Too tied to one idea
Hong Kong should diversify its cultural centres rather than focus on West Kowloon, writes Paul Zimmerman


Sep 21, 2007           
   

There is no doubt about it: Hong Kong hasn't enough venue space for arts and cultural events. This was pointed out in a study and report in 1997. Ten years on, the shortfall against demand has increased further. No private venues have emerged in response to this demand because of the high-land-price policy, a focus on land revenue and a lack of appropriate zoning.

Will the West Kowloon Cultural District encourage diversified and balanced development? To build the long list of venues planned there, the government has devised a financing scheme based on selling linked property development rights in West Kowloon. In this way, the "all-in-Kowloon" straitjacket thinking continues at the expense of diversity.

Key questions remain unanswered. Where is the performing talent and the management experience for West Kowloon going to come from? The quality of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department's management of venues and museums has been questioned for at least a decade. Privatisation would improve the operations and groom new people. If we started today and invested a little effort - such as making the old Central Police Station site available for Fringe-Club-type activities - then new skills could be developed before West Kowloon opens.

This would add to the mix of land uses in Central, where hotels, bars, offices and apartments would benefit from the synergy. In North Point, retaining the Sunbeam Theatre to support the development of Cantonese opera would revitalise a tradition, and provide activities for local residents and tourists at the growing list of hotels there.

Refurbishing City Hall and expanding its neighbouring facilities - such as the Planning and Infrastructure Exhibition Gallery - would add to the mix of land uses along the Central and Wan Chai waterfront.

The only real arguments for creating a monopolistic cluster in West Kowloon, other than political convenience, are complaints about the lack of alternative activities accessible on foot around the existing venues. To ensure that places like the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Arts Centre are not cut off from restaurants and bars, we need solutions that benefit the city as a whole.

Privatisation is the solution for the venues and museums planned for West Kowloon. The new owners would immediately add harbour-facing bars, restaurants and retail outlets to their properties. They would allow busking and street performances - all at little or no cost to the community

How about making use of the former airport land at Kai Tak? There are proposals for a large, multipurpose sports centre near the Kai Tak station on the future Sha Tin-Central rail link, but its viability is being questioned. So, surely, there would be benefit in combining various mega performance venues in Kai Tak?

Consider a "common wealth" sort of development, accessible and affordable to locals. Is that idea reflected in a large, integrated structure that seeks to maximise its appeal to tourists? Will another large, intensive property development answer the local community's needs in Kowloon?

To build a vibrant district linked to nearby areas, West Kowloon needs smaller-scale developments and open, public spaces at the ground level.

Under the new financing model, income from retail, entertainment and dining business will pay for programming expenses. Does that fulfil the government's policy objective of creating an environment that is conducive to free artistic expression?

With no alternative on the table, the arts and culture community is asking few questions - afraid to cause any further delay in this long-awaited injection of resources.

It's telling that the arts and culture community has so easily accepted the reduction in investment from the original HK$30 billion to HK$19 billion, and its less secure source of programme funding. Has cultural and artistic integrity been traded for expediency?

The confusion over this issue can be seen in the push to give the cultural district's authority a greater say over cultural policy matters than the public and the cultural community.

Hong Kong needs a cultural commission with statutory oversight of all cultural development and arts-education-related matters. And we need more, not fewer, organisations managing arts and cultural venues.

In point of fact, we already have the integrated arts and cultural hub we want: it's called Hong Kong, specifically the core areas around the harbour. This "Hong Kong Cultural District" has grown organically over many years.

Now it needs to be nurtured and cared for by strengthening the infrastructure and software needed by the cultural and creative industries. Hong Kong would benefit greatly from a more diversified and comprehensive plan for our cultural and arts development.

Paul Zimmerman is convenor of Designing Hong Kong Harbour District


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At the sharp end
Medical errors are widespread, but blaming doctors alone won't make hospitals safer, writes Darren Mann


Sep 24, 2007           



Primum non nocere ("First, do no harm") is a key precept in medicine. In reality, harm is done every day in health care, and on a scale probably unimagined by the lay public. Medical accidents are epidemic, but go largely unnoticed because they affect one patient at a time and witnesses are few; frequently there is no investigation.

Contrast that with the loss of life that occurs in commercial aviation disasters, with their media attention and accident inquiries. In terms of risk defined as the rate of lethal events per person exposure, air travel is in fact many times safer than medical care.

There are three main areas of risk in health care: the disease itself; medical decision-making in diagnosis and treatment; and the carrying out of therapy. Studies consistently show that adverse events causing harm to patients occur in about 10 per cent of hospital admissions.

Health-care accidents exact a huge toll: for example, in the United States, medical error has been implicated in up to 100,000 unnecessary deaths and 1 million excess injuries annually.

The operating theatre is the single most hazardous environment in hospitals: about half of all inpatient mistakes are related to surgery. Complications from diagnostic mistakes, medication errors and therapeutic or investigational procedure mishaps comprise most of the non-operative events. Inexperience, fatigue and work overload are notable contributing factors.

Emergency and intensive-care settings are particularly error-prone; clinicians working in these environments make one to two errors per patient per day.

Medical (indeed human) error is inevitable. Doctors work at the "sharp end" of a complex health-care delivery system, in direct contact with patients. Behind them lies the "blunt end" of the health-care system, the organisational and managerial components. The system's safety obligations are met through a framework of safety barriers, whose effectiveness is largely determined by resource constraints.

Doctors are frequently identified as the cause of medical errors, but to attribute fault entirely to them would be to isolate the person from the system. Mishaps tend to crop up in recurring patterns, with the same set of circumstances provoking similar errors - regardless of the person involved at the point of delivery of care. So medical errors should more properly be considered a problem of systems flaws rather than character flaws.

The traditional response to medical error is to impugn the doctor. This is emotionally satisfying and legally convenient, but in so doing we are actually hindering the process of improving safety for the system as a whole. A doctor who makes a genuine mistake is not necessarily a wholly incompetent professional. When marginalised and stigmatised, he or she arguably becomes the second victim.

A more valid response to error would be directed at uncovering and correcting the latent failures and error pathways in the system of safety barriers. These gaps can best be identified through comprehensive reporting programmes, which rely in large measure on the co-operation of medical staff.

That can only realistically be expected in an environment perceived to be fair and non-punitive.

Increasing social intolerance has recently caused some medical mistakes to be criminalised. In the 1990s, there was a policy shift at Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, resonating with a sense that the courts had historically been overly deferential to doctors. This has resulted in some 40 or so doctors being charged with gross negligence manslaughter in the past 15 years in Britain, with a conviction rate of around 30 per cent.

It is time for society to debate the issues surrounding medical error. Those injured by medical mistakes surely deserve our compassion, and compensation for their loss.

But what is the utility of punishing the doctor? Should an unwitting slip that could befall anyone not be more rigorously distinguished from deliberate acts of harm, brutal lack of skill, intoxication and dishonest conduct?

As for bodily harm resulting from medical error, why should criminal prosecution necessarily be limited to deaths? In some surveys, 45 per cent of doctors admitted to errors causing harm, of which one-third were thought to have contributed to a patient's death.

When every doctor who commits a mistake that results in serious or fatal injury has been put in prison, where will society look to find medical care? Certainly not to the criminal justice system.

And what of the organisational context in which errors occur? Why should hospitals, their managers and supervising government officials be immune from accountability simply because they are one step back from the firing line?

The problem of hospital errors will not go away. Inculcating a safety culture in medicine will require a partnership between the stakeholders - doctors, hospitals, government and society. Establishing an independent, patient-safety foundation would be a good place to start.

We cannot change the human condition, but for safety's sake we can change the conditions in which humans work.

Darren Mann is a clinical associate professor (honorary) at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and examiner in surgery of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh


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The inflation dragon


LAURENCE BRAHM

Sep 25, 2007  



Next month's Communist Party Congress will consolidate the authority of President Hu Jintao and stack the leadership with his coterie. But will it give him the strength he needs to rule China effectively? Deng Xiaoping ruled with centralised planning to assure his absolutism; former president Jiang Zemin used a macro-control system to steer local governments. Mr Hu should be concerned about whether the central government has unravelled too much - giving local authorities excessive powers - to govern effectively during a potential commodity price crisis.

Mao Zedong once said that "grain is the key link". That might sound anachronistic in the run-up to Beijing's hosting of the 2008 Olympics. But it might also be wise advice to heed. The consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, increased 6.5 per cent last month from August last year - an almost 11-year high. Food prices took the lead, shooting up 18.2 per cent. Grain - once considered the key link to maintaining rural social stability - rose 6.4 per cent. This alarmed central government think-tanks monitoring the national economy.

The logical response of China's production-consumer chain will be to produce increasingly substandard foodstuffs. If this happens, public discontent will spread. Although the media shuns consumer-protection reporting, never underestimate the power of text messaging on the mainland.

In 1992, inflation hit 21 per cent, threatening to unravel reforms that were gained on the back of hypergrowth. In response, vice-premier Zhu Rongji adopted 16 principles of macrocontrol policy to pull inflation down - eventually to 3 per cent. The measures included a range of state-planning and market initiatives, such as a reduction in construction projects.

Such measures would be ineffective today, because the government bodies that were able to implement controls at the local level have been disbanded. Local governments could hardly care less what policies Beijing announces, if they fail to support the local construction industry and bank branches that feed the nation's current corruption frenzy. Regional government officials, who depend on property-related corruption to maintain their debauched lifestyles, might consider such measures laughable.

The central government is already alarmed by the prospect of inflation-driven social unrest under the media glare of an Olympic year. One of Mr Zhu's tools that still exists is cutting the money supply, so we may expect this in coming months.

Many mainlanders judge a person's worth by the amount of money he or she can spend conspicuously on brand-name goods. At the other extreme, rural migrant workers' savings often fail to keep pace with their social expectations. If Beijing cannot control prices in the year ahead, the pinch will make some people scream. In March, rioting occurred in rural Hunan province over a bus fare rise from seven to nine yuan. Riot police clashed with thousands of farmers, leaving one dead.

If macrocontrols do not work this time round, Beijing authorities will certainly bludgeon any such political outbursts into submission - especially before and during the Olympics. However, it is exactly such knee-jerk reactions that attract foreign journalists like flies. There will be 30,000 of them in China next year, many with little interest in sports.

Mao said that "a single spark can start a prairie fire". In much of China's modern history, price rises have sparked major social unrest. Inflation struck a final blow to the Kuomintang regime, breaking its grip in major cities in 1949. It brought pragmatic workers out in mass support for the idealistic students demonstrating in the spring of 1989. In the coming Olympic year, China's newest generation of communist leaders may be well-advised to remember the words of their former sage, and to do something to control prices.

Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation


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Cost of development finally to be counted


LEADER

Sep 27, 2007           
   

There is no better sign of the mainland's realisation that its "development at all costs" attitude has to change than acknowledgement by senior officials that the Three Gorges Dam could cause an environmental catastrophe. Just as the project symbolises the nation's economic and technological development, efforts to repair the damage caused by its construction highlight the need for a more sustainable approach to growth.

No one could doubt that the dam across China's mightiest river, the Yangtze, is an engineering marvel. The hydroelectricity it is producing and the floods and droughts that it prevents arguably justify the US$25 billion cost. But there have been other prices to pay for building the world's biggest dam. More than 1.3 million people have been moved, thousands of years of history and culture submerged and one of the river's most scenic stretches has disappeared.

As a forum in Beijing has been told, there are also a number of worrying environmental threats: erosion and landslides on steep hills around the dam, conflicts over land shortages and "ecological deterioration caused by irrational development". Then, there are the uncertainties of what the damming of the Yangtze could mean long-term for people living along its banks. Such concerns were expressed by environmentalists during the planning and construction of the dam, but shunned by authorities in the name of politics and progress. On the completion of the dam's wall in 1997, then president Jiang Zemin hailed the event as "a remarkable feat in the history of mankind to reshape and exploit natural resources".

Such comments are in stark contrast to those of the director of the administrative office in charge of building the dam, Wang Xiaofeng , who said on Tuesday that China "cannot win passing economic prosperity at the cost of the environment". Communist Party leaders agree: they will consolidate policies giving more attention to the environment at their congress next month.

The meeting will be an opportunity to make a stand on environmental matters. Holding up the Three Gorges Dam as evidence of the danger of putting unfettered growth ahead of all else will help to ensure that a more balanced approach can be developed.


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Sputnik's children


PETER KAMMERER

Sep 28, 2007           
     


A 585mm-wide silver ball weighing 83.6kg seems an innocent enough invention. That it changed the way the world saw itself when the Soviet Union launched it into space, 50 years ago next Thursday, gives us pause for thought given the rise of China. Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, started the space race. As soon as the rival United States caught wind of it, an intense battle began to conquer space. But while the instrument ultimately put animals and people into orbit, men on the moon, craft hurtling beyond our solar system, and piqued interest in a manned mission to Mars, it also had a major earthly impact.

As Sputnik soared high, sending bleeps back to scientists and ham radio operators, the planet was swept by the realisation that a new era of discovery and creativity had begun. Science, education and even global politics moved to the fore. Americans were the most deeply affected. Sputnik was a wake-up call that sent the nation scurrying to make up for lost ground. Round one went to the Soviets, as did round two - putting a dog and then a man into orbit. But the US had well and truly caught up by 1969, putting the first men on the moon.

Space travel expanded the bounds of science. Soon there were computers, medical breakthroughs and technological wonders.

But the fact that the Soviets were the first to conquer space also sparked a scramble on Earth for unclaimed portions of territory such as Antarctica and the continental shelves. Sputnik gave us the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 and, from there, a succession of international agreements dictating the use and ownership of the environment from the deepest seas to the highest mountains. There has been no more creative period in global rule-making.

I was born five years after Sputnik, in the year that John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth - 10 months after Soviet Yuri Gagarin entered history as the first person to achieve the feat. These events sparked currents that were felt at the individual level, if indirectly, even by small boys. At primary school in Australia in the late 1960s, my aspirations and those of my peers were for jobs that went far beyond the ordinary: we wanted to be astronauts or scientists. At secondary school, the emphasis was on maths and science subjects. Those who performed poorly at these and excelled in languages and history were made to feel like second-class students. All that seems a long way off, in time and focus. The enthusiasm for treaty-making continued through the 1970s and 1980s, and there are now safeguards and organisations dedicated to most facets of human existence. Yet implementation remains patchy. The US, for one, refuses to join several treaties - on global warming, the International Criminal Court and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, among others - and seems intent on breaking the rules of the World Trade Organisation.

The tussle for natural resources beneath, and shipping routes across, the melting Arctic ice cap shows that not all eventualities have been considered; no international treaty covers the region. That nations such as North Korea, Iran and Israel can get around the rules on nuclear weapons reveals the weaknesses of what is in place.

All that will change in the coming years, though - and China holds the key. When Yang Liwei blasted into orbit on October 15, 2003, making the nation the third to put a person into space, it quite literally lit a rocket under the US - much as Sputnik did on October 4, 1957.

China plans unmanned missions to the moon from 2012, and will start on a manned one in 2017. The US now also wants to return there, and is working towards putting people on Mars. But it is China's emergence as an economic, political and space power that will propel the world towards an era of strengthening the international laws that are in place and creating new ones.

Sputnik was the dawn of the first era of the world reassessing where it was and where it wanted to be. China's space programme is hurtling us towards a new age of innovation and creativity.

Peter Kammerer is the Post's foreign editor


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Back to the front
The heroic contribution made by Chinese labourers in the first world war has been largely forgotten, writes Mark O'Neill

BEHIND THE NEWS

Oct 08, 2007           
      


A bronze plaque on the wall of a Paris railway building and a modest monument in a small park are the only reminders of a remarkable but forgotten story of the first world war - 150,000 Chinese volunteers who cleared mines, removed the dead and made munitions, and became the first wave of Chinese to settle in Europe.

"In memory of Chinese workers and fighters who died for France in the Great War", reads the inscription on the park monument, in Chinese and French. It pays tribute to up to 10,000 workers killed by German bombing raids, disease, accidents and mine explosions.

Each year, on Ching Ming festival, the Chinese community in Paris leaves wreathes at the monument and the plaque, and at cemeteries in northern France where the men are buried.

The park is in the centre of the 13th district of Paris, the Chinatown that was born when several thousands of the workers decided to remain in France after the Great War, forming the first Chinese community in Europe. The community today numbers more than 500,000, according to official figures, and may be double that if illegals are included.

The bustling district is home to thousands of Chinese-owned factories, trading companies, shops and restaurants, whose number swelled with the arrival of the thousands of Chinese refugees from Indochina after the communist conquest of Vietnam in 1975. Among the biggest businesses is a giant supermarket owned by the Tang brothers, who arrived from Thailand in the 1970s and whose president, Chen Ke-guang, is an advocate of official recognition of the workers. Mr Chen is the secretary-general of the Association for the Advancement of Chinese in France.

"The history of the workers had been forgotten," said an official of the association. "The community pushed for recognition but nothing happened until 1988. I don't know the reason for the change, from the city or central governments. They put up the plaque [in 1988] and gave awards to two of the workers who were still alive."

Many Chinese residents, especially recent arrivals, are unaware of the history of their wartime compatriots.

Philippe Liang, 83, is a native of Xiamen who later moved to Vietnam and then France, and works in an association for the Chinese from Indochina. "When I arrived in France in the 1940s, there was racism against Chinese but not now, when it is directed against blacks and Arabs. The status of Chinese is rising. Some have very substantial businesses," he said.

While the early arrivals kept a low profile and emphasised their Frenchness, the Chinese of today have a confidence and self-belief that comes from economic success and integration into mainstream society and the growth and prosperity of their homeland.

It was a different reality in 1916, when the British and French governments conceived the idea of recruiting Chinese workers. The death in battle of their men on a scale no-one had ever imagined had left them seriously short of labour.

The two governments conducted discreet negotiations with China, then neutral in the war. Beijing favoured the plan because it believed the workers would learn skills useful for the country's modernisation and would give it a stronger hand at the negotiating table at the end of the war.

Those under British command would join the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) and be subject to British military rule. Non-combatant, they would build and repair docks, roads, airfields, railways, man ports and railheads, stores and ammunition depots, dig trenches, remove the dead, clear mines and work in factories.

Once agreement was reached, the governments used public notices and missionaries to spread the news of the CLC, offering a five-year contract, a level of pay much higher than at home, and free food, clothing and housing.

They would receive one franc (at that time equivalent to US$19.30) for a 10-hour day, half that of a British private, while their families would receive 10 Mexican dollars (US$5.40) per month.

The first French-bound contingent, of 1,700, arrived in France on August 1916 and the first British-bound contingent, of 1,000, arrived in Plymouth in April 1917, before being sent to France. They were accompanied by missionaries and Chinese-speaking officers.

In total, 100,000 Chinese went to work for the British, 35,000 for the French, and 10,000 for the Americans. The majority were farmers and city workers from Shandong and Hebei provinces. The CLC formed the largest contingent of foreign workers employed by the Allies during the war, outnumbering the Indians, black South Africans, Egyptians and West Indians.

They were sent to camps near the front. One of the largest was in the northern French town of Noyelles-sur-Mer, close to a military base.

The biggest risk came not from carrying the dead and wounded from the front, because both sides observed a truce while this was being done, but German air raids. Others died because of long-range bombardments, accidents involving unstable shells and explosives, and disease.

The French housed their volunteers in camps across the country, putting them to work in munitions, metallurgy and chemical factories and on construction sites. Chinese labour built the ferry ports of Calais and Boulogne and a sea defence wall at Orford Ness in Suffolk, England.

Manico Gull, the British commander of the second group of CLC workers, said in 1918: "Their emigration from the shores of Shandong will take its place certainly as one of the most important aspects of the Great European War."

According to the Allies, 3,000 Chinese died. Chinese figures put the toll at 9,000 to 10,000. They are buried in cemeteries in northern France, the largest in Noyelles with 842 graves, maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Some tombstones have the name, number, date of death and native province of the victim, but others have no name.

With the end of the war in 1918, France still needed thousands of labourers and the Chinese stayed on to work in factories, hospitals and building sites.

Most returned home in 1919 and 1920 but 3,000 from Qingtian, outside Wenzhou , Zhejiang province , stayed behind. They formed the basis of the Chinese community in France.

One who stayed was Ye Qingyuan, a native of Qingtian who volunteered at the end of 1917. "My home village was a poor mountain village, a disaster for heaven and man alike, where you could not make a living," he wrote in his diary. "When Germany surrendered in November 1918, the government gave us a bonus. With my cousin, I opened a restaurant near the Gare de Lyons. The French were very curious and wanted to sample Chinese food. Within six months, we were run off our feet."

By the end of 1920, he had enough money to return home, marry a local girl and return to Paris with three brothers. They opened restaurants and shops that sold groceries and carved stone from Qingtian. In 1985, he retired and returned, finally, to live in his ancestral village.

In the Versailles Peace Treaty after the war, the Allies did not reward Beijing for providing the workers and left it with terms so bad the Chinese delegation refused to sign the document.

Lionel Vairon, a business consultant who travels often to China, said that, after the first world war, the Chinese who stayed on concentrated on becoming French and did not speak of the war. "They wanted to de-emphasise their Chineseness and wanted to integrate. So, the history of the workers is little known."


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Climate crossroads


LAURENCE BRAHM

Oct 09, 2007           
     



"One world, one dream," is Beijing's motto for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But it means different things to different people and, in most cases, what the world dreams about is very different from what Beijing's leaders dream. If the capital's self-congratulating municipal leaders ever awake from their haze of cognac and rich banquets, they will find themselves in one of the most polluted environments in human history. For mainland China's citizens, its cities are miserable places to live. For the rest of the world, they are part of the threat to humanity's very existence.

Next year the mainland will become the world's single-largest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gases. Its recent achievements can be measured in clogged highways, overbuilt infrastructure and an excessive construction boom linked to the Olympics. The mainland's many golf courses reflect the nouveau-riche vulgarity of its values, when clean water is so scarce. Mainland officials should ask themselves: we can give our children money and cars, but can we offer them water to drink?

Those officials would be well advised to visit Bangladesh rather than Las Vegas to understand the future we are rushing towards. Global warming causes continual flooding in that poverty-stricken nation's lowlands. In a recent interview there, economist Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, analysed the dilemma our world faces. "Global warming is now at a serious stage, and greenhouse gas emissions are" increasing, he said. "Europe is concerned, but the USA does nothing and refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol. All [China's] power is based on dirty fuel, and China's emissions will become worse and worse. Next to follow is India. So, now three nations have joined the club."

Both China and India refuse to cut carbon emissions unless wealthy countries such as the United States take the lead. It's a logical argument, since those three nations must join forces if any realistic programme of emissions cuts is to be achieved. Former US president Bill Clinton recently supported the China-India position, telling the Financial Times: "I think unless we take the lead in the United States, we'll never get the Indians and Chinese to do it."

Dr Yunus offered a deeper explanation. "The real problem is lifestyle," he said. "We can agree about having `non-smoking' areas in public places because one's smoking may destroy another's health. What about wastefulness of lifestyle? How can some nations retain lifestyles that destroy other peoples?"

For example, he said, buying gas-guzzling vehicles is not consistent with the planet's survival. "How can you enjoy life on this planet if your lifestyle destroys this planet?" he said. "It is like partying on a boat while lighting a bonfire on that same boat." And now China is aping America's wasteful lifestyle, he noted.

According to Dr Yunus, there are obvious, pragmatic steps that must be taken. The Kyoto Protocol, he notes, is not binding on nations that fail to ratify it; the world now needs a climate change deal that is mandatory for all nations. "It must be done through the United Nations, and done now," he said. "There is not enough time left before 2012 [when Kyoto expires]. By the year 2050, we must reduce our greenhouse gases by 50 per cent. But the US [has not ratified] the protocol. So we must get it to join."

The US, China and India, three major polluters, must adhere to clear commitments to reduce greenhouse gases - leading the rest of the world to follow suit. The recalcitrant Bush administration will be voted out next year. China and India are in a position to lead, putting economic and diplomatic pressure on Washington. But those nations' leaders must stand up rather than being sycophants, and they must cut greenhouse emissions at home.

Nobody cares about a narcissistic Olympics building spree. If the world has one dream in common, it is reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is a question of humanity's very survival.

Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation



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Pitfalls on the road to a Korean peace treaty


Donald Kirk
Oct 10, 2007           
     
  |   

  



The North-South Korean summit has opened a new phase in the great debate over the future of the Korean Peninsula by calling for a treaty to replace the armistice that ended the Korean war. But, although no one in South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's entourage dares to say so, talk of a peace treaty, more than 54 years after the guns fell silent, presents complications and pitfalls that are sure to become clear all too soon.

The most obvious problem is that Mr Roh and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il evidently could not agree on how many parties should sit at the table for the talks. Their final joint statement said either three or four parties would attend the negotiations. If it's three, then one of the four major participants in the war will not be there. Might it be China, whose troops were "volunteers" - theoretically not under the command of the communist rulers who had completed their takeover of the mainland on October 1, 1949?

That was less than nine months before North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung ordered the invasion of South Korea. Or how about excluding the United States, which waged what it called a "police action" under the cover of the United Nations Command.

Incredibly, another candidate for exclusion may be South Korea. That's because its president at the time, Rhee Syng-man, refused to authorise a truce that would legitimise the more or less permanent division of the Korean Peninsula.

His refusal to sign the truce gives Pyongyang an excuse to reject Seoul as an equal participant in peace talks. North Korea has often given the impression that the South hardly counts when it comes to negotiating issues like the North's nuclear weapons programme.

The North would like nothing better than to sign a peace treaty with the US and China, relegating the South to subsidiary status. That would befit Pyongyang's view that only one government should rule all Korea: a government led by Mr Kim and his inner circle. The North Korean concept of a peace treaty, moreover, is not just a document saying that the war is long over, and now let's declare permanent peace. No, the reason Pyongyang wants this treaty is to dismantle the entire structure behind which South Korea has risen as a great economic power from the ashes of a war that left the South among the world's poorest countries - poorer even than the North.

With the treaty would come provisions disbanding the UN Command while reducing US military strength to a marginal, advisory role at best. We may assume the treaty would not include provisions for a vast reduction in North Korea's 1.1-million-man military establishment, much less pull most of them away from  positions close to the demilitarised zone.

Actually, no one, certainly no foreign observer, could object to a simple peace treaty between South and North Korea. A foreigner would have to say that the two Koreas had every right to sign a treaty free from foreign interference.

That kind of treaty, however, would be too easy. The North is not interested in a peace treaty with the South. The whole point is to strengthen the North's hand by drawing the US and China into the process of establishing a "peace regime" - under which North Korea stands to receive enormous quantities of aid while giving very little in return.

The US may be falling for North Korea's stratagem. President George W. Bush has held out the possibility of a treaty after the North "verifies" that it has dismantled its nuclear programme.

Those interested in a peace treaty, though, should see it as a gimmick that runs the risk of undoing the prolonged peace under which South Korea thrives while North Korea - for all its weapons of mass destruction - remains mired by its own policies of massive self-destruction.

Donald Kirk is the author of two books and numerous articles on Korea for newspapers, magazines and journals


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China - the lesser of two evils for Africa?


OBSERVER
Alex Lo
Oct 11, 2007           
     
  |   

That the west, especially the United States, thinks it is in any position to criticise China's expanding investment and diplomacy in Africa - on moral and human rights grounds, of all things - is truly mind-boggling. It is beyond hypocrisy.

China's activities are, in many ways, problematic. But the west, through its history of state-sponsored terrorism, failed economic policies and aid programmes, and sheer arrogance, has forfeited any right or moral grounds on which it can lecture  others.

During the 1950s and 1960s - when one African state after another gained independence - the US could have opened Africa to much brighter prospects than the dreadful state much of the continent has been mired in for the past half century.

US president Lyndon Johnson briefly considered a kind of Marshall Plan for Africa in the 1960s. However, the CIA and the National Security Council recommended not taking it up. To what extent this was due to racism can be determined only by historians. Instead, many newly independent African states ended up on the receiving end of the "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" US foreign policy during the cold war - and that is the case even today.

It was not the Marshall Plan that became the foreign policy model. Rather, it was the CIA-assisted coup and assassination of newly independent Congo's first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba - in a conspiracy with the Belgium government.

Lumumba's murder was followed by the violent overthrow of Ghana's president Kwame Nkrumah, which again implicated the CIA. But even benign western and US economic and food aid did not help recipient African states much.

A study last year on China's links with Africa by Barry Sautman of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology provides some instructive figures. Of US$530 billion in aid and loans granted to Africa between 1970 and 2002, the recipients had repaid US$540 billion, with interest. The debts of only 14 African states were cancelled while the continent's debts stood at US$300 billion last year. "Much [aid] is subject to conditions benefiting the donor economically and politically [including its security interests]," Dr Sautman wrote.

Most of the grants and contracts have to be used to buy goods and services from companies and non-governmental organisations from the donor country - even though they could be bought more cheaply elsewhere in the global market. Meanwhile, while under western tutelage and aid, Africa's share of world trade declined from 5 per cent in the 1970s to 1.5 per cent in 2005. In the 1980s, the continent received 30 per cent of the world's foreign investments, but this dropped to 7 per cent in 2003, according to figures cited by Dr Sautman.

China has been accused of being interested only in African oil and minerals. But currently, 75 per cent of US investment is in oil, while 64 per cent of China's was in manufacturing and 28 per cent in resources, up to 2000. However, the percentage of investment in resources has probably shot up during the current commodities boom.

As for China spreading corruption and propping up corrupt regimes, consider this: in 2005, China sold weapons to, or had military missions in, seven African countries; the US gave military aid and had arms sales with 47 of Africa's 53 states. Again, I cite Dr Sautman.

Last month, Beijing pledged US$5 billion to the Democratic Republic of Congo to build 3,200km of railways and the same length of roads, 31 hospitals, 145 health centres, two universities and 5,000 housing units, all in 36 months. As Howard French of The New York Times observes, if delivered, this will be more than the west has done for the country in its 47 years of independence.

So, which is worse, the ugly American or the ugly Chinaman? Africans may have to make that choice this century.

Alex Lo is a senior writer at the Post


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When communists warm to democracy


OBSERVER
Lau Nai-keung
Oct 12, 2007           
     
  |   

In the past few years, mainland Chinese leaders have begun to talk about democratic development. Most mainlanders do not think of democracy as their inalienable right but, rather, a means to good governance. Nor do they feel that democracy should be developed at the expense of social stability. This is perhaps why the pace of democratic development is so slow on the mainland, where quality is valued over speed.

In October last year, Beijing issued its first white paper on the development of democratic politics. Its contents show that Beijing takes a holistic view of democracy, going well beyond universal suffrage alone.

Democracy is the No1 element in President Hu Jintao's concept of a harmonious society. It starts with democracy in the ruling Chinese Communist Party - and the showcase for that will be the upcoming 17th Party Congress. In a speech on June 25, Mr Hu said for the first time that democracy within the party was one of the top four priorities for party reform.

Friends who attended regional party congresses this year told me the atmosphere there was a lot more democratic than before: all participants felt they could speak their minds freely. To ensure more effective internal supervision, the heads of provincial disciplinary committees have begun to be appointed from the central party. We expect more concrete structural reforms to emerge from the upcoming congress.

One suggestion is to set up a standing committee to supervise the party's general secretary and Politburo, which have unchecked powers. Perhaps they will both be elected through competitive elections rather than a vote of confidence - a democratic practice unthinkable in the past.

The mainstream thinking is that the emphasis should be on promoting democracy within the Communist Party. At the same time, reforms in the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference should move those two institutions towards becoming more like parliaments. Direct elections will be popularised through the use of grass-roots polls up to the township level. They will form the foundation for more democratic,  indirect elections.

As part of this momentum for reform, three non-party members have been appointed ministers in the government over the past two months, a move unseen since the early 1950s.

This is an indication that the Communist Party is willing to share more power with other political parties and non-affiliated individuals. To that end, the ruling party will exercise political leadership over the executive, the legislature and the judiciary rather than the current model of direct micro-management.

There is constant criticism of the party for centralising too much power in its own hands, without enough checks and balances. In the Chinese tradition of elitism and meritocracy, the ruling party is supposed to take good care of the people without their having to worry or participate.

On the whole, the party is still sceptical of involving the media and non-governmental organisations in political participation, viewing them as troublemakers rather than important adjuncts of good governance. Nevertheless, the media is courageously doing its part in exposing scandals.

In an increasingly pluralistic society, there are many problems that, for various reasons, go unnoticed by the government - or are covered up by the officials involved. In other cases, official priorities may be different from those of the people, and certain minority needs may not be adequately addressed. The government is not omnipotent, nor is any ruling party.

A vibrant media and active NGOs are part and parcel of a good modern democratic system and good governance. Without their participation, a harmonious society is far, far away.

Lau Nai-keung is a Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference delegate


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Call of the clerics
Jailed insurgents are being freed after undergoing religious counselling to end their radicalism, writes Simon Montlake

BEHIND THE NEWS

Oct 15, 2007           
     
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When Singapore began busting local cells of regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah in 2001, it had a useful counter-terrorism tool at its disposal: the Internal Security Act. A legacy of British colonial rule in former Malaya, the ISA allows for indefinite detention without trial.

More arrests followed as details emerged of plots to hit Singaporean and western targets in the city state, including cutting off the crucial water supply from neighbouring Malaysia. In all, about 70 Singaporean members of JI were detained under the ISA. But there was no appetite to put anyone on trial for what amounted to detention aimed at stopping attacks on Singaporean soil and preventing Muslim extremists from regrouping in other countries.

In recent years, Singapore has begun releasing terrorist detainees who are no longer deemed a security threat. Over one-third of JI suspects have been freed from jail or released from house detention. At the same time, authorities continue to closely watch the Muslim community and arrest suspects linked to foreign terrorist organisations.

Behind the release of the suspects is a religious counselling programme that uses Muslim clerics to rebut extremist views and instil moderate Islamic teachings. The theological programme, staffed on a volunteer basis by Singaporean Muslims, is part of a broader effort to rehabilitate JI members and enable their release. Clerics also reach out to families of detainees and the wider Muslim community to counter extremist propaganda.

Proponents say the success of Singapore's approach offers lessons to allies in the US-led war against Muslim extremism and an alternative to indefinite detention without trial of extremists in Guantanamo Bay and other prisons. In recent years, other countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia have also promoted religious rehabilitation in jails bulging with terror suspects, with varying results.

Faced with swelling detention centres after a surge in troop deployments to trouble spots, US military commanders in Iraq have begun to take note. With an estimated 25,000 Iraqis in US custody, the US has in recent months introduced religious education programmes that are modelled, in part, on Singapore's scheme, and on a much larger programme in Saudi Arabia.

Marine Major-General Douglas Stone, who oversees US detention facilities in Iraq, told bloggers last month that religious courses at Camp Cropper had helped to "bring some of the edge off" detainees who often had only a limited grasp of Islamic jurisprudence. General Stone, who spoke Arabic, said "a few hundred" insurgents had been through the programme.

His goal was to release prisoners who were judged unlikely to return to insurgency activities, General Stone said. He said his approach was persuasive because "it's how you win this war, not only the one in Iraq, but the one on a greater basis", according to a transcript of the interview provided by the Pentagon.

Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and a consultant on the Singaporean programme, said an effective counter-terrorism strategy must combat religious indoctrination in society and, crucially, in jails. He said a "war of ideas" could be won by releasing suspects into the Muslim community armed with Islamic teachings that debunked the do-or-die rhetoric of al-Qaeda and its offshoots.

"Deprogramming is not 100 per cent successful ... some will go back [to militancy]. But it's the only intelligent thing to do," said Professor Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaeda. "We've planted a seed ... Iraq was the beginning. I believe America can take this idea to Guantanamo, Afghanistan and other areas."

Not everyone is convinced by this approach. Analysts said Yemen shelved a similar cleric-run programme in 2005 after former prisoners returned to extremism, usually by joining insurgent cells in Iraq. Of 400 militants freed after counselling, about half have since been put back behind bars. In contrast, only one Singaporean has been rearrested for allegedly contacting foreign militants.

Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister Ho Peng Kee told parliament earlier this year that the programme had worked well on some detainees, but not all, as it took time to turn around those who were deeply indoctrinated. "We will continue to try to rehabilitate the others. But it is worth highlighting that a number are adamantly holding on to their radical and violent beliefs," he said.

Mohammed bin Ali, one of the clerics working in the group secretariat, said that Singapore's Religious Rehabilitation Group had 21 volunteer clerics who led weekly one-on-one counselling sessions with detainees to "correct their misinterpretations" of Islam . In the four-year-old scheme, counsellors systematically expose the distortions of JI doctrine, emphasising Muslims can live devoutly in multi-faith Singapore, where they make up about 15 per cent of its 4.2 million people. The government-funded group also hosts public forums and runs a website (rrg.sg).

"We believe in rehabilitation. No one is born a terrorist. No one wakes up one morning and says I'm going to be a terrorist. It's indoctrination ... and we're trying to bring them back to normalcy," said Mr Mohammed, who had briefed US military officials in Iraq on Singapore's programme.

Counselling continues after suspects are released, while a parallel programme focuses on coaching the wives of detainees and ensuring they get financial support from the government. Mr Mohammed said moderate Muslims had a duty to counter extremist views in the community. "The terrorist network [in Singapore] is crippled, but unless the ideology of extremism is countered, the threat will persist," he said.

Malaysia and Indonesia have also sought to rehabilitate JI detainees using moderate Muslim teachings. In Indonesia, where JI bombed two Bali nightclubs in 2002, Nasir bin Abas, a disillusioned ex-JI cell leader, helped authorities to convince former colleagues to abandon their violent struggle for an Islamic state. In 2005 he published a book that exposed the group and its methods.

Other Indonesian militants have helped police behind the scenes in return for reduced jail terms and other privileges. In Singapore, a handful of detainees have played a similar role. But while Malaysia and Singapore have used colonial-era ISAs to detain terror suspects indefinitely, Indonesia has opted for public trials. Three of the Bali bombers are on death row, and more than 30 others were jailed.

Malaysia's prisoner release programme seemed to depend as much on coercion - the threat of harsher punishment for re-offenders - as theological re-education, said Zachary Abuza, a professor at Simmons College in Boston and an expert on JI.

"In Indonesia, unless you have a death or life sentence, there is light at the end of the tunnel without recanting. People enter into rehab programmes there because they want to," said Dr Abuza.

In Saudi Arabia, authorities have created a religious counselling programme for about 2,000 prisoners accused of belonging to al-Qaeda. Some 700 had been released since 2004, of which 10 were later rearrested, said Christopher Boucek, a post-doctoral researcher at Princeton University, who is tracking the Saudi scheme.

Saudi Arabia uses family support networks to bring poorly educated al-Qaeda recruits into the programme and show how they have been tricked by corrupted Islamic teachings. Detainees who have participated in violent attacks are not eligible. As in Singapore, authorities have found that hundreds of other hardened militants refuse to join.

Despite the programme's success in forcing militants to recant, some Saudi government officials said public executions would send a tougher message to wrongdoers, said Dr Boucek. The counter argument, though, is that releasing detainees is a more effective rebuttal of militant propaganda. "The state is fighting a war of ideas ... as part of this process, what they're doing with these guys is showing that if you co-operate with the state, bad things don't happen," he said.

Applying the lessons of Singapore and Saudi Arabia to counter-insurgency in Iraq could be a stretch, according to terrorist experts with experience there.

Unlike in prisons where terrorist suspects are held separately, US military officials have warehoused thousands of insurgents in giant holding pens that extremists reportedly use as recruiting centres. Edward O'Connell, a senior analyst at Rand Corp who is studying Iraqi detainee motivations for the Pentagon, said the US now faced the uphill task of trying to weed out religious and sectarian insurgents from hired gunmen and criminals.

He warned that religious education in camps could backfire, and General Stone's belief in theological debate to rebut extremism, while laudable, was untested in the maelstrom of a violent insurgency. "You've got to be careful with re-education and rehabilitation," said Mr O'Connell. "You don't want to enhance the union of religion and criminality and nationalism in a troubled state."


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Harmony or chaos?


LAURENCE BRAHM

Oct 16, 2007           
     
  |   

  



The 17th Party Congress will espouse lots of "Chinese characteristics", which can be interpreted as alternative paths to economic and political development. Most mainlanders smirk at the term, as its popular misinterpretation is an open wink at corruption, cronyism and local rule by economic warlords.

We can expect to hear this congress regurgitate Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, Deng Theory and the Theory of the Three Represents. These will be cited as foundations for President Hu Jintao's new theory of a "harmonious society" - or as proof that capitalism was right all along. (Marx, Lenin, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping must have said this somewhere, so it's acceptable to repeat it as long as you cite their names.) "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", then, means hard-core capitalism in a one-party state.

That may disappoint many lesser-developed countries looking at China's development as a potential economic model. Or a social and political model. They shouldn't count on it, or on Beijing's leadership for poor nations: the current administration will do nothing for poor countries unless they receive a quid pro quo in energy supplies or market opening. This is blatant capitalism with Chinese socialist characteristics.

Mr Hu's own political ideology - the "harmonious society" - merges four pillars of thought: a "democratic legal system"; a "fair struggle for righteousness"; a "sincere and honest love for each other"; and "stability and order". These are called the "basic starting points of Chinese society".

But are they? These wonderful ideals cannot be found anywhere in China today, so how can they be starting points? Mainland society is arguably the most unharmonious of any nation in the world today not being torn apart by war. "Harmonious society is a policy for the people and the rich," the Central Party School recently explained. That raised the question of whether the concept is intended to fill an ideological or spiritual void among people, or is just another stimulus to encourage mainlanders to get rich.

In June, Mr Hu gave a speech at the Central Party School in which he elevated the notion of "social construction" onto the same plane as economic, political and cultural "constructions". By way of explanation, a Central Party School scholar said this established a "bottom line for China's people's social development" - in short, every individual has ample space for their own free development.

But don't think they are talking about individual freedoms along the lines of America's founding fathers. They mean everyone is free to use whatever means he or she likes to make money and get the material things they want. The Pandora's box of Dickensian capitalism has been opened.

Such statements are dangerous for a nation that has witnessed the reappearance of slavery in rural areas of Shanxi and Henan provinces. In such places, making money any way you can - and at any cost to other people - has become mainstream thinking. Does this mean economic anarchy?

When Deng announced Beijing's adoption of a market economy in 1992, many did not understand what that meant. They stretched its definition, taking the new market model to mean carte blanche to engage in smuggling and counterfeiting. Illegal stock markets opened all over the country, and property projects were developed without approval. That led to chaos and the 24 per cent inflation that had to be reigned in by then vice-premier Zhu Rongji .

Is there a danger, following these latest pronouncements, that capitalism will once again be taken to extremes?

In the run-up to the 17th Party Congress, the mainland media quoted an editorial in Britain's Guardian newspaper which said that during the 19th century, Britain taught the world manufacturing; during the 20th century, America taught the world consumption; and, for China to find its rightful place as leader of the 21st century, it should teach the world sustainable development. But can it? Mr Hu may be asking the same question.

Laurence Brahm is a political economist, author, filmmaker and founder of Shambhala Foundation

laurence@shambhala-ngo.org


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The battle for truth
A former Okinawa governor is fighting to ensure wartime atrocities are not erased from textbooks, writes Julian Ryall

BEHIND THE NEWS
Julian Ryall
Oct 17, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Wearing only rags, and bandaged or hobbling, the old men, women and terrified children left the sanctuary of the cave in the limestone cliffs at the very southern tip of Okinawa. Standing out to sea were the warships of the US Navy, from where came calls relayed over loudspeakers for the survivors to surrender. Blinking in the bright sunshine of May 1945, the villagers began to cautiously make their way towards the American soldiers' lines.

Masahide Ota would often see the little groups start out on their journey into the no-man's land that divided the US Marines from what remained of the Imperial Japanese Army's forces in the Mabuni district of the disputed island. Most of the time, they were shot before they had gone more than a couple of hundred metres. They were not killed by the Americans, to whom they posed little threat, but shot in the back by their own soldiers.

"I saw it happen every day," said Mr Ota. "The local people wanted to surrender but the Japanese soldiers would not allow them to go and they killed them when they tried to escape. And they didn't just kill the civilians; there was no food and the only well had been contaminated by the bodies of the dead, so soldiers were killing each other for food or the contents of their water bottles," he said. "I saw Japanese soldiers throwing grenades at each other so they could drink.

"I had been conscripted into the army myself at that time, but I never thought I would see the day when friendly soldiers would be killing each other. The terrible things I witnessed every day changed my ideas completely."

What Mr Ota, now 82, witnessed in the final days of the conventional fighting on the island changed his life. He went on to study in Tokyo and live in the US before winning election as the governor of Okinawa in 1990, a post he held until 1998. He then became a member of the Social Democratic Party in the Upper House of the Japanese Diet for six years up until July.

Throughout his private and public life, Mr Ota has dedicated himself to ensuring that what happened on Okinawa is never forgotten. Such a stance has made him highly critical of right-wing historians' reinterpretations of events in Okinawa in 1945, and he vehemently opposes plans announced by the Japanese government to rewrite history textbooks that are to be issued to students at the start of the new school year next April.

In March, then prime minister Shinzo Abe ordered that school-book references to the involvement of the Imperial Japanese Army in the suicides of Okinawan civilians be deleted.

Nationalist historians claim that suicide pacts were voluntary and not the result of orders. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology responded by decreeing that as there was disagreement among historians as to what happened in Okinawa, it would be unfair to state that the civilians had killed themselves as a direct order from the military. In response, a draft textbook prepared by publishing house Shimizu Shoin altered a passage that read some people "were forced by Japanese troops to commit group suicide" to "there were people who were driven into group suicides". Other publishers similarly watered down Japan's official view of history.

The new government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has made some conciliatory moves, with new Education Minister Kisaburo Tokai telling reporters: "The ministry will deal with any applications for further revisions in a serious manner. A panel will be convened to make a fair judgment on the issue if necessary."

Mr Ota remains incensed at official efforts to beautify history. Public outrage led an estimated 115,000 Okinawans to protest on September 29 in the city of Ginowan, marking the largest public protest since the prefecture reverted to Japanese control in 1972.

"It is truly a terrible thing to try to rewrite historical truth," said Mr Ota. "The people of Okinawa will absolutely not allow this to happen. Tens of thousands turned out to demonstrate against the plans and, in a very rare case of all the municipal assemblies joining together, 41 local authorities also protested."

According to Mr Ota, who founded the Ota Peace Research Institute in Okinawa's largest city, Naha, the government is increasingly falling under the thrall of the right, and aims to win sufficient political support to rewrite a constitution drawn up after the war that renounces the use of military force.

"The main reason that they want to change the constitution is because they would like to drop the `Self-Defence Forces' title and simply have a real and regular military," said Mr Ota. "They want Japan to be recognised as having military units that can go and fight wherever the government wants."

But with the actions and excesses of the Imperial Japanese Forces in the 1930s and 40s still remembered by some and documented in textbooks, the right is having trouble winning over the majority of the public.

Mr Ota said their approach was three-pronged. Firstly, the nationalists are rewriting the events known as the Nanking Massacre, claiming that maybe a few hundred citizens of the city died in disturbances, a far cry from the 300,000 deaths China blames on the Japanese army. Their second target is the women who were forced into sexual slavery as "comfort women" for Japanese troops during the years of expansion throughout Asia and the Pacific, with the right claiming they were mere prostitutes who volunteered to serve in frontline brothels and were paid for their labours. The third target is reversing the myth perpetrated by Okinawans that the military murdered civilians and forced others to commit suicide.

After his wartime experiences, Mr Ota knows that he is fortunate to still be alive. As the Allied invasion approached, the Japanese military headquartered beneath Naha's Shuri Castle conscripted all the students from the city's 12 boys' schools and 10 girls' schools. The boys were given a gun, 20 rounds of ammunition and two grenades, with the instruction that one grenade was to be thrown at the Americans; the other one was for themselves. The girls were given rudimentary first aid training and served as nurses.

Of the 460 students from Mr Ota's school, 305 were killed; of the 120 pupils in his grade, just 37 survived.

Known as Tetsu no ame (the "rain of steel"), the US forces landed on the main island on April 1, 1945, in the largest Pacific theatre amphibious assault of the war. The Japanese defence was tenacious and made the most of the terrain and extensive fortifications. Nearly 80 Allied warships were destroyed or had to be scrapped due to enemy action - a good number of them victims of kamikaze attacks. The Allies lost 12,513 lives; the Japanese military lost an estimated 66,000. Well over double that number of civilians also died.

"In the very last days of the fighting, I was told to infiltrate behind the enemy's lines and to persuade local people to rise up against the US," Mr Ota said. Indoctrinated not to surrender, he managed to evade the Americans and made his way with other stragglers to the rugged northern jungles of Okinawa. In small bands, they lived rough and scrounged from the Americans' dumps to survive.

On one occasion, he was among a group that chose to run instead of surrendering and was chased into the sea. After losing consciousness, he was washed ashore and found himself surrounded by the corpses of his colleagues.

Teaming up with another soldier one day, they came across a US magazine that proclaimed the war was over, yet it was not until a former officer in the Okinawa General Headquarters made his way to their hideout with a manuscript signed by the emperor that they decided to surrender.

"When I read that the war was over, I was not disappointed that Japan had lost," said Mr Ota. "I was more sad that I was so ignorant I could not read the magazine because English was the language of the enemy."

It was at this point that he decided to educate himself to help the people of his native island. Okinawa was once the independent Ryukyu kingdom and still has many cultural differences with the country that effectively annexed it in the early 1600s. The Japanese military regarded islanders with suspicion and hostility, while local people hated being ordered to revere the emperor and to sacrifice themselves for the homeland.

In the years since the end of the conflict, research has indicated that between 800 and 1,000 Okinawan civilians were killed by the Japanese military during the campaign, although the chaos that enveloped the islands in the summer of 1945 makes it almost impossible to prove the vast majority of the cases. In cases that have gone to court demanding recognition of the atrocities that were committed, most have failed to provide the identities of those killed, the identities of the killers and witnesses. This same problem has given more ammunition to nationalists, who say there is no proof that the Japanese military was to blame for forced suicides or murders.

"Those who are trying to change the descriptions in textbooks that are to educate the next generation of Japanese say the local people misunderstood what was happening and that the Japanese military was there to protect their lives," said Mr Ota. "But that's not true."


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The talent crunch
Companies across Southeast Asia could be feeling the impact of a skills shortage for decades, writes Rosheen Rodwell

BEHIND THE NEWS

Oct 18, 2007           
     
  |   

  



Serena Ma Hong-yee is a Hong Kong headhunter's dream come true. She is confident, well-presented, speaks English, Cantonese and some Putonghua, and is a graduate in international relations with a few years of work experience.

These qualifications sound common for a Hong Kong resident, but the high demand for her skills suggests otherwise. Ms Ma started looking for a job in August and, before the end of the month, she had four firm offers on the table, two of them significantly better than she had expected.

The scenario is becoming common as companies scramble to employ the few good candidates that briefly enter the employment market amid the accelerating economy. New figures out this week show that Hong Kong's jobless rate last month improved slightly to 4.1 per cent, the lowest level in almost a decade. The figure is down from 4.2 per cent in August. As skilled workers become harder to find, employers are now warning that the skills shortage will have an impact on corporate profits.

"Historically, it is as bad as it has ever been," said Gina McLellan, Hong Kong manager of recruitment company Hudson. "It is dire. Some companies will not be able to deliver on their growth targets. They have got the facilities, they've got the materials and they've got the manufacturing capabilities - they just don't have anyone to do the jobs."

A recent survey of 250 firms by financial and business advisory firm Grant Thornton found that nearly half wanted to increase their workforce next year and a third were worried that a lack of available staff would constrain their growth. "Clients from different industries have been complaining," said Daniel Lin Ching-yee, an accountant and spokesman for Grant Thornton.

The problem is most acute in the engineering sector, as huge property developments in southern China have drawn experienced engineers away from Hong Kong. The service industry has also been badly hit, with Macau's casino and hotel boom enticing good staff from the Hong Kong hotel industry.

"All you have to do is go out to a hotel and have a cup of tea to notice that the service is really bad compared to what we are used to," said Mr Lin.

Other professional fields are low on talent. Susanna Chiu Lai-kuen, of the Hong Kong Institute for Certified Public Accountants, said firms in Hong Kong were "chewing up accountants". She said part of the problem was caused by demand from multinationals on the mainland.

Even investment banks are feeling the pinch. Global investment bank UBS recently opened a wealth management training office in Singapore in response to the lack of talent in the region. The office will provide training for existing and would-be wealth managers in the Asia-Pacific region.

The talent shortage in Hong Kong is reflected throughout the region. An Economist Intelligence Unit survey this year of 600 chief executives in Asia found that the shortage of staff ranked as their biggest concern.

"Everyone [in the rest of the world] just thinks Asia is going to continue to boom," said Ms McLellan. "If you talk to most companies and you ask them, 'What does your US head office think you are going to generate next year?' they will say, 'We've got 50 per cent growth targets', or `We've got 110 per cent growth targets'. We tell them it is not achievable, but no one [outside Asia] understands that."

Mr Lin warns that many companies in Hong Kong have yet to understand the long-term implications of the skilled staff shortage. "They really have to face the issue," he said. "Most Hong Kong companies are SMEs [small to medium sized enterprises] and they tend not to have any plans; they just deal with issues in firefighting mode and so this has been hitting them quite hard. They think that this is just a cyclical problem and it will go away, but it is going to be affecting businesses for decades."

There are several reasons for the skills shortage. Mr Lin cites the declining birth rate in Hong Kong as a contributor, as well as the shortage of management-level candidates on the mainland which is drawing managers from Hong Kong.

Ms McLellan said another theory was that the ageing baby boomer generation was sapping the workforce as children opted to look after their parents.

Some firms have commented on the reluctance of the "spoilt" younger generation to do jobs considered to be unglamorous. The director of careers at Hong Kong University, Herman Chan Ping-kong, said students favoured sectors such as finance over engineering.

But by far the biggest reason for the shortage is the extraordinary growth of the economy. Companies appear to be flocking to Hong Kong to take advantage of the buoyant local economy and gain a regional foothold near the booming Asian economies of the mainland and India. As Hong Kong becomes a regional base for these companies, some firms are increasing their headcount here, as well as taking people out of Hong Kong to work in other offices in Asia.

Complicating the issue is the strong demand for staff who can smooth the business process for western companies operating in East Asia; those with an understanding of Chinese and western cultures and languages. Employment agencies also say employees need to be able to think outside the box, and some firms complain that the local education system does not encourage this kind of creative thinking.

This is why people such as Ms Ma, who appears to have a common skill set, is the ideal candidate for many firms. She speaks Cantonese with her family and understands the Chinese culture, but she grew up in Canada and is familiar with the culture of westerners.

To attract this calibre of staff, firms have been raising salaries significantly. In the banking sector, candidates changing jobs this year have been receiving salary increases of up to 20 per cent, according to Guy Day, head of the recruitment company Ambition. As a result, some people are leaving their jobs to chase higher salaries. Recruitment specialists say turnover in some sectors has gone through the roof, and in some cases candidates keep their options open even after they have committed to a new job.

"They will keep interviewing if they think there might be more money in it," said Ms McLellan.

Companies are unhappy about employing people who demonstrate a tendency to "job hop", but their options are limited.

Some firms are employing people who a few years ago would not have got past the first interview, and they are promoting staff to management before they have the proper experience.

One option that firms have in a fished-out talent pool is to widen the net, and Hong Kong firms are being encouraged to embrace diversity policies that have long been established in firms in western countries due to concerns over fairness and possible litigation risks. Ms McLellan said banks, in particular, with large staff levels, now recognised the need to consider staff from more diverse racial backgrounds and with disabilities.

The other option available to companies struggling to employ the right people is to strive for the all-important "employer of choice" label, to create a company that everyone wants to work for and no one wants to leave.

Mr Day said that, apart from salary rises, strategies becoming more popular were share options, bonuses, training and career development, and opportunities to work abroad. Other initiatives include so-called "soft" issues, such as a better work/life balance.

Sometimes, simply changing a person's title can convince them to stay. A "supervisor" who becomes an "assistant manager" may not have more responsibility, but will feel more inclined to show off his business card and less inclined to leave.

Mr Day said that, in the final analysis, most staff made a decision to change jobs based on salary. They only see about five to 10 of their candidates retained or "bought back" by their original company.


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New ideas in old suits


KITTY POON

Oct 22, 2007           
     
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Reading the minds of Beijing leaders is always a daunting task. Non-Chinese speakers often find themselves lost in a tangle of communist jargon. Native Chinese may also fail to grasp the underlying message even though they know what each word means. Even before his keynote speech to the 17th congress of the Communist Party last week, the party's general secretary and national president, Hu Jintao , was getting a mixed build-up.

The Economist magazine, for example, predicted he would offer little in the way of new ideas, and challenged the party to open itself for a genuine clash of ideas. But that prediction was only partially successful, the observations incomplete.

Although Mr Hu's speech may have seemed conventional, he nonetheless gave the first comprehensive articulation of his "scientific development perspective" theory, which he called a continuation of Marxism and Leninism, of Mao Zedong thought, Deng Xiaoping theories and the "three represents" theory coined by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin . It was also an important extension of old thinking to suit a new era.

After the speech, mainland analysts suggested it implied a policy shift from his previous administration, and a subtle criticism of the relentless pursuit of growth in the Jiang era. If a "scientific" approach is called for, then that itself is a disapproval of the "unscientific" - or unsustainable and single-minded - approach adopted by former leaders.

Both the magazine's view and that of the mainland analysts have some validity. Mr Hu's speech hinted at a subtle change in how he would manage China's steaming powerhouse of economic growth, but dressed it in old ideological suits. If that sounds peculiar, his comments have to be understood in the context of a dispute raging outside and inside the Communist Party over the pace of economic development. For five years, a war of words has pitted sociologists and culturists, on the one hand, against economists on the other. The former, labelled the "new left", call attention to the huge social cost of marketisation and the state's dwindling powers. Their opponents, simply called "the right", advocate continued liberalisation.

The war among scholars spread into the party, and an intra-party fight intensified this year. This time, the intellectual divide was further complicated by ideologies. The "new left" cadres, backing a reformist agenda, armed themselves with the scientific development perspective theory. They called for democracy within the party to remedy its flaws.

As if all this weren't confusing enough, their rivals call themselves "stern reformers", and uphold the principle of social democracy. Both sides claim to be the legitimate heirs of Marxism and Mao thought.

The quarrel has intensified, splitting the intellectual community and undermining the party's unity. Beneath the battles of words are seething conflicts of interests and power struggles. Mr Hu's keynote speech thus became a test, and both sides watched to see where his loyalty lay.

It thus appeared to be a carefully orchestrated move when he called the scientific development perspective a new development of old ideologies. By paying tribute to the old ideologues, Mr Hu shored up his own legitimacy so that he could carry on his own missions.

By confirming his commitment to sustainable development, he sought to walk a fine line between left and right. In the end, he sided with neither while appealing to both.

The lack of sexy phrases and stimulating ideas may have turned many readers away. But the absence of novelty serves a purpose in the context of contemporary mainland politics. In a society so divided, new ideas work better if dressed in old suits. Mr Hu has offered a useful example for many leaders, including Hong Kong's chief executive.

Kitty Poon, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is a part-time member of the government's Central Policy Unit

kittypoon@netvigator.com


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Consensus building the sustainable way to go


LEADER

Oct 23, 2007           
     
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President Hu Jintao did not have it all his way at the Communist Party's 17th congress. While he was re-elected general secretary and army chief, his preferred successor was not anointed by fellow senior leaders, and only one of his two guiding principles for the nation's future direction was enshrined in the party's constitution.

Such setbacks are unusual in the party's history. They are evidence of the new era of consensus-building that is gradually being introduced so that a broader array of opinions can be represented.

Since the People's Republic of China was founded 58 years ago, the words and deeds of the paramount leader have largely been unquestionably followed and enacted by the party faithful. Putting so much authority in the hands of a single person has at times been detrimental to the nation.

China's ever-growing global importance and the resulting economic and social implications meant that this could not continue. Authorities have recognised the importance of transparency and the need for significant stakeholders to participate in the nation's evolution to a developed country.

That Mr Hu has not had all he wanted backed by the 2,200 delegates to the congress shows a significant shift that is in the national good. The mechanisms now in place to make the party more transparent in its decision-making are heading in the right direction.

There were 8 per cent more candidates for positions on the party's Central Committee, compared with 5 per cent more in the last congress five years ago. This is the idea of intra-party democracy that was unveiled last week in action: wider choice and greater openness. Party standing committees will be set up at local levels and the heads of each will have to submit regular reports. Committee views and decisions will be forwarded to the top of the party. People at village level will be able to choose their leaders.

From outside the mainland, this may seem an incremental step, but it is a substantial one for a nation where all the power has been vested in the hands of a few. The moves must be broadened within the party and extended through society. A democratic system that begins at the grass-roots level has to eventually replace the present top-down approach to government.

Consensus building

Democracy is about giving the majority a voice, and Mr Hu has learned this to his disadvantage. While his chosen successor, the head of Liaoning province, Li Keqiang , was among the four new faces elected to the Politburo Standing Committee, it is Shanghai party chief Xi Jinping , the choice acceptable to all factions, who seems likely to succeed him in 2012.

There has always been faction fighting within the ruling party, and this has not been constructive for the nation. Turning to consensus-building is an obvious solution. It also offers a mechanism that is a natural bridge to democratic government.

Since being first elected party secretary in 2002, Mr Hu has advocated sustainable development and putting people first. This has translated into the concepts of scientific development and social harmony - the first of which the party congress added to its constitution and the latter which it rejected.

This may seem a defeat for the president, but the idea of a harmonious society manifested itself in the revised objectives that the party has now set for itself. At the party's last congress, it determined that quadrupling gross domestic product by 2020 was desirable. Mr Hu's line that this should be revised to per capita GDP has won party favour - and this is in line with the theory of putting people first.

Broadly, the party has come round to the consensus that while sustained economic growth must remain its priority, the environment and livelihoods of the people must also be protected to ensure social harmony. That the issues were debated rather than rubber-stamped, as they would previously have been, shows the party's new face. The party has said that it does not want western-style democracy. While its moves last week strengthen the grip of one-party rule, that it has planted the seeds of a more open system of decision-making that more people can participate in has to be welcomed.

This has been termed socialist democracy, but whatever the name, it has to be engendered deeper in the party and society. Media freedoms have to be instituted so that the mainland can be governed with transparency and openness.

Sustainable growth

China is the world's most populous country, has its fourth-largest economy and is the second-biggest exporter. Its phenomenal growth must continue to alleviate poverty and move the nation forward.

Under Jiang Zemin's "Theory of the Three Represents", the party began to admit businessmen as members to reflect the emergence of a new capitalist class in a market economy. It must now continue to evolve by embracing Mr Hu's principle of scientific development to achieve sustainable growth.

Political reforms unveiled and made apparent at the 17th congress of the Communist Party seem small, but nonetheless represent evidence of an opening up. As China further integrates with the global economy, there will be pressure for more changes, both within and beyond the party.

The seeds for success have been planted through consensus-building and transparency. They must be nurtured and given every opportunity to flourish into full-fledged democracy.


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The only choice?


FRANK CHING

Oct 24, 2007           
  



President Hu Jintao emerged from the 17th congress in a stronger position than before, with a mandate for another five years as the party's general secretary and head of the military. His main rival for influence, 68-year-old Zeng Qinghong , stepped down, contrary to earlier reports that he would remain on the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee.

Mr Hu not only emerged in a stronger position as party leader. He also laid the groundwork for his own legacy as a theoretician who made major contributions to the party, as did his predecessors Mao Zedong , Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin . His contribution, the "scientific outlook on development", was included in the party constitution. This follows the party's decision in 2002 to incorporate the contribution by Mr Jiang - the "Three Represents" doctrine - in the party charter, and the 1997 inclusion of Deng Xiaoping Theory.

This means Mr Hu is now all but certain to be included in the pantheon of communist leaders, perhaps at the next congress five years from now, when he will have to step down.

Deng's contribution was the concept of building "socialism with Chinese characteristics" - allowing China to depart from orthodox Marxist doctrine by introducing the market economy into socialism. Mr Jiang's three represents theory paved the way for capitalists to join the Communist Party.

Mr Hu's "scientific outlook on development" calls for comprehensive, balanced and sustainable development with a people-centred approach. The charter was also amended to say that the party would foster the development of the private sector, confirming China's move towards a more capitalistic system.

Since Mr Hu has to retire in 2012, attention has focused on the members of the new Standing Committee. Two new members are in their fifties, which means each is young enough to take power five years from now and serve two five-year terms as the undisputed leader.

They are Xi Jinping , 54, the party secretary of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang , 52, the party secretary of Liaoning province . Indications are that Mr Xi has a slight edge over Mr Li. In the official lineup, Mr Xi's name is listed ahead of Mr Li's. In the voting for Central Committee membership, Mr Xi won 2,227 votes to Mr Li's 2,226.

Mr Hu, in a meet-the-press session yesterday immediately after the election of the new Standing Committee, singled out these two for special attention, reminding assembled reporters that the men were only in their fifties. He also pointed out that they, unlike two other additions to the Standing Committee, were not even members of the Politburo that was elected in 2002. They are leaping directly from the Central Committee into the Politburo's Standing Committee.

There were few signs at the congress of any significant move to greater democratisation, though Mr Hu used the word "democracy" more than 60 times in his speech. It was pointed out that about 8 per cent of candidates for membership in the Central Committee were defeated - a wider margin than five years ago, when it was about 5 per cent. But that would not be considered a substantive move towards democracy in any other country.

Almost 60 years after gaining power, the Communist Party still lacks a system for choosing its top leader. Mao's handpicked successor, Hua Guofeng , was pushed aside by Deng, who eventually grew disillusioned with his own chosen successors and moved them aside - only to settle eventually on Mr Jiang. He also chose Mr Hu to succeed Mr Jiang.

In the 21st century, it is not acceptable for one person to decide who the country's leader will be. Now, with two potential successors on the Standing Committee, the stage may be set for a new ball game, one in which five years from now the party has a choice of whom to pick as its leader. If that should be the case, the party will have to put in place an election system to decide how to choose. Such a development would mark progress not only for the Communist Party, but for China as a whole.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator

frank.ching@scmp.com


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hina's space team need bringing in from the cold
LEADER

Oct 25, 2007        
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The launch of the moon-orbiting Chang'e I marks another milestone in China's emergence as a spacefaring nation. Named after the moon goddess, the orbiter will be the first in a series of missions to the moon and beyond. Hopefully, it will mark a new stage in the peaceful exploration of space, instead of being another step in a growing space race among nations.

Chang'e's journey to the moon in coming days will test the ingenuity of mainland scientists to the utmost as it circles the Earth several times to gain momentum before being slung on a precise trajectory towards the moon. This involves elaborate manoeuvres far more complex than anything previously attempted by China. The mastery of the techniques will be crucial to interplanetary space travel beyond the moon. The satellite will spend a year circling the moon to map it and beam back geo-chemical data to Earth.

China's latest success ought to be celebrated. But, as with other economic and technological accomplishments, its space programme has raised suspicion, especially in the United States. The shooting down of an ageing weather satellite by a Chinese missile in January has alarmed the US and some Asian countries. There are concerns that space is being weaponised.

To allay fear and develop trust, nations with space capabilities need to work more closely together. Isolating China will only exaggerate the perceived threats. The launch in Xichang , Sichuan , came hours after the US space shuttle Discovery's liftoff for the International Space Station. Despite the station's name, the US has so far denied China access to it. This is shortsighted, because there is no better way for China to prove its peaceful purpose than admitting it into international joint space projects.

In recent years, the moon has regained the attention of space engineers and scientists worldwide partly because of scientific curiosity but also because of engineering and resource interests. An understanding of the moon's evolution will give answers to important questions about the Earth. The moon is also believed to be full of helium-3, an efficient source of nuclear energy if it could be mined and returned to Earth. But the renewed interest has also sparked a lunar race. Last month, Japan beat China by launching a satellite to the moon on a similar scientific mission to Chang'e I's.

China, Japan and the United States have drawn up plans for manned missions to the moon within the next two decades. India and Brazil are also developing an active space programme. Hopefully, the competition will prove more benign than the previous cold war rivalry between the US and the former Soviet Union. An encouraging sign is that, subject to restrictions, space scientists around the world have been able to communicate and share research with each other. This augurs well, given China's express intention for its space programme to gain international exposure for its scientists. For Hong Kong people, it is gratifying to know that local scientists also contribute to the nation's space programme. Four researchers from local universities will help analyse moon data to be returned by Chang'e I. When the Chang'e II mission is launched to land an unmanned rover on the moon in 2012, local university engineers are expected to take part in developing sampling tools.

Since the 1990s, China's space programme has spun off industrial applications important to its economic development. Now, in the interests of peace and scientific co-operation, China ought to be allowed to work more closely with international space agencies.


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Inflation a reality, but we can cushion impact


LEADER

Oct 26, 2007           
     
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As the value of the US dollar continues to fall, so do Hong Kong's hopes of avoiding a period of inflation. For the local economy, which only recently recovered from prolonged deflation, the prospect of rising prices is not necessarily good.

While our domestic economy is always subject to pressures from volatile international markets, the local currency's peg to the greenback deprives us of key weapons to deal with them. The exchange rate of the Hong Kong dollar cannot go up or down in line with our economic conditions; nor can we adjust our interest rates as freely as we would like because local rates cannot diverge too much from those set by the Federal Reserve.

Although there is little the government can do about inflation itself, it needs to implement measures already in place, and introduce new ones if necessary, to mitigate inflation's impact on the poor. Low-income families spend proportionally far more on basic needs, such as food and transport, than do wealthier ones.

Already, those living in remote areas but who have to travel to town for work have complained that bus and train fares are too high, even as public transport operators press for higher fares to cover the rising price of fuel. Food prices are rising more quickly than overall inflation, which may surpass 2 per cent by the end of this year.

It does not help that the mainland, our main source of food supply, is also contributing to our inflation. Prices of foodstuffs across the border have shot up due to strong economic growth as well as supply factors. With the mainland's GDP still growing at a double-digit pace - 11.5 per cent in the three months to September - inflation there, which reached 6.2 per cent in September, is expected to keep on rising.

There is a positive side to the fall in the dollar, however. Property owners who were hit by the post-handover market crash will relish seeing the values of their assets finally rising again. Indeed, as the US Federal Reserve keeps on cutting interest rates for domestic reasons, Hong Kong will, sooner or later, have to follow suit, further pushing prices up. But the worry is that easier credit will only make the bubbles that already afflict the Hong Kong and mainland stock markets bigger. Arguably, what Hong Kong needs now is higher interest rates to reduce liquidity. But that is not a feasible policy tool because of the peg.

Over the short term, our services-based economy will become more competitive. Foreign investors, other than those from the United States, will find office space more affordable. But as the falling dollar continues to push up import costs, inflation is likely to rise further and will begin to bite.

As a small but externally oriented economy, Hong Kong always suffers during periods of international financial volatility. Our peg to the US dollar is an anchor of stability, but it means that local monetary conditions are dictated by external trends.

The exchange-rate link is fundamental to the credibility of the government and the city's financial markets. It has delivered "hard" money and imposed a more rigorous economic discipline. The discipline of a fixed-currency regime demands that domestic prices adjust freely without intervention by government agencies. Inflation, in the current circumstances, is the result - and the government must adapt its policies accordingly to cushion its debilitating impact, which will hit the poor sooner but will not spare the rich over time, since what goes up must come down.


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Danger in the details of Regina Ip's vision


OBSERVER
Chris Yeung
Oct 29, 2007           
     
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Former security chief Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee has tried to assure people that there is no devil in the details of her blueprint for universal suffrage. Yet, the extra hurdle she has proposed for chief executive hopefuls before they can run in an election is hardly an angelic idea in the eyes of those pushing for democracy.

Mrs Ip is contesting December's Legislative Council by-election. Her proposal would see each chief executive candidate having to gain the support of at least 10 per cent of members in each of the four sectors - that is, business, professional, grass roots and political - in the nominating committee. But critics believe this could easily become a tool to bar candidates deemed unacceptable to Beijing.

Their fears are not unfounded, judging by the experiences of Alan Leong Kah-kit in the chief executive election in April and Anson Chan Fang On-sang, who is also standing in the Legco by-election.

Although Mr Leong managed to meet the nomination threshold by securing 132 nominations from the 800-member nominating committee, none came from the 200-member business sector. Mrs Chan has suffered the same fate: there is a marked absence of prominent names from the business circle on her list of nominees.

Speculation is rife that the central government's liaison office has lobbied business leaders not to lend their support - in both nomination and financial terms - to Mrs Chan.

In response to Mrs Ip's constitutional reform proposals last week, Mrs Chan warned of "devils in the details", and criticised the package as a retrogressive step.

Mrs Ip made an immediate rebuttal on her election website, insisting that "there is no devil in the details". She argued that the additional nomination requirement was to accommodate the interests of different sectors of society. Mrs Ip is not alone in calling for a more stringent nominating mechanism. A similar idea has been floated by pro-Beijing figures, in the name of "democratic procedures".

Superficially, receiving say 10 per cent support from each sector in the nominating body may seem of little relevance.

In reality, the political predicaments of Mr Leong and Mrs Chan in trying to solicit support from the business sector is a graphic illustration of the potential danger of manipulation in elections.

In view of the much-acclaimed pluralism in Hong Kong society, it seems almost unthinkable that credible candidates such as Mr Leong and Mrs Chan could not secure at least some backing from the business sector.

One plausible explanation is that the political pressure for businesspeople to shun the pan-democrats has been so intense that it has forced sympathisers to keep their heads down, to avoid inviting trouble.

The shadow of Beijing looming large over elections is certainly not a healthy - or normal - situation for Hong Kong politics to find itself in.

It is not difficult to understand the thinking behind the idea of the four sectors in the chief executive Election Committee, as laid down in the Basic Law. The sectors can be seen as providing balanced representation under an indirect election system, as the city moves towards universal suffrage.

Arguably, it would also represent a deviation from the spirit of the principle of balanced representation if the mechanism was used as a tool to screen out candidates deemed unacceptable to Beijing.

Hong Kong has thrived on diversity and pluralism. It is not surprising, therefore, that both Mrs Chan and Mrs Ip have lured groups of supporters from the same sectors, such as professionals and the grass roots.

But the seemingly lopsided backing of the business quarter for Mrs Ip highlights the danger of giving each sector the power to screen out would-be candidates.

Chris Yeung is the Post's editor-at-large.

chris.yeung@scmp.com


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US must consider global impact of fiscal policy


LEADER

Oct 30, 2007           
     
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The decline in value of the US dollar is good and bad for Hong Kong. While the fall boosts our competitiveness with economies that do not follow the greenback, the more it drops, the greater our inflation.

Weighing such positives and negatives is a delicate matter. The foreign companies and talent being attracted to our shores are welcome, as is the money pouring into our stock market and property sector. But the downside is that imports from economies without a US dollar link are increasing in price, putting the most vulnerable in our society at risk. The double-digit inflation we suffered during the 1990s greatly affected the poor and a repeat has to be avoided.

Doing so is not straightforward, given the Hong Kong-US dollar peg. The US dollar may be the global reserve currency and its weakness is causing a measure of anxiety among governments holding it, but Americans are generally unfazed. For them, a poorly performing dollar means a shrinking of America's US$57 billion foreign trade deficit. Exports increase, demand for the goods and services of US companies rises, and more overseas tourists are attracted to the country.

The impact is far wider, however. Many of the records of recent days - new highs for oil and gold, and stock market indices from Hong Kong to Australia to South Korea and beyond - are largely down to US fiscal and political policies.

US President George W. Bush's government is running a record budget deficit, spending far in excess of what it has to hand and paying hundreds of billions of dollars servicing debt. Americans themselves are equally deeply in debt. They have more owing in loans than they have in savings, with the cash tied up in housing or shares. The extent of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco, which is helping drive down confidence in the dollar, is yet to be fully revealed, but the ramifications are severe and global.

US property prices are in decline. With so much of the nation's retail sector based on imports, prices are increasing.

Stock markets rose higher yesterday on the expectation that the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again. This would be an effort to alleviate the US' economic problems; if Hong Kong were to follow suit, the likelihood of increased inflation here would rise.

Interest rate cuts are short-term solutions. They do nothing about growing perceptions that with the rise of China and India, the US - and in consequence, its currency - is in decline. We need to give this consideration. Delinking the Hong Kong dollar peg to the US dollar is a gradual matter, though: the uncertainty caused by a new fiscal strategy is not something Hong Kong wants or needs now.

Governments the world over put the national interest first and this is what the Bush administration has been doing with its economic policies. Nonetheless, international fears that its currency could soon be in free fall need to be addressed. Balanced current accounts increase confidence in economies and national currencies. Putting in place taxation policies that encourage citizens to save rather than spend are also long-accepted means of boosting financial systems.

Hong Kong is in no position to lecture Washington about running its economy, just as we would not take kindly to being preached to about operating our own. Global reserve currencies are not domestic matters, however, and the US therefore has a responsibility to look beyond its borders when considering fiscal issues.


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Evolutionary path


FRANK CHING

Oct 31, 2007           
     
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Quite naturally, interest in the Chinese Communist Party's 17th National Congress focused on personnel changes at the top for signs about who might be China's next leader. But the congress, which concluded last week, also approved amendments to the party constitution, which shed light on the long-term direction, and the twists and turns of the past. The first party constitution after the communists came to power was adopted in 1956, when Mao Zedong was head of the party. That document made it clear that China was part of the Soviet bloc, saying that Beijing was interested in friendly relations "with all other countries in the camp of peace, democracy and socialism headed by the Soviet Union".

In 1977 - the year after Mao's death - the party, under Hua Guofeng , adopted a new constitution which upheld the Cultural Revolution and said that such revolutions "will be carried out many times in the future". It described the Communist Party as "the political party of the proletariat", composed of "advanced elements of the proletariat", which "leads the proletariat and the revolutionary masses in their fight against the class enemy". Today, the word "proletariat" has disappeared entirely.

Mr Hua was soon supplanted by Deng Xiaoping . Under Deng, the party reversed course, denounced the Cultural Revolution and decided to focus on economic development instead of class struggle. In 1982, a new constitution marked a drastic departure. "Class struggle is no longer the principal contradiction," it declared, contradicting Mao's instruction to always "take class struggle as the key link". Instead, it said, the party would focus on "the socialist modernisation of our economy". It also declared: "The course of world history during the past half century and more, and especially the establishment and development of the socialist system in a number of countries, has borne out the correctness of the theory of scientific socialism."

Unlike other constitutions, which are meant to be permanent documents that are rarely amended, the party charter has been regularly revised since it was rewritten in 1982.

The 13th party congress in 1987 was significant, with Zhao Ziyang as party secretary. That constitution introduced the concept of China being in the "primary stage of socialism", when many capitalistic things would naturally be present. Even though Zhao was purged two years later, in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, that concept remains in the latest constitution. In 1997, when Jiang Zemin was party leader and the Soviet Union had collapsed, the claim about scientific socialism was dropped. "Deng Xiaoping Theory" was added, along with Marxism-Leninism and "Mao Zedong Thought" as the party's "guide to action".

In 2002, when Mr Jiang stepped down, the constitution was revised to introduce a new concept, that of the party's "chief representative". Thus, it said that Mao was the chief representative during his lifetime, followed by Deng and Mr Jiang. The party's "guide to action" became "Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents". The latter was Mr Jiang's contribution to socialist theory, which justified admitting capitalists into the party.

This year, with Hu Jintao as party leader, the party constitution has been modified again to include his theoretical contribution, the "scientific outlook on development".

Reflecting the Hu administration's "people-centred" approach, the constitution also says that development is "for the people, by the people and with the people sharing its fruits". The concept of "building a harmonious socialist society" was also added.

Five years from now, when Mr Hu is scheduled to preside over his last party congress, it is highly likely that his theoretical contributions will be added to the party's ever-expanding "guide to action". So where is the party heading? Pragmatism will continue to be its hallmark, with each new leader depicting pragmatic policies as further development of socialist theory. After all, Deng - the ultimate pragmatist who said it didn't matter what colour a cat was as long as it caught mice - is now praised as a theoretician. Mao must be spinning in his crystal coffin.

Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator

frank.ching@scmp.com

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Sins of the past
After 60 years of silence about his role in surgical killings, a former Japanese medic spoke out, writes Harumi Ozawa

BEHIND THE NEWS

Nov 01, 2007           
     
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More than 60 years had passed, but Akira Makino still suffered nightmares about Filipino hostages and the injections that rendered them unconscious. Every time he woke up to the flashbacks of horrific killing scenes, he shut his eyes tight and tried to turn his mind away from something he no longer wanted to think about.

But Makino, 84, also felt he had to speak out about his wartime experiences to as many people as possible during the final year of his life.

"These were nothing but living-body experiments," Makino said as he sat on a bench wearing just his pyjamas at a hospital in the western Japanese city of Osaka, making some of his last comments before he died earlier this year.

"My captain combat-surgeon often showed us human intestines, and said this was the liver and that was that and so on," he said. "He did that to train us. The captain said that if he died, we would have to take up a scalpel to conduct the operations instead of him."

Makino, a low-ranked medic deployed to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao during the final years of the second world war, began making his statements on Japanese war atrocities in public last year. He was regarded as the first former Japanese soldier to have been stationed in the Philippines to speak of vivisections on hostages. The remarks caused outrage amid simmering friction between Japan and the countries it invaded over its wartime history. Nationalist internet sites launched a campaign branding Makino a liar.

But Makino said what he experienced was not systematic atrocity, but rather a glimpse of soldiers' desperation during the disorganised, last-ditch struggle of a nation on the verge of defeat.

It was one year before Japan's surrender when Makino landed on Mindanao in August 1944. He was assigned as a medic in the 33rd coast guard squad of about 20 soldiers who were in charge of detecting enemy aircraft. His squad joined a landing force of 1,500 troops on the Yamato, once the world's largest battleship, which US bombers sank later in the war.

"The Yamato was such a huge ship that it could not easily find a suitable port," he said. "So the ship anchored in the middle of Manila Bay and we dispersed to a variety of destinations in the Philippines."

Soon after arriving at the Japanese military base at Zamboanga on the western tip of Mindanao, Makino and his unit were cut off from headquarters,with the situation growing worse by the day. They received no military supplies or orders, let alone medical packages. The main enemy facing the small Japanese squad were the guerilla bands formed by Muslims from the local Moros tribe, who constantly threatened their station, he said.

He said almost all the hostages they captured were Moros. "We were supposed to keep them alive in captivity, but it was no problem if we `disposed' of them, in the beheadings the Japanese have become infamous for."

He remembered at least 50 hostages being killed, "including those who got this", he said, moving his hand to imitate a sword cutting off a head.

The frail old man recalled that many others were kept alive as human guinea pigs for his superior, the combat doctor, who wanted to show young medics like himself how to conduct surgical operations.

"We first anaesthetised them - we usually used injections or oxygen gas," he said. "Then they passed out in a few seconds."

The doctor would tell him to watch as he sliced open a hostage's stomach, a scene that Makino said made him so ill he couldn't eat or drink for days afterwards.

But Makino said he eventually became accustomed to what he had to do. "I was desperate," he said. "I didn't want to do anything like that if possible. But I had to follow the orders of my superior as a military man, otherwise I'd have been beaten up."

He could not put a definitive number on how many of the 50 people the unit killed were vivisected or how many of the operations he took part in. He did say he could never forget and felt profound guilt over the way the bodies were handled.

The Japanese made Moros dig holes in the ground, he said, and then they hurled in the bodies with their stomachs still open. "The mud got in all over the human stomach. My captain said there was no need to close the wounds because that would just be a waste of suture thread."

Makino's confession revived memories of imperial Japan's "mad scientist" Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, who led the infamous Unit 731 in northeastern China, where the Japanese made their colonial base of Manchukuo and conducted germ warfare tests on prisoners.

Ishii is believed to have attempted the mass production of biological weapons by testing deadly germs such as anthrax, dysentery and cholera on prisoners of war, mainly Chinese, and dropping plague-carrying fleas and rats on their villages.

But Makino said his unit in the Philippines did not have any organised plan and that it did not test plague germs. "It was a one-off thing. We didn't take data or anything."

Another veteran, one of only a handful surviving from the Philippine battlefield, said the final days of the war were so desperate they did whatever they thought necessary just to survive.

Yoshihiko Terashima, 86, a former naval chief commander, said he did not commit any living-body experiments himself but said: "That could have easily happened."

In a separate interview he said: "It must have been natural for military doctors to come up with the idea of using whatever they had for try-outs in such destitute situations."

Mr Terashima contrasted the situation in the Philippines with that in northeastern China, then known as Manchuria.

"There [in Manchuria] Japan was winning the war. During the time of Makino [in the Philippines] we were losing it [the war]."

The Americans landed on the main Philippine island of Luzon in January 1945 and within six months declared victory. An estimated 218,000 Japanese were killed in the battles on Luzon alone. Like many Japanese soldiers, Makino and Mr Terashima fled into the jungles.

At his home in a Tokyo suburb, with cabinets full of war documents and a rolled-up map of the world lying on the floor, Mr Terashima recalled the destitute conditions he faced while fleeing from US attacks.

"When you [are] holed up in a cave at night, you see huge rats crawling up on the faces of dead bodies, eating the eyeballs," Mr Terashima said. "So we took an iron helmet to catch them and ate them."

In later years, both men repeatedly returned, separately, to their former battlefields to collect the remains of Japanese soldiers. Makino made the trip more than 10 times over the years, taking everyday supplies such as rice, pencils and clothes to needy residents of Mindanao. "I've done it out of a quest for redemption," he said.

Makino said the past haunted him for years, so much so that he hesitated to marry. It took him 10 years before he married a friend's sister, but said he could not talk to her, or anybody, about the surgical killings committed by his unit.

"It was cruel, too cruel to talk about it to a woman. My wife might have thought I was such a cruel person. That's what was in my mind. While she was with me, I just didn't want her to know about it," said Makino, who kept a monochrome photo of her on his bedside at the hospital before he died in May.

Makino said his wife's death more than three years earlier freed him to talk publicly about the experiences that haunted him.

"You have to talk when you know you have done something [you feel] guilty [about]. We lost the war because we deserved it," Makino said with bitterness. "We didn't have enough soldiers, enough arms nor enough bullets."

Agence France-Presse


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Healthier lifestyles a matter of life and death


LEADER

Nov 02, 2007           
     
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The finding by an authoritative study that obesity substantially increases the risk of developing cancers certainly gives us much to think about. We knew that fast food, a sedentary lifestyle and poor nutrition would lead to a bulging waistline and, consequently, health problems, but not that the dangers were so great.

These are findings that cannot be taken lightly. The recommendation that we eat more fruit and vegetables and less red meat while getting regular exercise is sound advice.

There is nothing new in this message. Health authorities, doctors and teachers have been trying to convince us for some time that we need to live healthier.

Statistics do not show that we are paying attention. One study last year found that 41 per cent of Hong Kong people were overweight or obese, up 3 per cent on 2004; another determined that four in every 10 sported a waistline that exceeded recommended standards.

Hong Kong is not alone in this problem. Long office hours, computers, television and fast food are among the reasons that people the world over are getting fatter.

The implications for public health systems are enormous. Being overweight or obese means greater susceptibility to disease - and, as the latest and most comprehensive study yet done also reveals, cancers.

Families are particularly vulnerable. Parents have to deal with their obese child's medical treatment, while a child may have to cope with the early death of a mother or father due to chronic disease.

Changing habits to slim down citizens will take time, but with strong government leadership, it can be achieved. Smoking in public places is increasingly frowned upon thanks to a concerted campaign spearheaded by a ban on the practice in restaurants, for example.

Government schemes are already under way to engender healthier eating choices at school and in restaurants. Bolder initiatives and more imaginative programmes are necessary, though.

The latest obesity study plainly shows why urgent action is needed. Put bluntly, it is a matter of life and death.


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Narrow focus


KITTY POON

Nov 05, 2007           
     
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Despite its popularity among viewers around the world and its success at the Venice Film Festival, Ang Lee's spy thriller Lust, Caution has suffered two setbacks. First, it was rejected by organisers of the Oscars as Taiwan's entry for best foreign film because it did not have enough Taiwanese working on the movie. Then it was rejected by the Hong Kong Film Awards - for having too few Hongkongers.

Lee's misfortune tells a story. It suggests that film directors, movie stars and corporations investing in filmmaking have long surpassed national boundaries, while bureaucrats around the world still hopelessly operate within narrowly defined localities. Lee's setback merely exemplifies the clash between the increasingly globalised entertainment industry and outdated government bureaus and film associations operating under old rules.

The international aspect of the film was at the crux of Lee's problem: it is a joint venture between two United States and two Taiwanese film companies.

Adding to the identity issue, the film stars Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai and mainland actress Tang Wei . Other supporting roles are performed by actors from Taiwan, the mainland, Hong Kong and the US. Lee himself is from Taiwan but spends the bulk of his time in the US. The scriptwriter is Taiwanese, the music composer French and the cinematographer Mexican.

The unfortunate Lee is a pawn in the hands of film associations which continue to seek protection behind regional boundaries.

The internationalisation of the film industry is a rapidly developing and increasingly irreversible trend. Brothers is a recent release featuring mostly Hong Kong actors, but it also enlists the support of Wang Zhiwen, a renowned mainland artist. Another upcoming showing, The Sun Also Rises, was financed by Hong Kong's Emperor Motion Pictures and stars Joan Chen, an American-Chinese, Zhou Yun and Kong Wei, both mainland actresses, along with award-winning Hong Kong actor Anthony Wong Chau-sang. The film was directed by Jiang Wen, an actor-turned-director, also from the mainland.

The globalisation of film production is not difficult to understand. Joint ventures allow the coalition of cash-flush investors with the most talented artists. Such projects not only help maximise profits, they also help the actors showcase their talents in different markets. Consumers welcome such developments as it gives them the chance to enjoy performances of the best artists from around the world.

But such projects create problems for bureaucrats. The Sun Also Rises was one of Hong Kong's candidates for its entry in the best foreign film category at the 2007 Oscars. But it eventually lost out to the gangster thriller Exiled, reportedly in view of its cosmopolitan identity. The mainland has entered The Knot, a wartime romance, in the best foreign film category after considering several possibilities. Yet The Knot was made with Taiwanese money, and stars Taiwanese artists such as Vivian Hsu and Han Chin alongside mainland artists.

It is obvious that the bureaucrats and managers of film associations lag far behind in the new direction being taken by the movie industry. They must find new strategies or face being sidelined by the turn of events. Yet, the mainland's film association seems to have grasped this fact and has relaxed its rules to accommodate this irreversible development in the industry.

This year, veteran Hong Kong actress Carina Lau Kar-ling took home the award for best actress at the mainland's Golden Rooster Awards. However, the inward-looking mentality has not gone yet. Lau had to share the award with mainland actress Yan Bingyan - proof, if it is needed, that provincialism continues to stand in the way of a globalising entertainment industry.

Kitty Poon, an assistant professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is a part-time member of the government's Central Policy Unit

kittypoon@netvigator.com


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