[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.