The U.S. Congress urged the White House to formulate a long-term policy aimed at securing Taiwan's participation in international organisations, as recommended by a high-level congressional advisory panel.
At a press conference on November 16, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its 2006 Annual Report to Congress, which contained 44 recommendations. The commission chose to highlight its top ten.
In response to China's efforts to isolate Taiwan, the Congress encouraged the Administration to "implement a long-term policy to facilitate Taiwan's participation in international organisations and activities for which statehood is not a prerequisite, such as the World Health Organisation, the Community of Democracy, the Proliferation Security Initiative and other multilateral public health, counter-proliferation, counter-terror and economic organisations, as appropriate," the USCC suggested in the report.
Larry Wortzel, USCC chairman, said at the press conference that "the commission would like to see Taiwan able to take part in public health work, we would like to see Taiwan participate more actively in counter-proliferation activities, in international economic organizations, and we have urged Congress to encourage the administration to be more active in this regard."
Moreover, the commission "has some concerns about the People's Liberation Army and the implications of that build-up for U.S. security," Wortzel said. "China's overall military strategy, funding priorities, and capabilities are not transparent or self-evident. In particular, China's intent toward Taiwan appears threatening as the PLA assumes an increasingly aggressive posture," he added.
The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the USCC recommendation. David Wang, the MOFA spokesman, pointed out that it is a goodwill step by the U.S. Congress and it reflects the basic principle of current U.S. policy to support Taiwan's participation in some functional capacity in international organizations, such as the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum or the World Trade Organisation.
The 12-member, bipartisan USCC was created in October 2000. According to its charter, it is meant to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on national security, the implications of bilateral trade and the economic relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. The commission also should submit to Congress a report each year, in both unclassified and classified form, regarding Sino-U.S. ties.
Morris Chang, Chinese Taipei's envoy to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, returned to Taipei from Hanoi, Vietnam on November 20. At a press conference held at the Office of the President, Chang said he relayed U.S. President George W. Bush's concerns about Taiwan to ROC President Chen Shui-bian. Before the press conference, Chang and other Taiwanese delegates were received by Chen, who praised the envoy as an "appropriate representative of Taiwan."
"His achievements in the high-tech industry and his contribution toward economic development, as well as his fame, indicates that he is the best spokesman of Taiwan," the president said, calling Chang "Taiwan's pride."
According to Chang, prior to his departure to attend the annual informal meeting of the heads of APEC member nations, Chen asked him to reassure the U.S. president that he would keep his "four noes" promises--commitments he made in his inaugural speech in 2004. According to Chang, Bush expressed concern after hearing these reassurances, saying he hopes to see Chen stick to his promises.
In a Nov. 19 press conference held in Hanoi, Chang said he had friendly encounters with Bush and that they share many things in common. On more than one occasion, Chang was introduced by Bush to other heads of states as "another Texan," as Chang had lived and worked in Texas for more than 25 years before returning to his native Taiwan in the early 1980s to found Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.
As for his interaction with PRC President Hu Jintao, Chang said that the Chinese leader expressed a desire for Taiwan's economy to flourish. "He told me that he hoped to see both sides focus on economic development and resolve their other problems step by step," Chang was reported as saying.
"Hu Jintao did not explicitly ask me to forward his words to President Chen, but I have done so. I think he would be pleased to see me do so," Chang said. Before the end of the aforementioned press conference, Chang stressed that the attitudes of both Bush and Hu were "friendly, warm and constructive."
While welcoming Chang and the other members of his APEC delegation back home, the president commented that the very fact they were able to take the presidential airplane, known as Air Force One in Taiwan, on their trip to Hanoi was a "significant, and historic first." Chang, meanwhile, said the use of this particular jet was "not something special." The local media has been consumed since Chang's return with whether or not the plane was a "presidential plane" and, if so, why it was not adorned with the national flag of the ROC.
The president told reporters that Chang was among the first at the APEC confab to call for a resumption of the Doha Round of trade talks and to set up an APEC free-trade area--ideas that won support from Bush and Hu.
Japan should adopt legislation similar to the U.S. Taiwan Relations Act, President Chen Shui-bian opined in a videoconference with Japanese academics and reporters on October 30. He also said that the international community should pay more attention to the potential military threat in the Taiwan Strait and promote multilateral dialogue similar to the six-way talks on North Korea.
Chen's portion of the conversation was filmed inside the Office of the President in Taipei and broadcast to nearly 100 Japanese academics and politicians and Japan-based ROC officials who gathered in Tokyo.
Chen said that since North Korea's recent missile test and nuclear detonation, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been high. Neighbouring countries are attempting to mediate and find solutions. Chen urged the international community to pay equal attention to the potential for military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait and push for something similar to the six-party talks on North Korea, as well as to strengthen the collective security mechanism in East Asia.
Chen cited Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent visits to China and South Korea as an example
of shedding minor differences for the sake of a greater common good. If Japan
and China could overcome their differences to seek some common ground, Chen
said, surely Taiwan and China can also put aside mutual prejudice and resume a
dialogue without preconditions.
At the end of his speech, Chen thanked the Japanese government and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for their support and assistance in opposing China's enactment of its Anti-Secession Law.
Participants offered remarks on the following topics: how to promote political and economic ties between Taiwan and Japan; how Taiwan and Japan could cooperate in response to the North Korea nuclear test issue; how to strengthen Taiwan-Japan cooperation on security issues; and what are the sticking points and future of cross-strait relations.
In response to remarks by participants in the teleconference, Chen suggested that Tokyo enact its own version of Washington's Taiwan Relations Act, which the United States adopted in 1979 after derecognising Taipei as a means of assisting the island nation to defend itself against the Chinese military threat. He suggested this could be done in preparation for the establishment of a trilateral security mechanism involving Taiwan, Japan and the United States.
Claiming that improved Sino-Japanese ties will not affect Taiwanese interests,
Chen noted that while Taiwan is watching the power struggle in China, it is more
concerned about whether China is experiencing a "democratic and peaceful rise"
or a "hegemonic and militaristic rise."
The president said that the forums and other recent cooperative ventures between
the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party could not take the place of bona
fide government-to-government negotiations, as only the elected government has a
mandate to represent the interests of the people of Taiwan. This, he said, is
the main reason why Washington urged Beijing to open a dialogue with Taiwan's
popularly elected government.
Newspaper columnist Miyazaki Masahiro queried the Taiwanese leader on whether or not KMT-CCP cooperation affected passage of the arms procurement package from the United States. Chen explained that the CCP's willingness to engage the KMT is because that party is not in power in Taiwan, and that it is just another example of the united-front strategy for which Beijing is famous. He reiterated his stance that only the party in power has the mandate to speak for the people of Taiwan.
Every sovereign country has a defense force, and Taiwan's own armed forces must
be strong if Taiwan is going to negotiate with China with confidence and from a
position of equals. "I think the cooperation between the two parties should not
influence Taiwan's national interests or national security, or peace and
stability in the Asia-Pacific region," he said.
Taiwan heading for aging milestone, must face challenges 'beginning now'
Having become an "aging society" as long ago as 1993, Taiwan was set to pass another significant grey milestone by 2016, a report released by the Council for Economic Planning and Development under the Executive Yuan stated on November 14. It therefore called on policymakers to face up to such demographic challenges and enhance the nation's welfare and healthcare systems and find ways to develop businesses catering to the needs of the aged citizens.
The first of Taiwan's more than 6 million baby boomers--those born between roughly 1946 and 1964--are celebrating their 60th birthdays this year and will, therefore, begin adding to the nation's population of over-65s within the next five years. Having surpassed the 7 percent level--by which the United Nations defines an "aging society"--in 1993, this group currently totals 2.6 million people and represents 9.94 percent of the island's total population. The CEPD Department of Manpower Planning estimated that, in 2016, this age group will reach 13 percent, at which point it will begin to outnumber the proportion of citizens aged under 15. Moreover, by 2026 it will pass the 20-percent marker.
The transition between these two milestones would take around 25 years, the report noted, which would be roughly twice as fast as the same process in France, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang said in an earlier local media report that this phenomenon was due to growing life expectancies and Taiwan's declining birthrate. The total birthrate last year represented only 1.12 births per woman, which was among the world's lowest, putting it in the same league as Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.
To respond to these demographic changes, the CEPD report recommended that public agencies should focus more on care services and that business opportunities should be created that focus on improving the quality of life for senior citizens. This would include the manufacture of household items designed for the elderly, provision of medical and care services, establishment of financial and insurance policies geared to the elderly and creation of educational, leisure and travel opportunities. The government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute estimated that the total value of this market would rise from around US$21 billion in 2005, to US$23.4 billion in 2009, thus representing a growth of around 11 percent over five years.
Chang Kuen-jenn, vice president of Ruen Fu Newlife, a retirement community in Danshuei, Taipei County, said the outlook for this sector was bright. Set up 10 years ago, Ruen Fu was different from traditional retirement homes in the services it offered to residents, said Chang. Tenants who had to be capable of looking after themselves signed a long-term contract and paid a deposit from around US$200,000 in order to move into apartments in the community where meals were prepared, rooms cleaned, and simple healthcare services provided. For this, the occupants paid monthly management, food and utility fees of around US$600 for one person or US$1,000 for two people. Although this was beyond the means of most senior citizens, Chang claimed that the complex was full and there was a waiting list of would-be tenants.
The Chang Gung Health and Culture Village, a similar retirement community in Taoyuan County, was established by Wang Yung-ching, former chairman of the Formosa Plastics Corp., and more projects were anticipated as the number of elderly people increased, Chang said.
With regard to seniors' economic power, Wu Shwu-chong, professor at the National Taiwan University Department of Public Health, told local media that, while Taiwan's current older generation might not have great expectations or requirements in terms of quality of life, this would not be the case for the baby boomer generation. Having received good education, enjoyed financial health, and possessed high levels of autonomy and self-esteem, it would be a great challenge for the government and private sector to meet their expectations. "Whether single, divorced or widowed, they are eager to have a high quality of life," Wu said.
The CEPD report noted that Taiwan's aging population and declining birthrate had been a focus of policymakers over recent years. In 2004, for example, the government had drawn up a plan to integrate the roles of some health workers and home caretakers. To date, 25,000 such combination care providers had been trained, it reported. A national examination for health caretakers was also initiated in 2004, with over 4,000 out of the 7,812 people passing the exam having gone on to work in hospitals or seniors' care centers for the aged, or to provide home nursing care or home healthcare.
In addition to the expensive retirement homes of the private sector, development of appropriate medical and care systems was also a focus of the government's recently announced Big Investment, Big Warmth plan. Tailoring measures for Taiwan's aging society was one of four specific challenges mentioned, along with issues of economic globalization, development of information and communication technology, and shortfall of energy and resources. The plan laid particular stress on the need to develop the healthcare sector--medical facilities, drugs and healthy food--to enable people to grow old in the homes or communities with which they were familiar and comfortable, rather than spending their later years in care centers. Wu described this last idea as "still being a desert in Taiwan," but added "there is still enough time if we begin now."
To enhance cooperation on innovative technology between Taiwan and Russia, the Department of Industrial Technology under the Ministry of Economic Affairs invited Russian officials, researchers and business representatives to attend the Taiwan-Russia High-tech Forum Nov. 15. At this meeting, the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute signed an agreement with its Russian counterparts for further cooperation between the manufacturing and R&D sectors of the two countries.
Attendees at the meeting--the first for four years--included ITRI President Johnsee Lee, DOIT Director-General Woody Duh, Vladislav Zinchenko, deputy head of the Tomsk Region Administration in Russia, Sergey Tsyganov, head of the Innovation Division under the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, and Alexei Khokhlov, head of the Chair of Polymer Physics and Crystal Physics at the Moscow State University.
The high point of the forum was the signing ceremony at which representatives of ITRI, Tomsk and the RFBR agreed to cooperate on promotion of research and business incubation. Chu Hsin-sen, ITRI executive vice president, said the agreement would expand technological cooperation from the current commissioning by ITRI of software research to Russian academic institutions, to generate exchanges on more levels between R&D experts from the two countries, particularly in the areas of materials, wireless communications and optoelectronics.
Hailing the agreement as a milestone, Lee said in his address to the ceremony that it would lead to joint research projects at national and regional levels. This would foster a closer relationship and would enable Taiwan to gain better access to European markets, he said. Russia would also benefit by sending researchers to Taiwan.
Duh said "Russia's basic strength and recent drives in innovation, when complemented by Taiwan's strength in product design and manufacturing, will be a powerful combination in the highly competitive world market."
During a break at the forum, Valentin Makarov, president of Russoft, the Russian Software Developers Association, said that he was optimistic that Taiwanese talent for producing information and communication technology-related hardware--such as chips for cellular phones--would complement Russian ability in software design. This, he said, would be a win-win situation for both countries. Joint development was already ongoing, he said, and was expected to show promising results within two or three years.
The forum also included two panel discussions and, under the title Creating Value with R&D Results, speeches from representatives of the two sides relating to their experiences when undertaking research and developing research centers in their home countries.
On the topic of business incubation, Liang Da-tung, deputy general director of the ITRI Technology Transfer and Services Center, explained how his institute had assisted Taiwan's small and medium-sized enterprises over the last decade. The ITRI Incubation Center, established in 1996 as the island's first such organization, he said, had used its R&D resources to help set up 101 high-tech companies islandwide. Thirty-two of these had conducted initial public offerings, and six were listed on the Taiwan stock exchange. To date, Liang continued, a total of 95 incubation centers had been formed islandwide, 77 of which had shared a total of US$46 million in government sponsorship over the decade, leading to the creation of more than 3,000 jobs and attracting investment worth US$1 billion.
Zinchenko reported that Russia had similarly established a scientific-educational complex, the Tomsk Research and Innovation Special Economic Zone. Gennady Sarychev, head of the Department of Technological-Innovative Zones under the Federal Agency for Special Economic Zones, said that industries targeted by this zone included information, communication and electronic technologies; new materials production technologies; nanotechnology; biotechnology and even the development of a petrochemical cluster.
In his speech to the forum, Tung Lian-shen, deputy director-general of Taiwan's Science Park Administration, spoke about the current financial health of Hsinchu Science Park. Established in 1980, HSP had become the cradle of most of the nation's producers of wafers, integrated circuit foundries, mask read-only memory, ADSL modems, Web cards, and small thin-film transistor liquid-crystal displays. Furthermore, he said, the 12 science parks throughout the island accounted for 12.6 percent of the nation's foreign trade, and if the science parks could be successfully transformed into global R&D bases and innovation centers, they would realize the government's plan to develop Taiwan into a "green silicon island."
Artist Honoured for his Posters
At the Nov. 6 press conference to announce the impending launch of the 2006 Taiwan International Film and TV Expo, artist Chen Zi-fu was introduced as a "national treasure."
"I wouldn't exactly call myself a national treasure," said the 80-year-old Chen with customary humility. "But I've probably painted more film posters than anyone else in the world."
In the days before digital and printing technology made it possible for theaters around the island to put up huge, photograph-quality posters of the movies they are showing, artists were hired to paint the billboards. In the field of movie-poster painting, Chen was the undisputed champ, both in terms of quantity and, according to his fans, quality. Over the last 50 years, he painted an estimated 5,000 posters.
"If it wasn't for the Japanese defeat in World War II, I would never have had a career as a painter," said Chen. At the age of 19, he was drafted into the imperial Japanese Navy and issued orders to report for training as a battleship gunner's mate. At the time, Taiwan was a colony of Japan, and many Taiwanese men were conscripted in the fight against the allies. Chen shipped out, but before reaching his training base in Nagasaki, his transport ship was sunk by an allied torpedo. Of the 303 new recruits on board, Chen and 87 others survived and made it to Nagasaki.
On Jan. 2, 1946, with the help of some friends, he managed to make it back to Taiwan from post-war Japan. Upon his return he found a war-shattered island recently ceded to the Chinese Nationalists in dire economic straits. Jobs were scarce, but he managed to get hired on at White Day Studio, a company that specialized in billboard design. He worked there for a month before seeking greener pastures.
Chen found work at the Taiwan branch of the Shanghai Cathay Film Co., which released films made during the Sino-Japanese War in China. For the 18 months he worked for Shanghai Cathay, Chen volunteered to restore the film posters that had been damaged due to the poor quality of the paper used in the post-war era.
Sometimes, when he was unable to save a poster using restoration techniques, Chen would recreate it from scratch. He repainted many new posters for old movies using the techniques he picked up from Japanese poster painters.
"At that time, going to the movies was such a luxury that not too many kids could afford it," Chen recalled. "Ever since I snuck into the back of a theater and saw what was happening in that room full of billboards, I started sneaking back in as often as I could, just to watch the Japanese painter work."
When the KMT government introduced the New Taiwan Dollar in 1949 and had people exchange their old Taiwan Dollars at a 40,000:1 exchange rate, he lost his job. Fortunately, he had developed a reputation as an excellent poster painter and it was not long before he was hired to paint 40 film posters by the Datung Film Co., which distributed Cantonese films produced in Hong Kong. He started his own business and has never looked back.
His favorite poster, and the only one he continues to display to this day, was for a 1969 film called "A Touch of Zen." Directed by King Hu, it won the Technical Grand Prize at Cannes in 1975 and was listed by the Hong Kong Film Awards as one of the top 100 Chinese motion pictures. To Chen, of course, it is all about the poster.
"I made a daring trial on that poster. Instead of painting major characters on a piece of blank paper, I used black color as the background, which no one else had ever tried before," he said. He still keeps his original poster hanging on the wall of his apartment in Taipei.
The painter liked to take a little artistic license when composing one of his posters, rather than sticking too closely to the promotional material provided by the production company. In "Battle of Tien Mountain," for example, the ugly, twisted face of the Ming Dynasty official appears at the right, while the female warrior holds a sword in the center and another swordsman is depicted on the left.
"Imagination is the key to finding the details. For instance, the way she holds the sword, the facial expressions on the main characters and the color of the background, are all from my own imagination, because the film company did not provide that much detail," Chen recalled.
He pointed out that one of the main characteristics of his posters is that he applied techniques from the traditional Chinese impressionistic ink painting, which stresses a fine control of the ink flow within one stroke when you wield a soft brush. That can be exemplified in the treatment of hair by not applying an extra-fine brush, a technique exercised by many of his contemporaries. He takes special pride in the way he was able to capture the eyes of the main characters.