Clause celebre: Taiwan leader must convince China she's no 'splittist'

Tsai Ing-wen becomes Taiwan's first woman president this month when her mission will be to convince giant neighbour China her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is not seeking independence, any hint of which could lead to war.

PINGTUNG, Taiwan: Tsai Ing-wen becomes Taiwan's first woman president this month when her mission will be to convince giant neighbour China her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is not seeking independence, any hint of which could lead to war.

Communist Party leaders in Beijing regard fiercely democratic, self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province and have not ruled out using force to bring it under China's control.

A 591-word clause in the DPP's charter begs to differ.

"Based on the principle of national sovereignty, (we) advocate establishing a sovereign and independent 'Republic of Taiwan' and a new constitution that should be decided on by all residents of Taiwan in a referendum," the clause says.

DPP seniors say the clause, written in 1991, is defunct - but to delete it would rupture the party and bring out the "splittist", or separatist, forces that China constantly warns against. Tsai's juggling trick is to convince China the DPP is not seeking independence and to keep the party intact.

"China's attitude on opposing independence is out of touch with the real situation," said independence advocate Koo Kwang-ming. "They really have no way (how to deal) with Taiwan, so they take what has been stated in the past and repeat, repeat and repeat it."

Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war to the Communists in China in 1949. China, formally known as the People's Republic of China, has pressured the new Taiwan government to stick to the "one-China" policy agreed upon with the outgoing China-friendly Nationalist government.

The policy allows each side to respectively interpret what it means. The Communists say they rule all of China including Taiwan, while the Nationalists maintain the "Republic of China", Taiwan's formal name, is the ruler.

Tsai has said she will maintain the status quo with China under the constitutional order of the "Republic of China". Last month she reiterated her position, saying her policy will be based on democratic principles and transcend party politics.

MOVING ON FROM MARTIAL LAW

China's top Communist Party newspaper said on Thursday that Taiwan stands at a critical juncture of either accepting Beijing's "one China" principle or taking an unclear stance and refusing to abandon support for Taiwan independence.

"The so-called 'maintenance of the status quo' promised by Taiwan's newly elected leader is only empty talk," the People's Daily said. "The responsibility for the consequences caused can only be accepted by the DPP authorities."

The independence clause served a purpose in 1991, DPP seniors say. The island had emerged from martial law only in 1987. It was undergoing major governmental reform and its first direct presidential election was still five years away.

The DPP tried to freeze the clause in 2014, but no decision was made.

"Our goal is not to establish a Republic of Taiwan. It is to be the ruling party," said Ker Chien-ming, one of the first members of the 30-year-old party and its legislative leader. "But to abolish it will cause another dispute. The independence faction will give the party a huge amount of pressure."

Activist Lai Chung-chiang said the clause shouldn't be deleted.

"It would limit our space in deciding our future," he said at a protest with leaders of the 2014 demonstrations that stalled a trade pact with China and were key in toppling the Nationalists from power.

In southern Taiwan's Pingtung County, where Tsai's father was born, it is less about splitting from Communist China than about maintaining a democratic way of life.

"Our expectations are for this Taiwan leader who hails from Pingtung to pay more attention to this relatively remote area and prevent the urban-rural imbalances from widening," Pingtung County magistrate Pan Men-an told Reuters.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said in March China would never allow the historical tragedy of Taiwan being split from the rest of the country to happen again.

Japan ruled Taiwan as a colony for about five decades until the end of World War Two. China's last dynasty, the Qing, had ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after losing the first Sino-Japanese war.

Shirley Kan, a retired congressional researcher and long-time Taiwan watcher, said the DPP now had a record to back its case to maintain the status quo, whereas there was no such record in 1991.

"The facts are that Taiwan is much more entwined with the People's Republic of China and Taiwan cannot avoid cross-Strait engagement," she said, referring to the stretch of water dividing the two sides.

"It is no longer a question of whether to have a cross-Strait relationship, but how to conduct it."

Japanese PM hopes for peace progress with Putin

LONDON: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he hoped to make progress on a World War II peace treaty with Russia and a long-simmering territorial dispute in talks on Friday with President Vladimir Putin.

Abe said on Thursday (May 5) there was great potential for unlocking better economic relations between Japan and Russia if they could find a solution to their historical differences.

He also said it would be difficult to make progress on pressing world issues like Syria, Ukraine and North Korea without constructive Russian involvement.

Abe is due to meet Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, which hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics.

"Between Japan and Russia, even after 70 years and more since the end of World War II, no peace treaty has been concluded, which is highly irregular," Abe told reporters in London during his tour of European capitals.

"This is the 13th time that I meet with President Putin in a summit. Without the two leaders talking to each other directly, we can never solve this problem."

Tokyo-Moscow relations have been hamstrung by the row that dates back to the end of World War II when Soviet troops seized the four southernmost islands in the Kuril chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

"We have to resolve the issue of the occupation of the Northern Territories and we must conclude the peace treaty," Abe said.

He said Japan and Russia could "unleash the great potential" in "economic and other fields" only if they solved the "abnormal situation" through a peace treaty. He said he wanted "frank dialogue" with Putin on these points.

Abe said that on Syria, the Islamic State militant group, Ukraine, North Korea and Iran, "we need Russia to be constructively engaged in order to bring solutions".

He also said he hoped to welcome Putin to Japan in the future. "In order to make this visit significant, we would like to study and search for a most appropriate timing for that to happen," he said.

Abe has been visiting European capitals ahead of the Group of Seven summit he is hosting later this month.

Russia was part of the group under the wider G8 configuration but was evicted following the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Easier travel, more study options for Singaporeans heading to Australia

SINGAPORE: Travelling to Australia, whether for work or study, will be easier as a result of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Singapore and Australia, with talks concluding on Friday (May 6).

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one of the four pillars of the CSP was strengthening people-to-people ties by facilitating tourism, cultural exchanges and educational opportunities. 

In this area, both countries have agreed in principle on a tailored multi-year visa agreement to facilitate travel and entry of Singaporeans who have been pre-vetted by the Government. 

An overarching memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Singapore Tourism Board and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) will establish strategic directions for further collaboration, including sharing research, data and market insights. 

According to Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, there are 50,000 Singaporeans who live in Australia, while 20,000 Australians live here. Every year, 400,000 Singaporeans visit Down Under while a million would make a trip in the other direction.

OVERSEAS STUDY OPPORTUNITIES TO GROW

There will also be more opportunities for students here to head to Australia for study and cultural exchanges, as part of the CSP. 

For instance, there will be a pilot internship programme that will aim to give 100 Singaporeans studying in Australia more internship opportunities with leading Australian companies, said MFA. 

A programme called the Building Relations through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement (BRIDGE) will also promote cultural exchange between schools from both countries using online learning and teacher exchanges. 

Up to eight Singaporean schools will be selected to participate and will be partnered with up to eight Australian schools, MFA said. 

Additionally, the Work and Holiday Maker Programme will start with up to 500 on each country's end. The programme aims to promote cultural exchange by allowing young people from Australia and Singapore to experience each other's country and undertake short-term work to supplement their holiday and cultural experience, it said. 

"With the new arrangements, these would make it more convenient and accessible for Singaporean and Australian tourists, business people, students and young people to travel," Dr Balakrishnan told reporters on Thursday.  

Duterte's shocking, shrewd shot at the Philippine presidency

The Philippine election frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte appears intent on shocking his way to the presidency. 

MANILA: Rodrigo Duterte launched his profanity-laced campaign to become President of the mainly Catholic Philippines with a tirade against the pope that included branding the revered figure's mother a prostitute.

On the hustings since, the 71-year-old has joked about wanting to rape a murdered Australian missionary, and vowed to kill tens of thousands of criminals then pardon himself for mass murder.

Duterte has also bragged about his Viagra-fuelled serial adultery, called his daughter a "drama queen" for talking about being sexually abused, and told lawmakers he would shut down Congress if they did not follow his orders.

Using such tactics -- which have drawn comparisons with US Republican Donald Trump and similarly upended conventional political wisdom -- Duterte has become the shock favourite to win Monday's (May 9) election.

While it is easy to be fooled by Duterte's controversial comments, analysts say he has shrewdly created an image as an anti-establishment figure capable of providing quick solutions to deep-rooted problems such as crime and poverty.

"He has become the symbol of frustration, maybe even desperation, of those who have put their trust and hope in the elite in this country," Manila-based political analyst Ramon Casiple told AFP.

Since the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, the Philippines has been mostly ruled at local and national levels by a small group of families backed by powerful businessmen -- a system that has helped entrench one of Asia's biggest rich-poor divides.

The current president, Benigno Aquino, belongs to such a clan and has in the final stages of his rule been fiercely criticised for what many voters regard as perpetuating an economic model that favours the wealthy.

Aquino has overseen an economy that has grown by an average of six percent a year since assuming the presidency in 2010, and won international plaudits for trying to tame crippling corruption.

But roughly one quarter of the nation's 100 million people still live below the poverty line, barely changed from six years ago.

TARGETING THE ELITE, CRIMINALS

Duterte, a lawyer who has ruled the major southern city of Davao for most of the past two decades, has on the campaign trail repeatedly criticised the elite and the national power structure.

"When I become president, by the grace of God, I serve the people, not you," he told reporters this week, referring to the elite.

"Shit. My problem is the people at the bottom of society... my problem is how to place food on the table."

Duterte says the key to eradicating poverty is to end crime, and he is offering a brutal solution that bypasses a notoriously corrupt and inefficient judicial system -- ordering security forces to kill criminals.

He promises to end crime within six months of his presidency, a seemingly impossible goal that nevertheless millions of Filipinos are embracing.

A rank outsider in the presidential race a few months ago, Duterte is now front-runner with a double-digit lead over his rivals in surveys.

Aquino's preferred successor, Mar Roxas, a US-educated scion of a powerful political family, is in equal second, struggling to overcome perceptions he has no empathy for the poor.

DEATH SQUAD FEARS

To prove that he can end crime, Duterte has regularly pointed to his record in Davao, which he says he has turned into one of the Philippines' safest cities.

Human rights groups allege Duterte's zero-tolerance approach to crime has included running vigilante squads that have killed more than 1,000 people.

Duterte bragged in a recent television interview about running the squads, saying 1,700 people had actually been killed, and at other times denied any knowledge of them.

But he has been unequivocal about his vows to unleash hell on criminals, making those plans a central feature of every campaign speech.

In one address to a crowd in a small town in the northern Philippines attended by AFP, Duterte smiled as he gave business advice to those in the crowd to start up funeral parlours in preparation of him winning the election.

"The funeral parlours will be packed... I'll supply the dead bodies," he said, to huge cheers and laughter.

His aides regularly brief journalists that Duterte's outrageous language is part of an act, and that he will be far more moderate once he is ensconced in the presidential palace.

Aquino, whose mother led a "people power" revolution that overthrew strongman Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, thinks otherwise.

The president, who is limited by the constitution to a single term, has repeatedly warned voters they risk another dictatorship if they elect Duterte.

For Clarita Alia, a 62-year-old slum dweller in Davao, the fears are a lot more personal. Alia lost four sons, the youngest aged 14, to what she and rights groups believe were the death squads.

"He has no morals," Alia told AFP at her shanty home this week. "God help us if they win... parents look after your children."

Source

North Korea stages once-in-a-generation party congress

North Korea raised the curtain on Friday on its biggest political show for a generation, aimed at cementing the absolute rule of leader Kim Jong-Un and shadowed by the possibility of an imminent nuclear test.

The first ruling party congress for nearly 40 years drew thousands of selected delegates from across the country to Pyongyang for what, in theory at least, was a gathering of North Korea’s top decision-making body.

The 33-year-old Kim, who was not even born when the last Workers’ Party Congress was held in 1980, was expected to deliver a keynote address which will be minutely scrutinised for any policy shift or personnel changes in the governing elite.

The 1980 event was staged to crown Kim’s father Kim Jong-Il as heir apparent to his own father, the North’s founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

While the agenda—and even the duration—of the event is still unknown, its main objective is widely seen as confirming Kim Jong-Un’s status as legitimate inheritor of the Kim family’s dynastic rule which spans almost seven decades.

The congress is also expected to confirm as party doctrine Kim’s “byungjin” policy of pursuing nuclear weapons in tandem with economic development.

Propaganda party

Ahead of the gathering, national and Workers’ Party flags lined the broad, rainswept streets of Pyongyang, while banners carried slogans such as “Great comrades Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il will always be with us”.

Another slogan stretched across the street defiantly proclaimed: “Defend the headquarters of the Korean revolution at the cost of our lives.”

Since Kim took power after the death of his father in December 2011, North Korea has carried out two nuclear tests and two successful space rocket launches that were widely seen as disguised ballistic missile tests.

Even as the international community responded with condemnation and sanctions, Kim pressed ahead with a single-minded drive for a credible nuclear deterrent with additional missile and technical tests.

There has been widespread speculation about the North preparing another nuclear test to coincide with the congress, as a defiant gesture of strength and intent.

Nuclear state

Just hours before the party congress opened, the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued a statement underlining the country’s status as a genuine, and unapologetic, nuclear power.

“Regardless of whether someone recognises it or not, our status as a nuclear state that is armed with H-bombs cannot change,” the statement said.

Analysing the most recent satellite pictures of the North’s test site at Punggye-ri, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University on Thursday said there was no clear evidence one way or the other of whether an underground test was imminent.

South Korean government officials believe the North is ready to conduct a test as soon as the order is given, and say a decision might have been taken to test during the congress, which the world’s media have been invited to cover.

Officials in Seoul say they expect the event to last four days, with the opening day devoted to Kim’s speech and a lengthy report on the party’s achievements.

State television set the tone with its first broadcast Friday morning, with an announcer voicing the people’s “deepest gratitude” to Kim Jong-Un for preparing this “grand political festival”.

Some analysts predict significant personnel changes as Kim brings in a younger generation of leaders, picked for their loyalty to him.

Preparing for the congress involved mobilising the entire country in a 70-day campaign that New York-based Human Rights Watch denounced as a mass exercise in forced labour.

(AFP)

Abu Sayyaf hostages in Philippines make video plea

Three hostages being held by militants in the Philippines have appeared in a video pleading for their governments to meet the captors' demands.

The Canadian, Norwegian and Filipino men are being held by Abu Sayyaf, the Islamist militant separatists who last week beheaded Canadian John Ridsdel.

In the video, the hostages say if the demands are not met "we will be executed like our friend John".

Abu Sayyaf has previously demanded a multi-million dollar ransom.

The Philippines and Canadian government have said they will not give in to ransom demands. The Philippines has also launched a military operation against the militant group.

Who are the Abu Sayyaf group?

Canadian PM's outrage over hostage killing

Image copyrightEPA

Image captionMr Ridsdel was killed after no ransom was paid for his release

Mr Ridsdel was kidnapped from a marina near the city of Davao last September along with another Canadian, Robert Hall, his Filipina partner Marites Flor, and Kjartan Sekkingstad, a Norwegian.

They were taken to an Abu Sayyaf stronghold of the remote island of Jolo where Mr Ridsdel was killed on 25 April after a ransom deadline passed.

---

Abu Sayyaf: Analysis by Frank Gardner, BBC security correspondent

Founded in 1991, the Islamist terrorist and separatist group Abu Sayyaf is believed to have only a few hundred armed followers but it has managed to survive numerous assaults by the Philippine army, aided by US military trainers.

Since 2014, when its commanders started swearing allegiance to so-called Islamic State, Abu Sayyaf has intensified its drive to kidnap hostages for multi-million dollar ransoms, mimicking the practices of Islamist terror groups in the Middle East by issuing hostage plea videos with threats of beheading.

In the past, one of the most successful, if controversial, hostage mediations was carried out in 2000 by the late Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, when he bought the freedom of six western hostages for a reported million dollars a head.

The large sums of money involved both then and since have led to accusations that Abu Sayyaf are really more interested in money than religion but their link to IS, however tenuous, appears to have only increased their fanaticism.

---

The new video, reported on Tuesday by the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist media, showed the three hostages with six gunmen standing behind them.

A masked militant warns Canada and the Philippines that the three remaining hostages would be killed "if you procrastinate once again".

Mr Hall is shown saying the governments were being ordered to "meet the demand" of the kidnappers, without giving further details.

He also asked the Philippines government to "stop shooting at us and trying to kill us. These guys are going to do a good job of that."

Mr Sekkingstad says that "if the demand is not met we will be executed like our friend John was a few days ago".

Image copyrightReuters

Image captionAbu Sayyaf released a group of 10 Indonesian sailors at the weekend

Image copyrightAFP

Image captionThe group were flown to Jakarta, apparently after a ransom was paid

Ms Flor is seen pleading with several Philippines officials and candidates in the upcoming national election, saying "we want to be freed alive", the AFP news agency reports.

Abu Sayyaf is a fragmented but violent militant group with its roots in the Islamist separatist insurgency in the southern Philippines. Several of its factions have aligned themselves with the so-called Islamic State.

It has repeatedly taken hostages over the years but has often released them in exchange for ransoms.

On Sunday, the group released 10 Indonesian sailors they had been holding for five weeks.

It is still holding several captives, including a group of eight Malaysians and Indonesians seized from boats and a Dutch birdwatcher taken in 2012.

North Korea ramps up security ahead of national congress

Security is being stepped up in North Korea’s capital as Kim Jong-un, the pariah state’s supreme leader, takes no chances in the tense run-up to this week’s first national congress of the ruling Workers’ party for 36 years.

Travel to and from Pyongyang has been halted, spot checks are being carried out at hotels and private homes, and additional people’s security ministry personnel have been drafted in from the provinces, South Korea-based media reported.

Anyone getting into trouble with the authorities before the congress is being treated as a political offender and punished accordingly, an unidentified sourcetold DailyNK. “They are creating a day-to-day atmosphere that is terrifying.”

Kim is expected to use the congress, which opens on Friday, to cement his grip on power and reinforce the totalitarian one-party system. The 33-year-old will unveil plans for badly needed economic reforms.

Strong sign of North Korean nuclear test as regime calls 6 May party congress

 

Read more

By triumphantly showcasing North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state – his other key aim – Kim will provide an alarming reminder to the international community of its failure to rein in the regime’s increasingly menacing missile and weapons programmes.

Kim seems keen to get the world’s attention. Recent months have seen a sharp escalation of high-profile, illegal weapons trials. A long-range rocket was launched over the Sea of Japan in February. This was followed by two consecutive tests of the land-based, medium-range Musudan missile, both of which reportedly failed.

Last weekend, the regime attempted a submarine ballistic missile launch – a bigger worry since such a weapon could, in theory, be covertly deployed off Japan or the western US seaboard. North Korea has a small stockpile of atomic bombs. It conducted its fourth underground nuclear test in January. South Korea is predicting a fifth test, possibly before or during the congress.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

 An undated photo released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows a test fire of a strategic submarine ballistic missile. Photograph: KCNA/EPA

The international community – and in North Korea’s case, unusually, the major powers are in unanimity – is at a loss. Additional, tougher UN security council and EU sanctions imposed in March have not deterred Kim. On the contrary, Pyongyang portrays the measures, along with April’s biggest ever US-South Korea military exercises, as further evidence it is threatened with invasion and “decapitation”, meaning regime change. 

Reacting to the submarine launch, Barack Obama played into North Korea’s threat narrative. Kim was erratic, irresponsible and dangerous, he said. “We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals. But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, Republic of Korea.” Obama scorned an offer of talks from North Korea’s foreign minister, instead highlighting US help for Japan and South Korea in constructing missile defences.

Obama rejects North Korea's nuclear offer: 'You'll have to do better than that'

 

Read more

Obama’s harsh attitude reflects frustration that, on his watch, the problem has got measurably worse. In 2007, he promised to “eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme”. As president, he said, he would “work to forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad-hoc arrangements such as the six-party talks on North Korea”.

But once in office, Obama failed to replace the six-party talks process (involving the Bush administration, China, Russia, Japan, and the two Koreas) with anything more effective after it collapsed in 2009. The modest progress made two years earlier, when the North agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities in exchange for fuel aid and normalisation, was squandered.

Obama’s reluctance to directly engage with the regime, in contrast to George W Bush and Bill Clinton, seems to have stoked its paranoia and defiance. Clinton’s 1994 framework agreement appeared, for a while, to curb North Korea’s weapons programmes. Although flawed, it showed talking and diplomacy get results, while containment and confrontation do not, said Joel Wit, a former US government official.

“The US is in a direr situation today than it was in 1994. Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programme are more advanced, and its leadership is less interested in talking and more unpredictable. That makes it even harder to conceive of an approach that could stop and eventually reverse this alarming trend,” Wit wrote last month.

FacebookTwitterPinterest

 A picture from the last Workers’ party congress in 1980 showing then leader Kim Il-sung, centre, and his son Kim Jong-il, left. Photograph: AP

Not only has North Korean intransigence punctured Obama’s dream of enhanced Asian security, but China, too, has rebuffed him, aggressively expanding its maritime military power while continuing to act, despite its evident unease over Kim’s behaviour, as the North’s key ally, trade partner, and protector. Beijing fears American regional intervention more than North Korean nuclear brinkmanship. 

China will 'never allow war or chaos' on Korean peninsula, says Xi Jinping

 

Read more

Nobody knows how this week’s congress will play out, how much personal pressure Kim is under, or which way he will jump: towards heightened confrontation or conciliation. As the North Korea expert Aidan Foster-Carternoted, this situation is not new. “The year 2013 saw a spring of North Korean sabre-rattling, for no clear reason, which ended as suddenly as it began ... With any luck the peninsula will emerge unscathed this time, too.”

One thing is certain: pummelling Pyongyang is pointless. “If they believe they can actually frustrate us with sanctions, they are totally mistaken,” North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Su-yong, said last week. “The more pressure you put on to something, the more emotionally you react to stand up against it. And this is important for the American policymakers to be aware of.”