[b]Privatizing public goods:
Privatizing public goods: Our lives up for sale
Yanuar Nugroho Researcher, General Secretary Uni Sosial Demokrat Jakarta yanuar-n@unisosdem.org
2. ODA -- Long-term strategy needed for ODA progress 1 x 32
ODA needs long-term strategy OR Long-term strategy needed for ODA Koji Tajima The Asahi Shimbun Tokyo
3. Strait -- How direct for Taiwan? 1 X 32
How direct for Taiwan?
The Straits Times Asia News Network Singapore
On Jan. 3 last year, three Taiwanese ships made a ceremonial journey to China from the islands of Kinmen and Matsu. This was some deal, as direct links had been proscribed by Taipei since 1949 after Chairman Mao Zedong's revolution completed its takeover of the mainland.
Taiwan then suggested, ever so delicately, that full direct links for trade, travel and postal services could be established by the end of the year, within the World Trade Organization's (WTO) framework of rules on mercantile mobility.
Both China and Taiwan are now in the WTO, but it was never anticipated that crossing the ideological hurdle of the "three links" was going to be a giveaway. China is patient, probing and gradually softening its hectoring tone, whereas Taiwan tries to preserve its political separateness while conceding that economic integration with the mainland cannot be slowed down.
China used to be overbearing in pursuing direct links, as it saw integration as advancing its ultimate goal of political union. But such has been the flood of investments from Taiwan in the last decade that China feels time is on its side. Yet, it has signaled lately it will not be denied indefinitely.
The pressure is Taiwan's to handle. As President Chen Shui- bian has apparently agreed to China's proposal that private sector organizations of both sides handle the negotiations on the links, he has tacitly committed his independence-inclined Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the view that a distinction can be drawn between the island's identity and its economic interests.
Remarks on the subject made last week by Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen have been both a help to Beijing's cause, and a boon to those Taiwanese who see a trap about to be sprung. Qian told a group of visiting Taiwanese businessmen that the links could be formalized without the precondition of Taiwan having to accept that it is a part of China.
Then, he created difficulties for himself saying: "As long as you treat the three links as an internal matter of one country, they can be implemented as soon as possible, and not relate to the political implications of one China."
At this, the warning flag went up for Chen. He rejected the formulation of "an internal matter" as laying precisely that objectionable precondition. Did Qian really intend that meaning? China was having the process going pretty much its way already.
It can be argued that no real harm has been done, as Taiwan's ditching of its "no haste, be patient" policy in favor of one of "active opening" had been implemented by Chen's government. A DPP official was quoted by the Financial Times as saying the policy change was "real". "Many of our party members are doing business on the mainland," he said. "It can't be stopped."
Indeed, Chen removed the US$50-million cap on Taiwanese investments as impractical soon after it was set. Taipei also removed the ban on high-tech investments, another nod to the inevitable. After the early beginning of low-end plastics, furniture and textiles investments, high-tech jewels like Acer and United Microelectronics are transferring high-end research and marketing functions to the mainland. One estimate puts total investments at US$100 billion.
Critics of the policy, such as Vice-President Annette Lu and former president Lee Teng-hui, warn against the island being reduced to an industrial husk. Chen hears them, but it is something else more fundamental he worries about.