The ever-changing “status quo”

To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are, but when it comes to describing the situation in the Taiwan Strait, the “status quo” is never equilibrium, it is indeed a hoax.

“Strategic ambiguity” is a term widely used by the US government officials to describe Taiwan’s legal status. On page 4 of this CRS report dated Feb. 2006 on Taiwan’s Political Status, it has detailed description of the “strategic ambiguity”. As a matter of fact, the “status quo” as interpreted by the US is based upon its policy of strategic ambiguity. Following this policy, Taiwan’s UN referendum was heavily criticized, but China’s every hostile move to annex Taiwan was condoned.

The policy makers in the US State Department think that by keeping Taiwan’s legal status ambiguous, it has served the purpose of preserving peace in the Taiwan Strait, but this policy has totally trampled the basic rights of Taiwanese to participate in international organizations, such as the WHO (the most crucial health rights), and in the meantime ignored China’s gradual annexation of Taiwan through unilateral declaration of territorial rights on international organizations’ documents, example below (click the Cached link as Taiwan’s MAC office under Ma Ying-jeou's leadership is trying to appease China by self-censoring these type of documents)

MAC: The United States should respect and understand that the ...China presumptuously includes Taiwan's ports under its territorial ... where China included some of Taiwan's ports in the list of its domestic ports, ...www.mac.gov.tw/english/english/news/07117.htm - Cached - Similar

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on its website the list of qualified ports under the International Health Regulations (IHR), where China included some of Taiwan's ports in the list of its domestic ports, which fully revealed that the political oppression and interference that China has imposed onTaiwan's international space and sovereign status has reached an extreme level. In response to this, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has strongly expressed its dissatisfaction and condemnation.

Further, the WHO’s apartheid against Taiwanese caused many problems, the immediate effect of this was evidenced by Taiwan not being able to receive prompt assistance from the WHO’s health authority to control the SARS epidemics in 2003, the delay of assistance (while the WHO contemplating for China’s approval?!) caused many unnecessary deaths.

Later the secret Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between China and the WHO’s officials further damaged Taiwan’s autonomy by allowing China to “manage” the procedures in which how WHO should or should not interact with Taiwan, instead of its initial intent of allowing Taiwan’s meaningful participation in health meetings and international cooperation tasks without Taiwan being an actual member.

Facing China’s suppression of Taiwan’s international space (a must read link), the so-called meaningful participation was replaced by all kinds of Chinese tactics to prevent the participation by Taiwanese delegations. Tactics used include Taiwanese officials were informed at the last minute for health meetings that they either missed the deadline of registration for the event or could not prepare themselves properly for the event; in many instances, the event host countries, after being pressured by Chinese authority, simply didn’t grant visas to Taiwanese delegations. If Taiwanese delegations were allowed to participate in an event, China would designate their choice by picking their preferred candidates to represent Taiwan for the event.

The participation of Taiwan in the WHA meeting as an observer this past June was simply a plot, a political victory for China. Participation in a week’s meeting as an observer does not in reality protect Taiwanese universal health rights because only with Beijing's approval could Taiwan observe the WHA meeting. The fact that Taiwan must re-apply each year for its WHA observer status implies that Beijing wants to hold leverage on future Taiwanese leaders depending on their stance towards Beijing.

The strategic ambiguity is a total failure in terms of protecting the basic universal rights of Taiwanese.

If a person was born in Taiwan, he or she cannot work for any UN or its sub organizations even if he or she holds any other country’s passport.

I will give an example:

A friend of mine was born in Taiwan to a missionary couple stationed there. My friend does not live in Taiwan anymore. When she was applying for a humanitarian job from some UN sub organization, on the application form she had to choose, among the pre-entered choices, the country of her birth. She was born in Taiwan but because the country “Taiwan” was simply not included in the choices, she didn’t know what to do. Immediately she faced the problem of leaving this question blank (but it was a required entry), or just picked any arbitrary country on the form (that would be lying against her passport entry), or abandoned the application? Why shouldn’t Taiwan be included in the choices, is Taiwan an entity in the outer space? Does the strategic ambiguity address this problem? No!

There is no need to mention those Taiwanese people born in Taiwan and carry a ROC passport who wish to contribute their talent in the UN or its sub-organizations because no matter how gifted or how distinguished they may be, they are doomed to be excluded from working for the UN. And Taiwan does have the technical know-how and many talented people who could contribute their expertise.

Other problems:

Taiwanese want a locally-designed constitution to consolidate domestic democracy replacing the imposed ROC constitution, but the US opposed because that would be a change of the status quo.

Taiwanese have no rights to a nationality of their choice, holding a passport called ROC, an occupying authority that double as Chinese exile government with only a few countries recognizing it.

If Taiwanese do not challenge these unequal treatments, how can they obtain the basic rights inscribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Similarly, if there were no abolishment of slavery and no civil rights movement from the predecessors, I wonder if president Obama would enjoy the status he enjoys today?

The status-quo is shifting bit by bit, tilting in favor of China because the US executive branch allows it to happen, it never stays at equilibrium.

The most recent omission of the Taiwan Relations Act on the written statement in Beijing by president Obama coupled with his indecision on the F-16 C/D jet sales are an indication of another shift, which may have been pre-negotiated by Secretary of State H. Clinton back in her February visit to China. Is this the 3rd round of betrayal after 1947 and 1979?

Due to US’s other domestic and global interests in which China’s cooperation are being sought, Taiwan is being bargained away little by little leaving the rights of Taiwanese citizens unprotected.

Why do the US government officials make foreign policies that often trample the human rights of citizens of other countries? While I don’t agree with innocent US citizens being held as hostages on many confrontational situations abroad, but how can anyone help when their government officials designed foreign policies to invite danger for its citizens?

And for Taiwanese who believe in the choice of keeping the status quo, this post is a reminder for them to review what has happened from keeping the so called “status quo”.

Former chairman of AIT speaks up

Nat Bellocchi, a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, appeared in today's Taipei Times with this op-ed, Pitfalls and possibilities in Obama’s Taiwan line.

He expressed his opinion about how the global community (especially US and China) should interact with Taiwan in order to foster true peace and stability in the region, his remarks really made my day:

From an international perspective, Taiwan is an example of a successful transition to democracy. The most rational and reasonable outcome of Taiwan’s normalization of relations with China would be acceptance of this young democracy in the international family of nations. This is a process that will need cooperation from all sides; for its part, China will need to see that it is in its own interests to come to terms with a small and democratic neighbor with which it can live in peace.

Remember, Taiwanese never threaten nor challenge the existence of China. It was the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) who had fought against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the past. It is the CCP who has continuously threatened Taiwanese with weapons. And it is the US officials who have continuously ignored the rights and wills of the Taiwanese people in pursuit of some US politicians' own business interests, example. A search on the internet with the combination of words like "Kissinger and China and business" will lead you to a dozen of related entries, including his recent visit to China in October 2009. Kissinger is China's favorite guest!

It is not fair to blame all the presidents, like Clinton, who followed the groundwork laid by Kissinger. However, it is up to the American people to address the issue of conflict of interest involving government officials and / or advisors and their foreign venture consulting businesses as it is beyond the scope of this post. The US foreign relations and policies have often been dominated by the interests of these consulting firms and their clients.

Nat Bellocchi also had a nice piece back in August, 2005, Identity issue raises its head again. It contains identity issue as well as a warning for the Taiwanese who believe that maintaining the status-quo is the best choice for Taiwan. For people who pay little attention about the gradual shifting of the status-quo, Bellocchi's advice in that piece was:

Unfortunately, Taiwan has one priority issue that overshadows all the others -- the lack of consensus on national identity.

That is an enormous task, but a critical necessity. Voters see "status quo" as the answer -- thinking that staying neutral can last as long as they like. My last article tried to explain why this is illusory. The result would not be a choice, but eventual unification. Ambiguity dominates the language between Taiwan, the US and China. In addition, election campaigns tend to be dominated by unreliable rhetoric. With the lack of interest among so many voters, addressing this problem should be today's top priority.

Beyond “Don’t concede more on Taiwan 美對台立場不能再讓步於中國”

I was reading this article called Don’t concede more on Taiwan by Hisahiko Okazaki published on Friday, Nov 06, 2009, Page 8 at the Taipei Times. It actually talked about how President Clinton shifted Taiwan’s status-quo, an important history lesson for Taiwanese from 1998 to 2009. Hisahiko Okazaki has served as the Japanese ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Thailand. He now runs the Okazaki Institute, a think tank in Tokyo. This piece was first published in ACFR News Group No.1528, an e-mail publication of The American Committees on Foreign Relations, on Oct. 27, 2009.

The following are the excerpts from the above link which described how Taiwan’s status-quo has been slowly shifted since President Clinton’s era:

Then on the eve of the President’s visit, stories began to circulate that the President was going to commit ‘three NOs,” that the US would oppose Taiwan independence, one-China-one-Taiwan policy and Taiwan’s formal membership in state-based international organizations. Fortunately, there was no mention of “three NOs” in the joint press conference, nor in the major policy speech at the Beijing University. Then the volte-face came. Dropping by in Shanghai, the President declared the “three NO’s” in a dialogue with Chinese intellectuals on a TV show.

Although the US Congress quickly rejected the commitment through resolutions of both Houses, China may still view the remark as an official commitment of the President of the United States and may quite likely expect President Obama to reconfirm it.

It is not difficult at all to suspect that there were some disgraceful deals behind the scenes. The date of the visit, to start with, is believed to have been besought by the US to turn attention away from a domestic scandal, and that indebted the US to say three NOs and bypass Japan and Korea while making the longest trip that Clinton made to a single country. The topics to be discussed during the Shanghai TV interview, which had originally been planned to concentrate on cultural affairs, seemed to have been changed at short notice.

The Chinese-language translation of the above article is also available.

The above article led me to read some other very important articles, which I will mention them from the latest to the oldest.

First, what did Secretary of State H. Clinton do this past February in Beijing?

Read Clinton’s China Visit Opens Door on Climate Change by Orville Schell.

The 2^nd last paragraph of the article has this:

Long after the current economic crisis is over, the situation in Tibet has been calmed, arguments over currency exchange have been forgotten, and the Taiwan split has been resolved, the world will only be beginning to confront the daunting effects of climate change. To date, the U.S. and China have been largely out of the game of climate change solutions. Without our two countries whole-heartedly in the game, there is, honestly speaking, no meaningful game being played.

What does it mean by this phrase “the Taiwan split has been resolved”?

Whatever it means, it is up to everyone’s guess! Was Taiwan bargained away without our knowledge? Is president Obama’s upcoming trip to China, for the subject of Taiwan, simply to rubber stamp the arrangement already made earlier between H. Clinton and China’s leaders in February?

Now another article back in 2003.

An article by Charles R. Smith published on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003 would raise some eyebrows for sure because it gave some explanations why China could advance so quickly in its military science.

Declassified documents showed that President Bill Clinton personally approved the transfer to China of advanced space technology that can be used for nuclear combat. (read the entire article…)

And one could find out how President Clinton had kowtowed to China’s demand back in 1998 by reading As Summit Approaches, Clinton Follows China’s Lead written by Richard Halloran just before Clinton’s trip.

The Chinese had induced Mr. Clinton to spend nine days in China, from June 25 to July 3, 1998 (just in time to return home for the July 4^th national holiday), longer than any other U.S. president’s trip to China before, and had requested Clinton to fly directly from US soil to Beijing by-passing Japan, an important ally of US in Asia. China also made Clinton appeared in Tiananmen Square symbolizing his assertion of China’s handling of the dissidence was right, thereby, bringing an end to the controversy in China's history.

I conclude that Hisahiko Okazaki’s recent article is backed up by all my other reading I have done.

Twenty three million people’s fate was nothing when a politician had to diffuse attention from his personal scandal. And I don’t understand how anyone can be accused of spying when military secrets can be “approved” officially to be transferred abroad.

Finally, Chinese dissidents may be expecting yet another time’s lock-ups or house arrests for Obama’s upcoming visit since that had been the case when the UK’s Telegraph reported on Feb. 21 2009 by David Eimer that Hillary Clinton China visit blamed for the detention of activists.

If you haven’t read the links, go ahead and read them now because history has taught us many lessons.