Archive for April 25th, 2008
Food crisis: rationing introduced in bid to protect rice supplies
Food crisis: rationing introduced in bid to protect rice supplies
With supplies dwindling and customers hoarding stocks, the US giant Wal-Mart and British stores are starting to restrict sales
Wal-Mart has said that its wholesale business had limited each customer to four bags of long-grain white rice per visit because of a shortage in supplies
<!– Remove following
British shopkeepers and the US retailer Wal-Mart have rationed rice sales to protect dwindling supplies.
The move by the world’s biggest retailer, which owns Asda, constitutes the first time that food rationing has been introduced in the US. While Americans suffered some rationing during the Second World War for items such as petrol, light bulbs and stockings, they have never had to limit consumption of a key food item.
In Britain rice is being rationed by shopkeepers in Asian neighbourhoods to prevent hoarding. Tilda, the biggest importer of basmati rice, said that its buyers — who sell to the curry and Chinese restaurant trade as well as to families — were restricting customers to two bags per person. “It is happening in the cash-and-carries,” said Jonathan Calland, a company executive. “I heard from our sales force that one lady went into a cash-and-carry and tried to buy eight 20kg bags.”
Wal-Mart said that Sam’s Club, its wholesale business, which sells food to restaurants and other retailers, had limited each customer to four bags of long-grain white rice per visit. In the past three months wholesalers have experienced a sharp rise in demand for food items such as wheat, rice and milk as businesses stocked up to protect themselves against rising prices.
Global rice prices have more than doubled in the past year partly because countries such as China and India — whose economies are booming — are buying more food from abroad. At the same time, key rice producers banned exports of rice to ensure that their own people could continue to afford to buy the staple: India, China, Vietnam and Egypt have all blocked exports and so demand for rice from countries such as the United States has increased.
Costco Wholesale, the largest warehouse operator in America, said this week that demand for rice and flour had risen, with customers panicking about shortages and hoarded produce.
Tim Johnson, of the California Rice Commission, said: “This is unprecedented. Americans — particularly in states such as California — have on occasion walked into a supermarket after a natural disaster and seen that the shelves are less full than usual, but we have never experienced this.”
Food prices across the world have rocketed in the past two years, driven by increased demand for corn — the grain that is fermented to produce ethanol, the biofuel. With corn a main foodstock in dairy farming, milk has doubled in price in two years.
Growing awareness of global food shortages have exposed a deep divide in Europe over how best to guarantee supplies.
Germany joined France yesterday in demanding that the European Union maintain huge subsidies paid to farmers. The EU pays €42 billion (£34 billion) a year to farmers through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Britain has called for its removal, claiming that it distorts the food market at vast expense to taxpayers. Berlin argued that the global food scare showed the need for subsidies to continue beyond 2013, when reforming nations, led by Britain, want to scrap payments that prop up unviable farms.
In a further assault on Britain’s policy of liberalisation, German ministers also backed French opposition to Peter Mandelson’s direction of world trade talks. The Trade Commissioner is offering cuts in EU farm subsidies to trigger concessions from other trading blocs, but Paris and Berlin believe that he has gone too far in chasing a global deal at a time of protectionist pressures.
Under a concession won in 2005 by Tony Blair in exchange for a cut in Britain’s EU rebate, an EU budget review will begin this year. Farm payments in the form of the CAP budget and the ¤10 billion rural development budget are up for debate.
Germany said that a rush to cut subsidies could leave the EU unable to feed itself. “We have to make sure that we can provide this continent with food sustainability and make sure that we produce enough to combat poverty in the developing world,” Horst Seehofer, the German Agriculture Minister, said.
President Sarkozy of France has pledged to reform the CAP but has yet to give details and is under immense pressure from farmers to continue their handouts. Mr Seehofer added: “In the future we will have food conflicts . . . and we have to make sure that the population here is fed at prices that are affordable. Food security is a demand of our population.”
British diplomats in Brussels dismissed the food security argument. “You cannot spend 45 per cent of the EU budget on 5 per cent of the population who produce 3 per cent of the EU’s output,” one said.
THE GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS
Melksham, Wiltshire
It is mid-morning and the car park of the Aldi supermarket in Melksham, Wiltshire, is almost full. The German chain is benefiting from increases in food prices, welcoming customers who previously shopped at Sainsbury’s or Somerfield.
Paul and Tracy Jones are new faces at Aldi, having driven six miles from their home in Corsham. They have a monthly food budget of £400 for themselves and their three children. Paul said: “We have definitely noticed the increase in food prices. Everything has gone up, even here. We are paying 30p to 40p more for a chicken than we were a year ago.”
Lake Naivasha camp, Kenya
Virginia Ndungu, a 55-year-old mother of eight, watches her daughter stir a blackened pot of cornmeal gruel in front of a tent in a refugee camp where they have lived since January (Nick Wadhams writes). This is tonight’s meal, and there will be no bread, no meat, and no tea.
Camps like this are the front line in the global crunch over rising food prices. “I have nothing, not even ten cents – how can I afford sugar for porridge,” said Ms Ndungu, who farmed chickens but was displaced during Kenya’s postelection violence.
Brasilia, Brazil
Like hundreds of shoppers who crowd into Guara market on the outskirts of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, Antonia da Souza complained about the startling increases in the cost of food (Gabriella Gamini writes). “The price of rice has doubled, bread too. Tomatoes have tripled and black beans are 30 per cent more expensive,” she said. “I would have to spend three times as much I used to six months ago to get my weekly shopping needs, but salaries have not gone up so I can only half fill my shopping basket.”
Bombay, India
Every morning the price of milk sends Shankar Vemula into a state of despondency (Rhys Blakely writes). Mr Vemula, 40, a driver, lives with his wife, five children and his parents-in-law in a tiny one-room house. “Our morning litre of milk now costs 35 rupees (45p),” Mrs Vemula says. Three months ago it cost 18 or 20 rupees. The cost of everyday staples has soared. A bunch of spinach used to cost one or two rupees in the market, now it is seven or eight rupees, Mrs Vemula says. Brinjal, or aubergine, an Indian favourite, is now 30 rupees per kilogram – six months ago it was 15 rupees.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/retailing/article3803738.ece
Evidence that the US Navy is responsible for the recent earthquakes in Indiana.
Evidence that the US Navy is responsible for the recent earthquakes in Indiana.
25-4-2008 I am going to start off by describing how I came to this… I have been documenting the “persistent spreading contrails” over my house for the past few months. (I am not going to use the term “chemtrail” because it is too controversial and is not the point im trying to make here.) Within the past week there were at least 5 times as many trails in the sky as before. (I am located in Northwest Ohio BTW.) And instead of them only happening about once a week we had 4 days straight of the worst trails I’ve ever seen. Here is just one photo of many.. It was taken April 14 2008 at about 8 am. (click to enlarge) image source: http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8518/8am3dw4.jpg
A friend up in Michigan told me the same thing was going on up there.. it actually sounded worse.. He said he could see hundreds of trails. (I could ONLY see about 30 at a time.) The contrail increase was from the 14th until the 18th.. on Saturday.. April 19th, I noticed a huge spiraling weather system that was stretching from the southern tip of Texas up to Canada.. and I was underneath it.. I thought there could be a connection to the trails so I took a screenshot. image source: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4670/1hurricaneearthquakeks5.jpg
It was weird. The system was thin enough to let a lot of light in so it was almost like a sunny day but you couldn’t see any blue.. just a constant layer of cloud cover. So, anyways.. I take a screen shot of the weather radar at Noon. Went about my business… went back to the radar at 4 pm and took a screen shot.. I noticed it hadn’t moved at all.. but went back to my business. I then took a shot at 6:40 pm and it still hadn’t moved at all. But again I just went about my business.. went out with some friends came back home.. took another screenshot at 1:40 am. This time the majority of the weather system had moved to the east coast but the center of rotation was still the same spot.. I thought. Wow, thats weird.. why is it doing that. (I have never seen a weather system stay stationary for 12 hours.. not to mention how long it was there before I noticed it.) image source: http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/5750/2hurricane2va7.jpg
image source: http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/905/3hurricane3sr9.jpg
image source: http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/9777/4hurricane4sp6.jpg
I had heard about the Earthquakes on the news and was told people in my city could feel it.. (I was asleep) but did not think much of it, other than the fact that the New Madrid fault line was there and how horrible of a natural disaster it would be if that popped off like it did in the early 1800s. Then yesterday I made a connection.. maybe that “storm” was connected to the earthquakes. So, today I looked up the location of the earthquake.. it was in Southern Indiana and there were actually 8 more since then with the latest of which being last night. So I placed a transparent image of the earthquakes over the weather map. SURPRISE SURPRISE.. The epicenter of all nine of the earthquakes is the exact center of rotation of the spiraling hurricane type weather system that stayed in the same place for at least 12 hours. image source: http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/2732/5earthquakesrt3.jpg
image source: http://img501.imageshack.us/img501/9010/6hurricaneearthquakeoveod0.jpg
(continue bellow) [edit on 21-4-2008 by danman23] |
|
 |
|
| reply posted on 21-4-2008 @ 04:02 PM by danman23 | |
| That got my heart pumpin… so I needed to relax and try to figure out why.. After a little bit of thought a light turned on.. TESLA and his stolen doomsday device.. HAARP .. So I type into google “HAARP earthquake” I found haarp.net … “Looking at ways to cause earthquakes, as well as to detect them, was part of the project named Prime Argus, decades ago.” (using underground nukes) … So I searched for Prime Argus .. and I came up with this site. Read that whole article.. it starts off about a Japanese cult I’ve never heard of.. but gets very very interesting. (I believe this was written in 1997 and he has credible reference to everything he says in it.) Here are a few quotes…”These focus on claims that Aum were intimately involved in the research and development of futuristic doomsday weapons that make today’s nuclear missiles look like children’s toys. These weapons, they believe, are so advanced that they don’t “officially” exist in the armouries of the major powers. These involve the use of Tesla Electromagnetic pulse, earthquake inducing and Plasma weapons being covertly tested in remote regions of the world.Laying at the centre of these allegations are a series of powerful earthquakes, strange fireballs and aerial lights manifesting above Western Australia. They also revolve around the major January 1995 quake which laid waste to the Japanese City of Kobe. The latter resulted in the crash of the Tokyo stock exchange – itself directly leading to the collapse of England’s spook-infested Barings bank. Suggestions that the Kobe event may have been caused by a laser-powered seismic weapon continue to circulate.” (remember.. this was over 10 years ago.)”US NAVY TO THE RESCUE?Additional investigation by Mason centred on the South East Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia. An area unknown for earthquake activity until 1970, an amazing 173 tremors measuring between 3-0 on the Richter scale occurred between 1970-3, with the majority between March and early October 1970. The epi-centres of these events are spaced exactly 10 kilometres apart, along “8 lines each 50-70 km long. Several similar events have occurred subsequently. With the present figure standing at 246 (through 1995), Mason concludes they are “abnormally regular,” and believes Australia is being surreptitiously used as a testing ground for advanced “scalar E/M weapons exercises. Originally, Mason thought these tests may have been of Russian KGB – or more probably French origin.”[xxvii] However, recent data points to Scalar EM weapon tests conducted from the top secret US Navy Exmouth Peninsula Tx facility.[xxviii] The US Navy connection is intriguing.
It was the US Navy who were responsible for Project “Prime Argus” – a precursor programme to HAARP. Argus was responsible for exploding three atomic bombs in the Van Allen belts and, thereafter monitoring the resultant effects. Researchers who have recently investigated the son of Argus, project HAARP, maintain this is an advanced weapon system capable of acting as an impenetrable planetary-wide missile shield.”[xxix] Behind the construction of HAARP lay the scientific patents of Bernard J. Eastlund. Previously classified as Secret, Eastlund’s patents are now partly available for inspection. They are revealing for the sheer scope of what the HAARP project may be capable of, including “weather modification.” Eastlund had in fact used much of Tesla’s work to arrive at his concepts, a fact he openly acknowledged. Moreover, the original Prime Argus project was also concerned with looking “at ways to cause earthquakes.”[xxx] “ (continued below) |
|
|
|
| reply posted on 21-4-2008 @ 04:03 PM by danman23 | |
| From the official HAARP website: “The HAARP program is jointly managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. The facility is being constructed by commercial contractors through a contract with ONR (Office of Naval Research).”" Whether Tesla’s earthquake inducing devices, and other terrifying weapons of mass destruction are being secretly tested by the major powers is, so far, unproved. But the fact remains that serious military research demonstrates these are within grasp. Who knows, they may even have been grasped – considering the 100 year lead-time of Tesla’s inventions?. Those of us closeted outside the secret world of weapons research are left to squint and speculate.Weapons that can mimic cataclysmic natural disasters open a Pandora’s box of deniability, and are, therefore, of great value in today’s “I didn’t do it” doctrine of political survival. “”Weapons that can mimic cataclysmic natural disasters open a Pandora’s box of deniability, and are, therefore, of great value in today’s “I didn’t do it” doctrine of political survival. The fact that Aum did acquire significant advanced weapons from Russia, and that Japan is presently re-militarising itself as part of the “China containment” strategy must be of concern – even disregarding the dark visions of the prophet Nichiren and his festering adherents inside Soka Gakkai and the Japanese military, industrial and intelligence complex.Similarly, one cannot disregard the EM weapon advances of the US, nor forget the touted joint US-Soviet-Japanese missile shield, which might easily switch from defensive to offensive posture? If we are on the brink of a new class of weapons so terrifying in their destructive potential that they prompted Kruschev to sound his warning 36 years ago, should not the public at least be permitted knowledge of what is being done in their name and with their tax dollars? Apparently not. As ever, Joe and Jane citizen are to be left blinking in ignorance – a fact their masters regard as “blissful” – as they are Goose-stepped into a brave new world.
In one experiment in 1896, Tesla accidentally triggered an earthquake across a dozen New York city blocks. This, Tesla later said, was caused “by a little piece of apparatus you could slip in your pocket.” As local police stormed his lab, the wily inventor lifted a sledge-hammer and smashed the oscillator to pieces, bringing an end to the pandemonium.[xxxi] That one simple act of common-sense wouldn’t go amiss today. ENDS” If you didn’t read the whole article please do when you have some time. (I know it’s long but worth it to understand this more.) Sooo… I am only a 22 year old website designer. I need meteorologists, seismologist and any one who can back this up to step up. I am just presenting what I have come across… and I am very confident that there is enough evidence to bring the people responsible for this to justice!! It just needs to be backed up by credible people in the field.. I know that is going to be hard for you all since it will put your jobs at risk.. but honestly.. I think if we don’t do anything NOW our future could be very chaotic. Think about if they triggered the New Madrid fault… there would be MILLIONS DEAD. Ask yourself.. would you rather be ridiculed for speaking out about this or would you rather have the guilt of not doing anything about it when there was still time. Peace, |
|
|
|
| reply posted on 21-4-2008 @ 04:10 PM by BlackProjects | |
| Interesting theory..did you know Crane Naval Weopons facility is in the general area of the epicenter of the last quake.www.crane.navy.mil… | |
|
|
| reply posted on 21-4-2008 @ 04:22 PM by danman23 | |
| reply to post by BlackProjects
No I did not.. that is interesting though. Thanks for pointing that out. |
|
|
|
| reply posted on 22-4-2008 @ 01:36 AM by danman23 | |
| Ok.. so I did some more research on HAARP.. and I found a link to their data… Guess what.. (my heart has been racing since I saw this.. I haven’t eaten.) The data shows that they did it 100%(removed the link.. I need it to stay online andnot jam up.. Like it is right now if you want to check it out U2U me.)I spent the entire day interpreting what they meant… This is what I got.. (click the images to see the whole thing.) image source: http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/8742/overviewab1.jpg image source: http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7614/overview2aiy8.jpg image source: http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/6348/overview3rn3.jpg Please tell as many people as you can… I havent had a chance to really go over all that very much.. its probably got a lot of small errors. I will revise it after I finish the ruff draft.. I just need to get this out just in case something happens. THIS IS NOT A JOKE… I know a lot of # on here is all bull. I AM NOT JOKING – THE EVIDENCE SPEAKS FOR ITS SELF!! Peace, |
|
by danman23
LINK :
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=350422&page=1#pid4258475
Harper to U.S.: don’t forget who has the oil
Harper to U.S.: don’t forget who has the oil
Norma Greenaway , Canwest News Service
NEW ORLEANS – Prime Minister Stephen Harper waved a red flag Tuesday in the debate over NAFTA’s future, warning Americans who want to reopen the accord that U.S. dependence on Canadian oil gives Canada a big bargaining chip.
Harper staked out his position as he joined presidents George W. Bush of the United States and Felipe Calderon of Mexico at a joint news conference to end their three-way summit that turned into a pep rally for keeping NAFTA intact in the face of threats from the Democratic presidential contenders to kill or rewrite it.
Calderon said reopening the pact would “condemn the region to complete backwardness” while India, China and the European Union are increasing their competitiveness.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, left, and U.S. President George W. Bush plant a tree in honor of Earth Day Tuesday.
Bush argued those “who say get rid of NAFTA as a throwaway political line” are playing with fire because ditching the agreement would cost jobs and investment in all three countries.
Harper said the deal has been good for North America and that the Canadian government’s preference is not to renegotiate it. But he made clear he was ready to go that route if need be.
“We’ll be prepared for any eventuality,” Harper said of the November presidential election where the two Democratic contenders – Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – have said the agreement needs to be killed or rewritten to toughen environmental and labour standards.
Harper took the opportunity to play what many consider Canada’s trump card in any future negotiations – U.S. dependence on Canadian oil and gas.
“Canada is the United States’ No. 1 supplier of energy,” he said. “We are a secure and stable supplier that is of critical importance to the future of the United States.
“If we have to look at this kind of an option (a renegotiation), I say quite frankly, you know, we would be in an even stronger position now than we were 20 years ago. And we will be in a stronger position in the future.”
Bush played to Harper’s tune, stressing more than once that Mexico and Canada stand out as secure and stable suppliers of oil at a time when prices are going through the roof at almost $120 US a barrel and when other U.S. suppliers in the Middle East are unpredictable at best.
Under the free-trade agreement, Canada is committed to keeping up its energy supplies to the United States even in times of shortages at home. In effect, it says cuts to U.S. buyers can be no deeper than they would be to Canadians.
Harper said he expects the next president will come to see the importance of the pact to North America and continue to work with it.
Calderon announced the next annual summit of the three North American leaders would be held in Mexico in 2009, and said that he hoped to see the new president there.
The annual meetings began in 2005 when Bush signed Canada and Mexico onto the post-NAFTA process, known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
The whirlwind summit in hurricane-battered New Orleans was designed by Bush to showcase the city’s recovery. The leaders stayed close to the centre of town, which was largely spared Katrina’s wrath in 2005.
Before leaving New Orleans, Harper did do a quick tour of Ward Nine, the area hardest hit by Katrina. His guide was David Wilkins, U.S. ambassador to Canada.
The leaders spoke with reporters after meeting business leaders from all three countries who make up the North American Competitiveness Council. The council, which includes 10 leaders from each country, pressed the leaders to stick with NAFTA and also to press ahead with efforts under the SPP to deepen the economic, social, environmental and security relations among the three countries.
“When I meet business people, not just from our country, but around the continent the benefits of our NAFTA relationship is without question,” he said. “And what all the focus is in our discussions is how to make it work better, how to make the borders thinner, how to make commerce flow more quickly, more freely.”
Canadian critics of NAFTA and the SPP were quick to jump on Harper’s stance, saying they were upset that he was talking about U.S. energy security without mentioning the need to secure Canada’s own energy security.
“There was not one word about Canada’s energy security,” said Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union.
“Eastern Canada is still in a position where all of its oil must come through the United States even though it starts in Alberta and Saskatchewan.”
I don’t want to alarm anybody, but maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food
I don’t want to alarm anybody, but maybe it’s time for Americans to start stockpiling food
By: BRETT ARENDS
No, this is not a drill.
You’ve seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they’re a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here.
Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster.
“Load up the pantry,” says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street’s top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. “I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn’t going to happen here. But I don’t know how the food companies can absorb higher costs.” (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic)
Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you’ll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax.
Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year.
And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They’re all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%.
These are trends that have been in place for some time.
And if you are hoping they will pass, here’s the bad news: They may actually accelerate.
The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years.
Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point.
The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food.
A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That’s soaking up some of the corn supply.
You can’t easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk.
If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it’s the rosy memory of a bygone age.
The good news is that it’s easier to store Cap’n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.
Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com
China asks why three US aircraft carrier battle groups are patrolling waters off Taiwan
China asks why three US aircraft carrier battle groups are patrolling waters off Taiwan
By: The China Post
What are the aircraft career battle groups for?
The China Post news staff
Three U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups are patrolling waters off southeast Taiwan. The task forces with the Kitty Hawk, Nimitz and Lincoln in the lead are believed to continue the patrol until May 20. Of course, it’s rather unusual. But what for?
Taiwan was very grateful for the two similar battle groups President Bill Clinton sent to its waters in 1996.
Lee Teng-hui was the first president of the Republic of China to visit the United States in June 1995. He visited his alma mater Cornell University to deliver an Olin lecture on Taiwan’s experience in democracy. That visit so antagonized Beijing that his re-election in the subsequent year was considered an anathema to its supreme cause of Chinese reunification.
Thereupon, the People’s Liberation Army started test-firing surface-to-surface missiles in waters close to major ports in north and south Taiwan on March 8, 1996. The missile tests, which lasted eight days, were the first of a series of war games to intimidate the electorate in Taiwan ready to vote over their first head of state less than three weeks away. On March 12, a nine-day maneuver, involving naval warships and air squadrons, got under way in an area of the Taiwan Strait only 70 kilometers from the Pescadores or Penghu. Six days later, on March 18, the Chinese began another eight-day exercise off the coast of mainland China. These war games involved ground, air, and naval forces in a simulated amphibious operation against Taiwan. President Clinton, concerned about the military threat to Taiwan, sent the two naval task forces to the waters near Taiwan to show American support. It was not exactly a military confrontation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, but Beijing under Jiang Zeming’s rule backed off. The presidential election was held as scheduled, and Lee won, garnering 54 percent of the vote.
There isn’t any such emergency across the Taiwan Strait. Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang was elected president on March 22. In the lead-up to the election, the People’s Liberation Army did not test-fire any cruise missiles, lobbing them across Taiwan into the Pacific Ocean. Nor were any military exercises held. In fact, Beijing took caution not to make mention of anything that might be construed as an intimidation to the people of Taiwan. Chinese President Hu Jintao tried what he could to avoid being another Jiang Zemin. Jiang, Hu’s predecessor and mentor, helped Lee outpoll his rivals overwhelmingly in 1996 by trying to intimidate the voters in Taiwan.
Moreover, Hu, who refrained from making any remarks that might help Ma’s opponent Frank Hsieh, talked with President George W. Bush over the phone after the March 22 election and they were agreed that dialogue should be resumed between China and Taiwan on the basis of what is known as the consensus of 1992. Under the tacit agreement, which is a sine qua non for the resumption of talks across the Strait, both Beijing and Taipei acknowledge there is but one China, whose connotations or definition can be orally and individually expressed. The dialogue between the Straits Exchange Foundation in Taipei and its Chinese counterpart Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait — disrupted in 1999 after Lee had broached his “special state-to-state relationship” between Taiwan and China — cannot be resumed because President Chen refuses to accept that precondition. But Ma, the president-elect, is more than willing to get the talks underway without delay.
So why are the three American naval task forces staying near Taiwan until the day when Ma will be sworn in as president? Who are they guarding against?
The logical conclusion is that the Americans are afraid President Chen may do something extraordinary to prevent Ma’s inauguration. Frank Hsieh attacked Ma in a smear campaign for carrying a “green card,” a certificate of permanent residence in the United States with which the latter might flee Taiwan in case “something very wrong” occurred across the Strait. Campaigning for Hsieh, Chen declared repeatedly he could not “transfer power” to a green card holder. The United States wants to ensure a “peaceful transition of power” in Taiwan. Washington knows Chen is an extraordinary man capable of doing anything to survive his certain trial for corruption. His first lady was indicted for corruption in 2006, charged with borrowing invoices and receipts from relatives and friends to claim an NT$18.4 million reimbursement from a public fund under her husband’s control for the conduct of “affairs of state.” She is on trial. Chen was not indicted, as Taiwan’s president is immune to criminal prosecution, but was regarded as a co-defendant, who will be formally charged on leaving office. The first couple will stand trial together after May 20 and the chances are that they will be both convicted. He is likely to wind up in prison like Chun Do Huan, a former president of South Korea.
The Americans are overly cautious. Chen Shui-bian may try, but cannot provoke China into attacking Taiwan to give him an excuse to declare war and stay in office. Nor can he concoct a “coup d’etat” to remain in power. Taiwan is a democracy where the rule of law prevails. No colonels would listen, when told to lead their troops to overthrow a government. And it is impossible for the couple to flee like Fernando and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines. The Filipino first couple couldn’t have fled without the help of Uncle Sam.
