Taiwan ex-leader jailed for life

BBC, 11 September 2009

Taiwan's former President Chen Shui-bian has been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of corruption by a court in Taipei.

Mr Chen was charged with embezzlement, taking bribes and money laundering, involving a total of $15m (£9m) while in office from 2000-2008.

Mr Chen had denied the charges, saying they were politically motivated.

His wife, Wu Shu-chen, already jailed for perjury in the case, was also sentenced to life for corruption.

'Illegal' sentence

Taipei District Court convicted Mr Chen on six charges and Mrs Wu on seven charges. The were also fined $15m.

"Chen Shui-bian and Wu Shu-chen were sentenced to life in prison because Chen has done grave damage to the country and Wu because she was involved in corruption deals as the first lady," said court spokesman Huang Chun-ming.

CHEN SHUI-BIAN SENTENCES Life sentence for embezzling $3.15m from a presidential fund Eight years for money laundering Lesser sentences for taking $12m in bribes and kickbacks Differing views on Taiwan trial

A spokesman for Mr Chen said the sentence was "illegal", pointing to a decision to replace the judges in mid-trial. The former president has said he will appeal.

Mr Chen has previously said the charges were constructed by the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) government in a political vendetta. He has admitted accepting money but said it was campaign contributions.

Several dozen of his supporters were outside the court on Friday as the verdict was given, waving placards declaring his innocence.

Unprecedented trial

Mr Chen and his wife were both sentenced to life for embezzling $3.15m (£1.9m) from a special presidential fund.

They received lesser sentences on the charges related to accepting at least $9m in bribes from a Taiwanese company to help it sell a piece of land to the government and of accepting nearly $3m more in kickbacks for helping a contractor gain a government project.

Mrs Wu had already been sentenced on 2 September to one year in prison for perjury for asking her children to lie in court.

Mr Chen's supporters say he is being persecuted

The three-year case also involved close family members of the couple, as well as former aides and government officials.

Their son and daughter-in-law received sentences ranging from 20-30 months for money laundering. Other relatives received suspended sentences. Two former advisors were given sentences of 16 and 20 years in prison.

The case, involving revelations of corruption at the highest levels, has gripped the nation, says the BBC's Cindy Sui in Taipei.

It is unprecedented in Taiwan's short history as a democracy. Direct presidential elections were first held in 1996, after one-party rule ended in the 1980s.

Many expected a guilty verdict but some believed the trial was political revenge on the part of the new ruling party.

Mr Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party favoured Taiwan's independence from the Chinese mainland, angering Beijing as well as the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan.

Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been improving since the KMT, under President Ma Ying-jeou, took office last year.

Taiwan has been ruled separately from China since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when the defeated Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan to create a self-governing entity.

But Beijing sees the island as a breakaway province which should be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Taiwan's plan to take back mainland

By Cindy Sui

BBC, 7 September 2009

Most people in China and Taiwan might think they know what happened after the long and bloody civil war between the Chinese Nationalist Party and the Communist Party ended in 1949.

But recently declassified government archives have revealed a previously unknown secretive plan by Taiwan's late President Chiang Kai-shek to take back mainland China.

Chiang and his troops had fled to Taiwan after losing the war to the Communists but, despite great obstacles, he was obsessed with the idea of taking back the land he had lost.

According to these newly-revealed government documents, by the 1960s Chiang thought the time was right to launch a counter-attack, given the devastating famine Mao Zedong's leadership had unleashed and the possibility China would soon have a nuclear weapon.

The US was fighting the Vietnam War then, and Chiang knew he needed US military assistance if he were to succeed so he offered to help the Americans fight the war in Vietnam in exchange for US support.

Washington objected to Chiang's suggestions, but Chiang went ahead with his preparations anyway.

Top secret

The declassified information - photocopies of which went on public display in Taiwan for the first time in May - show that Chiang's planned offensive, called the Guo Guang [National Glory] Project, involved 26 operations including land invasions, special operations behind enemy lines and raids against the enemy.

Chiang Kai-shek was obsessed with the idea of taking back mainland China

Chiang also instructed his son Chiang Ching-kuo to come up with a plan to launch an airborne attack on southern China's Fujian and Guangdong provinces.

All of this was top secret at the time.

In 1965, the plans were ready. Soldiers and officers drew up their wills, while the top brass were trying to choose the most suitable "D-Day" to deploy their troops, according to the archives.

But Beijing had discovered the plan. On 6 August 1965, two Taiwanese naval vessels assigned to transport troops on a reconnaissance mission were sunk by Communist forces. About 200 soldiers were killed.

In November the same year, another vessel sent to drop off supplies for soldiers stationed on one of Taiwan's outlying islands was hit by Communist torpedoes, killing some 90 soldiers.

The heavy loss of life surprised Chiang Kai-shek. He then realised China had significantly improved its naval capability. Chiang was forced to scale back and eventually abandon his plan.

But according to Gen Huang Chih-chung, who was an army colonel at the time and was part of the planning process, Chiang never completely gave up the desire to take back China.

"Even when he died, he was still hoping the international situation would change and that the Communists would be wiped out one day."

Shift in focus

The failure of Chiang's plan changed the course of Chinese and Taiwanese history.

The Taiwanese "shifted the focus to modernising and defending Taiwan instead of preparing Taiwan to take back China," said Andrew Yang, a political scientist specialising in Taiwan-China relations at the Taipei-based Council of Advanced Policy Studies.

Chiang's son, who later succeeded him as president, focused on maintaining peace between the mainland and Taiwan.

Details of this chapter in history were kept secret for 44 years, and were only revealed when the tourism department in Taoyuan County managed to convince the ministry of national defence and the national library to give it access to the archives.

"There were 26 planned operations, but the department of defence only kept documents on 10 of them. The others were all destroyed," said Hsieh Shyang-ling, a spokeswoman for the Taoyuan tourism department.

"Chiang Kai-shek didn't want people to know. What we have access to are only some of the documents."

It remains unclear how many soldiers died in the preparations leading up to the plan that was never actually carried out.

"To this day, some of their families might not even know how they died," Andrew Yang said.

Chiang even built a secret bomb shelter in case of all-out war

The documents are now displayed in what was once a secret command centre in the scenic mountains of Taoyuan, which the tourism department opened to the public for the first time in May.

Hundreds of tourists visit the area each day, including some Chinese tourists.

"We feel that since this history existed, we should not hide it. We want to tell people there was this part of history," Ms Hsieh said.

The now elderly Gen Huang said he hoped lessons could be learned from history.

"Relations between Taiwan and China have totally changed now. I hope it will develop peacefully," he said. "There's no need for war."

司馬觀點：達賴 再會吧

作者：江春男
來源：2009年09月04日蘋果日報
超克評論：台灣人對得起達賴喇嘛嗎？(by 佛國喬)

達賴在全世界訪問旅行，所到之處均受到熱烈歡迎，如有人不爽，一定與中國大陸有關。這次他在台灣遭受不少奚落與抗議，顯示北京因素在台灣社會所發揮的作用。但是他的救災與祈福法會，透過現場報導，負面雜音大幅消失，在他臨走前夕，各界依依不捨，不知他能否再來。

北京指控 含血噴人

北京不對台灣採取一些報復措施，就不像共產黨政權了，但北京如知道台灣 的民心向背，一定不敢任意妄為。過去，北京曾經因達賴訪問而依例懲罰德國、法國、加拿大等西方國家，有人統計這個懲罰期，平均約四個月，懲罰之力度則依各 國國力大小而有所區別，此次北京對台處置是投鼠忌器，或軟土深掘，大家可以拭目以待，國共平台發生什麼神奇作用，更值得觀察。
中共對達賴的態度與時俱進，在鄧小平和胡耀邦時期比較開明，那時北京曾考慮讓流亡政府派人回大陸擔任老師和翻譯，後來發生六四事件無疾而終。達賴代表與北京談了七、八次，前後二十年，來來去去，原地踏步，主因是北京領導人信心不足，無人敢作主。

北京指控達賴要把大西藏從中國版圖分裂出去，這是含血噴人的文革手法。藏族所屬的自治區、自治州和自治縣，分布在三、四個省，其人口比小西藏多一倍以上，包括達賴老家在內，要達賴放棄大西藏，西藏不可能實行有意義的自治。

達賴不能訪問香港和新加坡，台灣是唯一可以讓漢人與藏人自由對話的華人社會。屈從北京意志，不讓達賴來訪，台灣有淪為第二個香港之虞，對北京更是愚不可及，因為達賴是西藏問題和平解決的最後機會。

FACTBOX-Facts about the Dalai Lama, China and Taiwan

Aug 28 2009 (Reuters)

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by China as a separatist, is set to visit Taiwan next week. [ID:nTP291457])

Following are key facts about the Dalai Lama, China and Taiwan:

- Tibetan Buddhism holds that the soul of a high monk or "living Buddha" is reincarnated after his death and the resulting "soul boy" can be found through the interpretation of arcane signs.

- After the death of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1934, Tibetan officials asked local authorities to look out for remarkable baby boys with characteristics including large ears, tiger-striped legs and palms bearing the pattern of a sea-shell.

- In 1937, the 14th Dalai Lama was discovered as a two-year old named Lhamo Dhondup, in Taktser village, in eastern Qinghai province, a region called Amdo by Tibetans.

- The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since fleeing a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, and has suggested his reincarnation may be found outside China. Chinese leaders maintain that the next Dalai Lama will be approved by them.

- A visit to Taiwan by the Dalai Lama brings together two of China's most sensitive territorial claims -- over Tibet and self-ruled Taiwan, and thus strikes a raw nerve in Beijing.

- China brands him a dangerous "splittist", or separatist, and is furious with his popularity in the West. Angry at his trip to Europe last year, especially his meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, China called off a summit with the European Union. The Dalai Lama says he is merely seeking greater autonomy for Tibet.

- China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan, through its "one China" policy, since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has vowed to bring the island under mainland rule, by force if necessary.

- China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is recognised by about 170 countries. Only 23 recognise Taiwan and China has continually blocked the island's bid to join the United Nations.

- Relations across the Taiwan Strait, once one of the hottest flashpoints in Asia, have improved since the Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Party, was voted back to power and China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou took office last year.

- The Dalai Lama visited Taiwan in 1997 and 2001. Ma permitted another visit in a populist move amid perceptions that he reacted too slowly to the island's worst typhoon in 50 years. The visit is due to begin on Sunday.

Sources: Reuters; "The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics" by Elliot Sperling; "Tibet -- Its Ownership and Human Rights Situation, by China's State Council; "Modern China: A Companion to a Rising Power" by Graham Hutchings.

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

President Ma’s imperfect storm

The Economist, Aug 27th 2009

A planned visit by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan upsets China

IF THERE has been one dominant theme of Ma Ying-jeou’s 15-month tenure as president of Taiwan, it is the effort to improve relations with China. And it has borne fruit. Commercial, financial and travel ties are perhaps better than they have ever been since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 left Taiwan as, de facto, an independent country.

After eight years of worsening relations under President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), now the main opposition, even a Taiwan-China summit has become conceivable. Now that Mr Ma is also chairman of the ruling Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, such a meeting could be held with Hu Jintao not as China’s president, but as the head of its Communist Party.

So it seems astonishing that Mr Ma has jeopardised all this by doing the one thing most calculated to upset China: accepting a visit to Taiwan from the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, whom China reviles as a “splittist” when it is polite and “a jackal in monk’s clothing” when it feels cross.

Yet Mr Ma has done just that. Unlike last year, when he stopped the Dalai Lama coming, on the pretext that the time was inopportune, he has agreed to a request for a visit next week, to comfort those who have suffered loss or been bereaved by Typhoon Morakot. The worst storm to hit Taiwan in 50 years, the typhoon devastated parts of the south of the island between August 6th and 9th. The final death toll is unknown, but could be as high as 650.

It was the link with Morakot that made the Dalai Lama’s visit so hard to turn down, for three reasons. First, the scale of the disaster and the Dalai Lama’s popularity in Taiwan are both so great that to reject the visit would seem heartless.

Second, Mr Ma personally—and his government as a whole—have been roundly criticised for their slow and inadequate response to the disaster, and in particular for initially rejecting foreign aid. Mr Ma’s own popularity ratings have plummeted. When the DPP raised the question of the Dalai Lama’s visit they knew this put him in a difficult position.

That was in part for a third reason: that the DPP had accused the government of being afraid to accept foreign help after the typhoon for fear of angering China, which bridles whenever Taiwan improves its official ties with any other government. The accusation was probably baseless. More likely the government had simply fallen prey to bureaucratic inertia, and to a drastic underestimate of how serious the damage had been. But it left it vulnerable to any further hints of pandering to China’s whims at the expense of its own people.

China has of course responded angrily to Mr Ma’s decision to accept the Dalai Lama, as it does when any foreign government gives house room to the Tibetan leader—or these days to Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled activist from China’s ethnic-Uighur minority.

It is noticeable, however, that China has directed its fiercest criticism not at Mr Ma, but at the DPP, which favours Taiwan’s eventual formal independence from China. It accused the party of trying “to sabotage the hard-earned positive situation of cross-straits relations”.

This indicates both the greater sensitivity China has shown in recent years to Taiwan’s internal politics, and the dilemma its policy always faces there. If it punishes Mr Ma by introducing sanctions or slowing down the pace of rapprochement, it would undo his government’ s main achievement. And the biggest beneficiary of this would be the DPP, China’s enemy.

Chinese government attacks Dalai Lama's proposed visit to Taiwan

Visit by Tibetan spritual leader to comfort typhoon Morakot survivors could sabotage improving relations, says Beijing

The Guardian, 27 August 2009

China today attacked the Dalai Lama's proposed visit to Taiwan, but blamed the island's opposition party for a move that it says could sabotage improving ties.

The official statement – carried by the state news agency Xinhua – followed the Taiwanese president's decision to admit the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader. Ma Ying-jeou said the Dalai Lama would make the visit to comfort survivors of typhoon Morakot, which killed an estimated 650 people this month.

"No matter under what form or identity Dalai uses to enter Taiwan, we resolutely oppose this," said China's Taiwan affairs office.

"Some of the people in the Democratic Progressive party [DPP] use the disaster rescue excuse to invite Dalai to Taiwan to sabotage the hard-earned positive situation of cross-straits relations."

Beijing usually objects strongly when overseas governments admit the spiritual leader. But the case of Taiwan is particularly sensitive because China still claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island, which split from the mainland when the defeated Kuomintang (KMT) fled there at the end of the civil war in 1949.

At the same time, Chinese officials have little desire to play into the hands of anti-Beijing opposition politicians – perhaps explaining the decision to blame the DPP rather than the president.

Ma had previously said this year was not an appropriate time for the Dalai Lama to visit, leading critics to claim he was attempting to placate Beijing. The KMT leader was elected on a platform of improving ties with China and the resulting thaw has produced the first direct passenger flights and shipping links in 60 years.

But Ma's authority has been badly dented by the government's response to Morakot. Voters have accused the authorities of a slow and inadequate response to the emergency – making it harder for Ma to risk another political row when opposition politicians invited the Dalai Lama to "console" the disaster's survivors on a five-day trip to begin as early as next week.

Visiting a school destroyed by mudslides in Nantou County today, Ma told reporters: "The Dalai Lama could come to Taiwan to help rest the souls of the dead and also pray for the wellbeing of the survivors."

Presidential spokesman Wang Yu-chi declined to say if Ma would meet the Dalai Lama, but said the visit would be strictly religious, with no political overtones.

He added that the visit had been approved "for humanitarian and religious considerations … and we believe it will not harm cross-strait relations."

The government information office said that the president's office and national security officials met for five hours last night before agreeing to permit a visit.

Hsu Yung-ming, a political science professor at Soochow University, said admitting the Dalai Lama would allow Ma to show he was not only concerned about ties with Beijing.

"He doesn't want people to think he cares only about China, [but] that he also cares about Taiwan," Hsu said.

The spiritual leader has accepted the invitation "in principle," his spokesman Tenzin Takhla said from Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.

Taiwan has a sizable Tibetan community and the Dalai Lama has visited the island three times in the past 12 years, drawing crowds of tens of thousands, although his last trip was eight years ago.

But Beijing usually objects strongly when the Dalai Lama travels away from his base in India. Earlier this year, officials demanded that Paris "stop interfering in China's internal affairs" when the mayor gave him honorary citizenship.

According to Xinhua's statement, the spokesman for the Taiwan affairs office said the Dalai Lama was "not a pure religious figure", adding: "Under the pretext of religion, he has all along been engaged in separatist activities."

The spiritual leader denies the claim, saying he seeks meaningful autonomy for Tibet rather than a separate state.

Separately, Taiwan's parliament approved a special reconstruction budget of up to T$120bn (£2.25bn) to cope with damage caused by the typhoon. Morakot brought the worst floods seen in the south of the island for half a century and caused mudslides that buried hundreds of villagers.

Analysts said the finance ministry could raise the money through loans or by issuing bills and bonds.

China opposes Dalai Lama's Taiwan visit

(CNN) -- China "resolutely opposes" a planned trip by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Thursday, hours after Taiwan's president announced the visit.

The Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan could anger China, which accuses him of advocating independence for Tibet.

more photos »

Beijing opposes the visit "in whatever form and capacity," a spokesman for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office said, according to Xinhua, which did not name the spokesman. "Under the pretext of religion, (the Dalai Lama) has all along been engaged in separatist activities," he said.

The Tibetan leader's spokesman denied there was any political subtext to the visit.

"His holiness has received an invitation from several mayors inviting him to Taiwan. He has accepted for the sole purpose (of expressing) his condolences and to share his sorrow for Taiwan's people," Tenzin Taklha said, calling the visit "completely... non-political."

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou said earlier Thursday that he had approved a visit by the Dalai Lama to pray for the victims of the typhoon-battered island.

Ma made the announcement Thursday while visiting a school in the southern part of the country, a government spokesman said. The Dalai Lama has accepted the invitation, his spokesman Tenzin Taklha said.

"We are working on the details of his visit, which will take place soon," he said.

Typhoon Morakot slammed into Taiwan on August 8 and unleashed floods, mudslides and misery. More than 400 people were killed.

The visit of the Dalai Lama to Taiwan seemed certain to anger mainland China, which accuses both the Tibetan spiritual leader and the island nation of separatism.

Beijing accuses the Dalai Lama of advocating for Tibetan independence from China, and considers Taiwan to be a renegade province.

Taiwan and the mainland are only now smoothing their relationship after years of animosity.

Taiwan's relations with China have improved under Ma, who has taken a more conciliatory approach than his predecessor. Then-Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian rejected China's assertion that there is only "One China" and Taiwan is an inalienable part of it.

Postcard from Cishan

By Natalie Tso, Time, Aug. 31, 2009

Mudslide covered houses in Namasia in Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan. Rescuers struggled on August 14 to save thousands trapped in villages across southern and central Taiwan.

AFP / Getty

Wu su-feng knows she was one of the lucky ones. "My husband thought we were washed away," says Wu, a pregnant preschool teacher, sitting in a shelter for typhoon victims in the small town of Cishan in southern Taiwan. When Typhoon Morakot struck the island on Aug. 8, bringing nearly 9 ft. (around 2.5 m) of rain and the island's worst floods in over 50 years, Wu grabbed her 1-year-old son and climbed three hours to higher ground. There, she and hundreds of people from her village waited three stormy days and nights before military helicopters rescued and delivered them — along with thousands of others — to safety in Cishan.

A week later, the thunder of large military helicopters returning from rescue missions still boomed through this small town — a locus of Morakot relief efforts — every 10 minutes. With each landing, workers raised a banner with the name of the village it had flown in from, as family members, lined up outside classrooms at Cishan Junior High School, hoped to see their loved ones emerge. "I used to cry every time I saw a helicopter," says Lamada Isehmasan, after waiting for his parents and brother to be ferried for five days. "Now, I'm numb."

Typhoons regularly sweep over Taiwan, but few living on the island today have seen anything like Morakot. It was the deadliest natural disaster to hit the island since a magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck in 1999, killing over 2,400. The storm dumped a year's worth of rain on the island in three days, leading to floods that left at least 136 dead and nearly 400 missing, as well as widespread damage.

For Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou, Morakot has also become a political storm. The same day that national television aired footage of mourners at the village of Siaolin, where some 400 people are thought to be buried by mudslides, Ma appeared on the evening news wearing a cheerful blue-and-white baseball cap and polo shirt at Taiwan's World Youth Baseball Championship. It was not the President's only faux pas. Earlier that week, Ma told reporters that residents living in Morakot's path were not "well prepared," pinning the slow evacuation on the victims and showing an aloofness that stood in sharp contrast for many Taiwan people to the urgency with which President Lee Teng-hui took charge of quake relief in 1999. People even came up with the stinging slogan "We'd rather have a corrupt President than an inept one!" — referring to former leader Chen Shui-bian, who is on trial for corruption. "[Ma's] behavior has given him a very negative image," says Yang Tai-shuenn, a political scientist at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University. "It will take a very long time for him to recover."

Ma has apologized for the sluggish response, expressing his regret in a deep, seven-second bow to the nation and pledging to overhaul national rescue operations. In his over one year in office, Ma has reached many milestones in relations with China, such as establishing direct transportation and closer economic ties, all of which are helping Taiwan weather the financial storm. But his approval ratings have dropped dramatically after Morakot. "President Ma faces a very serious crisis," says Chiu Hei-yuan, a sociologist at National Taiwan University. "He'll still have a chance if he does very well with the reconstruction." That won't come cheap: the estimate is $3.3 billion.

Living in temporary shelters throughout Taiwan, Wu and some 7,000 other people made homeless by Morakot are trying to cope. The Cishan shelter's main hall is filled with drinks, crackers, new clothes, slippers, toothpaste, soap and towels — part of the outpouring of support from around the island. "It is good to be alive and to know people care," says Wu. But, she adds, "we're still in trauma." Still, Wu is one of the more optimistic residents; she, at least, wants to return to her village. Many don't. Yin Jui-rong, an aboriginal farmer whose village was also destroyed, says he won't go back even if it gets rebuilt. "I'd be terrified every time it rains," Yin says. "Our future is a very difficult problem to solve."

Ma Ying-jeou's Katrina Moment

The Wall Street Journal, AUGUST 17, 2009

Natural disasters usually cause political storms too, so it's no surprise clouds are gathering over Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou after his government's bungled response to Typhoon Morakot. Although Mr. Ma has won accolades for his earlier foreign-policy accomplishments, he is now paying a political price for domestic neglect.

Typhoon Morakot swept across Southern Taiwan earlier this month and dumped six feet of rain. Entire villages were buried alive by massive mudslides. The storm has left 500 dead or missing and hit the struggling economy with a 110 billion New Taiwan dollar ($3.3 billion) bill for recovery efforts.

Like China's Sichuan earthquake last year, Taiwan's typhoon would have caused massive destruction no matter how prepared the government was. But the Ma administration's flat-footed response aggravated the problem. The foreign ministry initially rejected nonmonetary foreign aid. The Ma administration had trouble coordinating its response, and the president even suggested at one point that local officials were to blame for not evacuating people early enough. Over the weekend he apologized for not doing a "better and faster" job.

Taipei eventually got its act together. The military has muscled 182,000 soldiers into the effort and evacuated thousands from the worst-hit areas. Mr. Ma has opened his arms to foreign aid, and now 59 countries are contributing to relief efforts. The U.S. military has even sent a helicopter.

The political damage may have only just begun. Mr. Ma's approval ratings were at 35% and falling even before the storm and most Taiwanese think he has handled it poorly. The typhoon did its worst damage in across Taiwan's agricultural south, where Mr. Ma's political opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party, has always had a strong base.

The question now is whether an enraged DPP will succeed in rallying public support against Mr. Ma's initiatives for the remainder of his term, which expires in 2012. Unlike in Sichuan, the victims of Typhoon Morakot can punish or reward their elected officials at the ballot box. An early litmus test will be December's nationwide county-level elections.

Mr. Ma still enjoys high approval ratings versus his peers in other Asian democracies. But he is learning that his job is about much more than foreign relations. If he wants to avoid his Katrina moment, Mr. Ma has to serve his domestic constituents, too.

Taiwan's leader takes blame for typhoon response

CISHAN, Taiwan (CNN) -- 16 August 2009

Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday he accepts responsibility for the government's slow response after Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island killing at more than 120 people and unleashing floods, mudslides and misery.

Mourners kneel and pray to the dead as they face the devastated valley of Shiao Lin.

Ma, who has faced heavy criticism from victims of the disaster, ruled out resignation, insisting his government did its best in the face of difficulties, however he pledged an investigation into any irregularities.

"Certainly, I will take full responsibility whatever the blame is because, after all, I am the president of this country," Ma told CNN, saying heavy rains grounded rescue helicopters in the first few days after the storm hit, delaying relief.

"Once the weather was good -- that is the 14th of August -- we were able to evacuate 2,518 people. It's a record," he said.

Hundreds of people still await rescue in remote areas of Taiwan, where torrential downpours, dense fog, rugged terrain and raging rivers have hampered relief efforts. Washed-out roads and collapsed bridges have made some rescue operations impossible

Touring disaster areas, Ma has been confronted by angry survivors, and even provoked a scuffle when he opened a weekend baseball game as protesters demanded he step down..

Ma has refused to quit, instead offering apologies and promises to do better.

"We will find out not only to correct the mistakes but (also) to punish the people responsible," he said.

Rescue efforts were ongoing Sunday with military helicopters bringing stranded villagers to their waiting relatives

Others, waiting days in anguish for word on their loved ones, lashed out in anger.

"Local officials don't care," one man said. "There are still people there and they don't do anything."

On Saturday, weeping relatives of typhoon victims set up shrines near devastated villages to calm the spirits of the dead and honor the belief that their souls will return home after seven days.

Morakot hit the island last weekend, dropping 2.6 meters (102 inches) of rain. Before it roared on to mainland China on Sunday, the storm killed at least 123 people in Taiwan.

The death toll could climb to more than 300 after more villagers buried by mudslides and floodwaters are found, Taiwan officials have said.

Southern and central Taiwan were hardest hit by the storm.

Mudslides inundated some places in the south, including the village of Shiao Lin, where 160 homes were lost. Authorities believe hundreds of people could be trapped under five stories of mud in the village.

International aid efforts were mobilizing on Sunday, however these were complicated by diplomatic pitfalls in the face of China's territorial claims over Taiwan, which it considers a renegade province awaiting reunification.

The U.S. military has begun a "modest" humanitarian aid mission to Taiwan with the despatch of a Marine Corps C-130 cargo plane carrying plastic tarpaulins for shelter, U.S. defense officials said.

Also Sunday, the USS Denver was en route to the Taiwanese coast with additional humanitarian aid and water purification capabilities, the officials said. The Navy ship is expected to arrive Monday, but officials could not say when it will launch its heavy-lift helicopters to drop the aid.

Sources in Washington have said in providing aid to Taiwan, the United States must be sensitive to its territorial relationship with China.

Postcard from Cishan A Week After Typhoon, Taiwan Rescues Continue

Time, 15 Aug. 2009

Mudslide covered houses in Namasia in Kaohsiung County, southern Taiwan. Rescuers struggled on August 14 to save thousands trapped in villages across southern and central Taiwan. AFP / Getty

Yin Jui-rong was one of the lucky ones. "I watched my village get buried," says the aboriginal farmer in southern Taiwan, one of hundreds in the mountainous region caught in the island's worst floods in 50 years. On August 8, Yin and 300 others in the township of Namasia fled their homes and climbed up a nearby mountain to higher ground. They spent three stormy days and nights under makeshift tents before the weather cleared enough for them to make smoke signals for help. Finally, after more than 72 hours, military helicopters spotted and rescued them.

In neighboring Siaolin village, the government confirmed that nearly 400 were buried alive, bringing the death toll of Typhoon Morakot, which hit Taiwan last week, to over 500. It was the deadliest natural disaster Taiwan has seen since a 7.3 earthquake hit the island in 1999, killing 2,416, mostly in central Taiwan. The storm dumped more than six feet of rain in over two days, leading to floods that wiped out many mountainside villages and towns, a six-story hotel, 34 bridges, 253 roads and countless homes. As of Saturday morning, an estimated 35,000 people are still stranded in the region. (See pictures of Taiwan's typhoon terror.)

Seven days after Morakot hit, the thunder of large military helicopters landing every ten minutes at Cishan Junior High School booms through this small township — an epicenter of Morakot relief efforts — as they return from the ongoing rescue missions. With each landing, rescue workers raise a banner with the name of the village it flew in from as family members, lined up outside the classrooms, desperately look and hope to see their loved ones come out. "I used to cry every time I saw a helicopter," says Lamada Isehmasan, who has been waiting for his parents and brother to be ferried in for the past five days, "but now I'm numb." He learned the day before that they are safe, but still stuck.

Hundreds like him are also still waiting outside Cishan's classrooms. "I couldn't sleep all week. I had no idea how my family is doing," says Chen Hsiu-lan, a farmer who was also stranded in the mountains for six days until an excavator cleared the roads enough for her to leave her home. Now she's waiting at the school for her older brother.

In the first few days of rescue efforts, before the military had organized its efforts and started to list the names of those who are safe and awaiting rescue, family members who made it to Cishan were panicked. "People were screaming and crying and even wanted to go on the helicopters," says Cheng Ni-li, a volunteer working at the site. In the past week, 15,000 people have been carried to safety by the 38,000 Taiwanese soldiers deployed to the typhoon-struck area. But many are complaining that Taipei didn't act fast enough. "In the beginning, they were too slow," says World Vision Cishan Director Caleb Yu. "But in the past few days, they've gone full speed." Yin, the farmer who waited three days before his rescue, agrees. "They took too long and probably lost lives."

It's a sentiment that is not good news for President Ma Ying-jeou, elected with 58% of the vote last year and already battling the island's recession, who now faces another major challenge to his relatively new administration. Taiwan is known for its susceptibility to big storms, and many at the national level have said that Taipei's well-funded emergency response teams should have been able to get to the stranded citizens sooner. Even lawmakers from his own Kuomintang party have criticized Ma this week for the government's slow response to Morakot, particularly as the public has voiced the need for more effective disaster relief after major typhoons and earthquakes in recent years. "We should have a disaster relief agency that coordinates our resources," said Chiu Yi, a prominent lawmaker, Monday. "We've been talking about this for the past ten years."

Ma's next challenge will be to show that not only can he rescue lives, he can rebuild them, too. Morakot, which means "emerald" in Thai, has left 7,000 people homeless, most of them from aboriginal communities who make a living off the land. Many are now living in crowded shelters, like the one run by Cishan's Fo Guang Shan Association, a Buddhist organization. There, Lin Ai-tung, with a nine-month old baby strapped to her chest, tells reporters how she fed her baby with rain water and infant formula for two days before they were rescued from Minchu village. The hall is filled with stacks of donated drinks, crackers, new slippers, clothes, toothpaste, soap, and towels — part of an outpouring of support that has come from around the nation in the past week. One government bank account open for donations has already collected $30 million from the public. On Friday night, a celebrity fundraiser in Taipei raised over $15 million for the flood victims in a seven-hour event.

Taiwan will need all the help it can get. Current estimates figure that Morakot caused $910 million in losses to agriculture and infrastructure, and the cost for reconstruction is estimated at $3.6 billion, about the same as the 1999 earthquake. The foreign ministry is asking other countries for help, another issue it has been criticized for being slow on. In particular, it's asking for prefabricated houses and helicopters that can lift trucks and excavators so that roads can be reopened. China, which Taiwan has grown closer to under the Ma administration, has also offered to provide 1000 prefabricated homes, relief personnel and over $14 million for relief efforts.

On the ground, there is still much to be done. Some 1500 people are still trapped in Yin's village alone, the Kaohsiung County Commissioner said on Thursday. Over 35,000 are believed to be stranded in other mountainous parts of the island. Once they're rescued, they, too, need to be housed, fed and given a life again. Even though Yin owns land where he has grown mangoes, peaches and bamboos shoots for a decade, he doesn't want to return to Namasia . "I'd be terrified every time it rains," he says, "Our future is also a very difficult problem to solve."

Death Toll Is Still Rising After Storm in Taiwan

Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A woman who stopped near Hsiao-lin in southern Taiwan on Friday said that her relatives there were missing. At least 380 village residents are believed to be dead.

By ANDREW JACOBS

New York Times August 14, 2009

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan — President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan said Friday that the death toll from Typhoon Morakot, which pummeled the island with three days of rain last weekend, would probably reach 500, far higher than the 117 confirmed deaths announced the day before.

Wally Santana/Associated Press

Relatives offered support to those who were evacuated from their villages on Friday at the Chishan evacuation center.

During his address to a national security meeting in the capital, Taipei, Mr. Ma described the storm as the most devastating in half a century and conceded that the reconstruction work might be “even more difficult and cumbersome” than the rescue efforts, which some have criticized as too slow. He said the typhoon caused $1.5 billion in damage and left 7,000 people homeless.

Mr. Ma’s estimate of a much higher death toll dovetailed with the accounts of survivors who have told of scores of homes and their occupants being swept away by rock and mud when waterlogged mountainsides gave way Sunday morning.

The president, who was sworn in 15 months ago, has been facing growing public impatience over his handling of the typhoon’s aftermath. Some critics have chastised him for underestimating the devastation and for not immediately requesting international assistance. Almost everywhere he has gone in recent days, Mr. Ma has been confronted by grief-stricken and frustrated people who have said his government could be doing more.

On Thursday, the Taiwanese cabinet reversed an earlier decision and said that it would accept foreign aid, including the heavy-lift helicopters needed to carry excavation equipment deep into the mountains. Compounding critics’ cynicism about the government’s performance, the Foreign Ministry said the rejection of foreign help was actually a typographical error in documents it had sent abroad.

Officials have strenuously defended their efforts, saying that the rainfall, amounting to more than 80 inches, exceeded all predictions and that the remoteness of many affected villages had made recovery efforts especially complicated. On Tuesday, three members of a rescue crew were killed when their helicopter slammed into a ravine.

“The government has not shirked its responsibility,” Mr. Ma said Friday. “We will overcome every difficulty and complete this mission.”

The early criticism, expressed by anguished family members and broadcast on national television, has emboldened members of Taiwan’s vocal political opposition, which has dispensed with any reluctance to exploit the challenges facing Mr. Ma.

Sisy Wen-hsien Chen, a political commentator, lobbed the ultimate insult by suggesting that Mr. Ma’s post-disaster performance had paled in comparison with that of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China, Taiwan’s rival, during the Sichuan earthquake last year.

Mr. Wen received high marks for exuding compassion while rescue operations were under way, even as his government quashed any public debate over whether poorly built schools had led to the high death toll among students.

Harvard-educated and prone to wonkish utterances, Mr. Ma is not known as a good communicator. His wooden qualities have been thrown into stark relief in recent days as he has tried to console storm victims.

When a weeping man who described himself as a supporter complained that he had been repeatedly blocked by bodyguards, Mr. Ma did not hide his annoyance. “Now you’re seeing me,” he told the man.

Compounding the public’s anger, Mr. Ma made remarks to a British television station in which he seemed to blame typhoon victims for their own misery. “They were not fully prepared,” he said. “If they had been, they should have been evacuated much earlier.”

Ms. Chen, the political commentator, said that the president added insult to injury by using detached language like “they” to describe people enduring great trauma. “Mr. Ma doesn’t know what to do when people kneel down before him,” she said.

Wang Sing-nan, a legislator from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, was even harsher. “If the presidential office was flooded, President Ma wouldn’t know how to save anyone,” he said.

The typhoon struck at a delicate time for Mr. Ma, who has been struggling to steer Taiwan and its export-heavy economy through rough times. He has also incurred the wrath of many for aggressively pushing closer ties with China.

Although the freewheeling Taiwanese news media have taken considerable pleasure in the president’s travails, most coverage has focused on a rescue operation that involves 38,000 soldiers and about 380 helicopters.

Officials have estimated that as many as 2,000 people are still trapped in remote areas with limited food and water.

At least 380 of the dead are believed to have been in Hsiao-lin, an isolated village high in the mountains of southern Taiwan that has been severed from the outside world. In recent days, more than 15,000 people have been airlifted from Hsiao-lin and other communities cut off when landslides and rushing water destroyed roads and bridges.

“They’re all dead, I know it,” said Zhou Gan, 45, who was waiting at a staging area as helicopters dropped off survivors and picked up supplies.

Since Monday, Ms. Zhou, who was not in Hsiao-lin when the storm struck, had been waiting in vain for word from her 80-year-old father. “At this point, I just want to go back home so I can find his body,” she said through tears.

Recovering the dead from beneath 50 feet of rubble, however, might not be feasible. On Friday, Yang Chiu-hsing, the magistrate of Kaohsiung County, said villagers were suggesting that the remains of those buried by a huge landslide in Hsiao-lin be left undisturbed.

Then, he said, a public memorial should be built on the site where 170 houses once stood.

Kuanying Yu contributed reporting.