struck me to wonder how the existence of digital images on someone's camera could POSSIBLY prevent or interfere with a police search.

Taking the pictures, yes, I can see how that MIGHT interfere, under certain circumstances.  The cops want to search a cabinet, let's say, and the homeowner stands in their way with his trusty Nikon.

But if the homeowner stands off to the side and unobtrusively clicks away, I don't see how that constitutes interference any more than if he was simply standing there watching.

UPDATE #2:  Deleted files, photos or e-mails aren't destroyed, so Chen Tsung-yi's data may still be readable.  When one of my digital camera cards became corrupted a few years ago, I was able to recover MOST of my pictures using the $30 PhotoRescue program.

UPDATE #3:  This is beyond satire.  British police tell 64 year-old man that photographing teenage gang members may constitute assault.  How long before Taiwanese police start using THAT as an excuse?

UPDATE #4:  A good editorial on the general topic of videotaping police over at Fox News.

UPDATE #5:  Oh, that's nice.

Part II: Taiwan And The Process Of The Rule Of Law

[Part I of this series can be found here.]

On December 8th, the Heritage Foundation invited the Taiwanese government to give a response to a November 25th seminar which was critical of the rule of law in Taiwan.

The government's seminar
is about an hour and forty five minutes long.  The Taipei Times reviewed this on Friday, and Michael Turton gave his own thoughts earlier today.  Both reviews are worth reading.

A rough outline of the Heritage Foundation's December 8th seminar:

00:00 — 06:48  Introductions

06:49 — 20:00  KMT legislator and Judiciary Committee member Hsieh Kuo-liang's statements.  Seemed affable enough.

20:00 — 30:48  Taiwan's Ministry of Justice Chin Jeng-shyang thrills everyone in the audience with organizational charts of the Taiwanese legal bureaucracy.  Contrary to the Taipei Times' account, I found this part WAS audible — but the Times was right about Chin not being able to read his own writing.

(Paragraph-upon-paragraph of full text loving reproduced onto PowerPoint screens.  If you're like me, you'll find yourself impatiently wondering what the point of all this was.)

30:49 — 43:47  National Police Agency Senior Executive Officer John Chu attempts to excuse actions of Taiwanese police during the visit of an unofficial representative of the Chinese government.  Didn't much care for the way he barked at the audience.

At 38:14 Chu claims the Taiwanese police didn't confiscate flags — they only prevented protesters from crossing into restricted areas.  Mighty peculiar then, that only people carrying PRC flags were left unmolested by Chu's policemen.

43:48 — 51:28   Yates asks the panelists when they think preventative detention is appropriate, and what reforms (if any) should be made to the current law.

Hsieh proposes tinkering with the duration of preventative detention, but seems quite comfortable with the underlying premise that the accused is guilty until proven innocent.

51:29 — 52:59  More Q&A

53:00 — 54:30  Hsieh informs the audience that Taiwan has no laws against purgery, and this is the reason the Taiwanese government breaks client-lawyer confidentiality.  (The Ministry of Justice apparently videotapes all conversation between people kept in preventative detention and their attorneys.)

54:31 — 1:17:09  More Q&A

1:17:10 — 1:20:47  Gerritt van der Wees calls John Chu on some of the more dishonest elements of his presentation. 

News to me was van der Wees claim that the suggestion to throw eggs at the Chinese representative was never serious:  it was instead a sly pun a reporter made based on the similarity in Mandarin between the words "egg" and "missile".

John Chu sticks to his guns, insisting that Taiwanese independence party politicians offered cash prizes for hitting the Chinese envoy on TV. 

Evidence please, Mr. Chu.

1:20:48 — 1:44:48  More Q&A

I've seen earlier reports that these three KMT representatives were sent to the U.S. with Goebbelesque pictures of smiling children giving flowers to Taiwanese police — as "proof" that reports of police brutality in Taiwan have been exaggerated. 

Unfortunately, they didn't show them at their Heritage Foundation talk.  Would've been fun to see the incredulous reaction if they had.

UPDATE (Dec 20/08):  My impression of Hsieh Kuo-liang may have been a tad too generous.  From Saturday's Johnny Neihu:

Alright, so LA is not a model city for police-suspect relations, but dude, next time you want to make a wisecrack about the Rodney King beating and the riots following his attackers’ acquittal, don’t do it at The Heritage Foundation!

Yeah.  You go to the Heritage Foundation (a think-tank populated by conservatives and neo-conservatives) and then try to get them to accept the specious logic that Taiwan can't have a police brutality problem, because Los Angeles has that problem instead.

Neihu's right.  Think-tanks don't generally hire people who are dumb enough to believe that.

Mr Hsieh, your audience thought you were a complete tool. And it doesn’t help a government’s image when a patronizing showman who loves talking about himself in the same breath as he slanders an unindicted suspect (by referring to him as a likely criminal) is the head of the legislative Judiciary, Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.

Taiwan And The Process Of The Rule Of Law

[Part II of this series can be found here.]

The Heritage Foundation featured a seminar on the topic on November 25th.  Apologies to any other blogger who might have covered this already.

The seminar is about an hour and ten minutes long, and well worth watching if you've got the time.  Here's a rough outline:

00:00 — 07:54  Introductory Remarks
Heh.  Stephen J. Yates' yields the floor to the keynote speaker:

"So without further introduction, I'd like to turn the podium over to Dr. Shieh Ching-jyh, who is — I believe I've got it correctly — he is quite literally a rocket scientist.  And apparently, you DO have to be a rocket scientist to understand the Rule of Law in Taiwan."

07:54 — 17:10  Dr. Shieh describes his case and his encounter with the Taiwanese legal system

17:11 — 18:30  Shieh describes Taiwan's preventive detention law

18:31 — 19:30  Shieh describes trial-by-media

19:31 — 20:40  Shieh discusses his acquital

20:41 — 24:30  Shieh talks about desirable changes to the law.  He also points out Taiwan's Presumption of Guilt standard.

24:31 — 27:51  Stephen Yates asks the audience to consider the appropriateness of using preventative detention in alleged terrorist cases vs. governmental corruption cases

27:52 — 38:38  Shieh mentions somewhere here that the government does not pay for the defense of civil servants who are accused of corruption crimes.  Makes you wonder how any Taiwanese government could function if its members were the perpetual targets of partisan lawfare.

38:39 — 39:25  Yates mentions that in Shieh's case, the prosecutors in their closing arguments cited newspaper stories to suggest "reasonable suspicion" that a crime had been committed.  Yates remarks:

"A reasonable suspicion based on a media account of anonymous sources is not exactly a high legal standard to find someone guilty based on a reasonable doubt."

39:26 — 41:32  More Q&A

41:33 — 45:45  A Taiwanese media ass-hat tries to get Shieh to say a few good things about Taiwan's legal system.  The CTI reporter essentially asked, Dr. Shieh, don't you feel that the system worked?  After all, you WERE acquitted!

Shieh's reply was that the PROCESS WAS THE PUNISHMENT.  Shieh was held incommunicado with the outside world for 59(?) days without charge in a cell with 2 other people.  That 5' X 9' cell was apparently so small that the three prisoners were unable to lie down flat.

More shocking however, were Shieh's revelations about Taiwan's legal discovery process.  Prosecutors apparently confiscated 40 boxes of evidence from Shieh's office and home, and yet the defendent was not permitted access to that evidence.

Shieh's acquital was only made possible by a miracle:  the prosecutors' evidence-gathering team somehow overlooked 2 key documents — documents they DIDN'T confiscate and which Shieh was thus able to use in his own defense.

Wild stuff.

45:46 — 1:09:41  More Q& A

I'm a little ashamed now that I didn't follow this case a few years ago.

More Taiwanese Police Misconduct

From Friday's Taipei Times:

More than 100 [Tibetan refugees] have been staging a sit-in at Liberty Square in Taipei since Tuesday, demanding that the government grant them legal resident status or at least a work permit.

They were forcibly removed from the demonstration site and dropped off in the outskirts of the city, including Guandu (關渡), Nangang (南港) and in the mountains in Neihu (內湖) at around 3am yesterday.

Now, the Tibetans in question WERE breaking Taiwan's assembly law by demonstrating without permits.  The police response was however, also unbounded by law.  Doubtless, judges are granted a measure of discretion when adjudicating these types of cases.  But I'm pretty sure there's not a single statute on the books that authorizes law enforcement to pick up suspects and just abandon them SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF FRICKIN' NOWHERE.

The most sinister interpretation of this is that the police were trying to send a signal.  Engage in forbidden dissent, and we can make you "disappear".  Temporarily — though that could change in the future . . .

And the kindest interpretation?  OK, Taiwanese authorities wanted to remove Tibetan protesters from Liberty Square (or Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, or whatever it's being called these days).  Possibly on the basis of "numerous complaints" from Communist Party tourists from China.  But Taiwan's higher-ups didn't want the Tibetans jailed because that might turn them into an international cause celebre.  So instead the cops were instructed to remove the ralliers and make their lives difficult, on the theory that that might help dissuade them from illegally protesting again in the future. 

According to this explanation, the police acted out of cowardice, not deliberate malice.  No real harm done then, and problem solved.  Gin and tonics all around.

No harm done — except when one of these poor bastards gets dropped off by police and meets with an unfortunate accident.  Because it's 3 am, remember?  Pretty easy time to get mugged, or run over, or what-have-you.  And when that happens, who's morally (if not legally) responsible?

The police department that put him there at three in the morning, that's who.

UPDATE:  Today's Taipei Times comes to some of the same conclusions, but also pointed out the fact that the Tibetans didn't speak Mandarin — which made it difficult for them to return back to Taipei after the police drove them from the city.

Also of concern is the behavior of police in apprehending Tibetan protesters at the same location and, in some cases, taking them to the hills of Neihu District (內湖) — in Taipei City terms, the middle of nowhere — and dumping them there. In some cases the hapless Tibetans did not even have the language skills to ask for directions.

It is not clear what this technique might be called in the National Police Agency officers’ manual, but from a legal standpoint it borders on abduction.

Dumping protesters in remote locations is a practice that must cease forthwith. If not, the police will once again invite scrutiny from international rights observers — not something that they would relish given the thoroughgoing incompetence of senior police in dealing with foreign observers.

I ran to the supermarket a few times in the wee hours of that morning, and it was a bit nippy.  I was only outside for 5 or 10 minutes, though, and it was probably colder in the mountains around Taipei, too.  Wonder if any of the Tibetans were dressed for it?