Wednesday, February 21, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
No stability in Thailand without the rule of law



   
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   The wave of bombings across southern Thailand's predominantly Muslim provinces shows that the military government's peace efforts are as flawed as those of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Only when the emergency powers held by security forces are removed and a legitimate, civilian government with a concern for the rights of all Thais, no matter what their religion, is in place will there be a chance for stability.

  
Such a possibility existed before Thaksin took power and adopted strong-arm tactics to try to wear down the resolve of separatists in the south. The response was an insurgency in early 2004, leading the government to adopt even tougher military, police and security force tactics and culminating in the order of rule by emergency decree in July 2005.

Enacting the perceived military solution was then southern army commander Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, a Muslim who last year led the coup against Thaksin. Despite promises to broker a peace deal, it is hardly surprising that the policies of the previous administration remain unchanged; a military government's solution to a problem is, after all, likely to be of a military nature.

Emergency rule has led to an increase in insurgency violence and widespread abuses by the military and police. The true extent of those violations is unclear because of the pervasive fear that has spread among Muslim communities. Thaksin was not interested in talking peace with the insurgents and the junta has adopted the same approach. The findings and recommendations of a national reconciliation commission set up in 2005 and headed by respected former prime minister Anand Panyarachun have been ignored.

It identified the main problems as the emergency regulations, a lack of justice for victims of human rights abuses and administrative excesses by authorities. Among the recommendations were relaxing military control, revamping the judicial system and the setting up of a peace corps made up of all involved parties, to administer balanced security. Despite the comprehensive work and the credentials of those involved, nothing has come of the exercise.

Military-appointed Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont revealed his lack of understanding of the situation last month when he praised the Philippines for having the model for his country to follow, through its deals struck with Muslim separatists on the southern island of Mindanao. With violence including bombings and kidnappings frequent in Mindanao, it is clear that the Philippines still has a long way to go before peace reigns on the island.

Such will also be the case in southern Thailand so long as the military junta rules the country with impunity and regards enforcing its will on the nation's Muslim minority as the only solution.





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Thursday, February 22, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Explanation needed on UK troop withdrawal



  
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   British Prime Minister Tony Blair's announcement that many of his country's troops will soon leave Iraq sends a mixed signal to Iraqis at a time when they need committed foreign help. With sectarian violence showing no sign of letting up, there is a need for coalition troops to continue providing security while preparing Iraqi forces for taking on this onerous task.

  
US President George W. Bush, who has ordered 21,000 extra troops into the Baghdad area, has shown his continued commitment to getting the job done. He is battling political and opinion poll opposition, but knows that it would be wrong to pull out of Iraq prematurely. But questions can be raised about Mr Blair's commitment, given his decision to reduce significantly the number of British troops serving in Iraq. This comes only months before he is expected to step down as prime minister. It smacks of opportunism - an attempt to appease domestic opposition to British involvement in Iraq before he hands over power. More benignly, perhaps, it might be an attempt to smooth the way for his successor.




The move has, understandably, raised suspicions that there might be a split in the coalition. There is no evidence of this in the statements from Mr Bush or Mr Blair. They have spoken of the success of their partnership in Iraq and of a confidence that peace and democracy will flourish and prosper. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, another steadfast member of the alliance, vowed yesterday that under no circumstances would his nation prematurely withdraw the 550 combat troops and 850 other military personnel he has committed to Iraq. US Vice-President Dick Cheney, visiting Japan before moving on to Australia, praised the strength of the Iraq alliance. As part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's forces in Afghanistan, Britain remains committed there militarily, along with the United States.

There is no need to question the British leader's assertion that, with time, there is increasingly less need for his country's soldiers to remain engaged in the three southern Iraqi provinces centred on Basra. The region has experienced far less activity from insurgents than Baghdad and Anbar province, where the extra American troops are being sent, and Mr Blair can rightly claim his nation's mission has, in that sense, been a success.

Proving that point, Britain on Tuesday put Iraqis in command of the main Iraqi army unit in Basra, a landmark move towards the goal of national security independence. That responsibility will increase as the British troops withdraw. This has long been the stated objective of the coalition: to train the army, police and security forces and gradually put them in charge of providing stability so foreign troops can return home. Doing so has not been straightforward, however, with the bloody rivalry between the religiously and politically dominant Shiite Muslims and the former ruling Sunni Muslims, coupled with attacks by foreign terrorists, severely hampering the process.

Circumstances around Basra have made bucking the trend possible, leading to the freeing up of British soldiers. But there is still a long way to go for Iraq as a whole. Consider the facts: the dozens of deaths in suicide bombings and gun attacks each day across Iraq; the 3.8 million people displaced from their homes, more than 2 million of them to neighbouring countries and elsewhere; the one-third of the 26 million Iraqis who live in poverty; the failed efforts to restore damaged infrastructure, most importantly electricity, sewerage and water; and the inability to adequately restore the nation's most precious lifeline for development, oil.

As allied troops poured into Iraq in March 2003 to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein, Mr Blair was firmly beside Mr Bush in his commitment to rebuilding the country. The British leader owes his nation a better explanation of his thinking. To simply declare victory and pull out when Iraq is in such trouble would dishonour the men and women who have fought and died there.



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Friday, February 23, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Population changes a challenge for planners



  
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   The latest by-census figures show that Hong Kong has reached a crucial stage in its development, with a rapidly ageing population, marginal increase in the number of births, falling median household income and fewer people from developed economies coming here to work. There can be no better signal for the government to rethink its policies accordingly. The priority must be to ensure that our city remains an attractive place in which to live and do business.
Many of the problems highlighted by the 2006 population by-census are ones that we already know about. We have long been aware that the median age of the population is rising. Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen has expressed concern about our persistent low birth rate. And concerns about the wealth gap have been widely debated. What is unnerving is that despite this knowledge, there is little evidence that plans to help our city cope with such challenges are being formulated or implemented with any degree of urgency.

  
With an increasing number of older people, health care is an increasingly important issue. Yet the process for reforming our increasingly outdated health-care system has long been delayed. This is despite a decade of high-level recommendations, starting with the 1997 Harvard Report. The government is working on plans for change. But a consultation on the crucial question of how health care should be financed was recently postponed. Sustainable development is another issue that authorities have long been discussing. But despite the topic being raised in 1999, by then chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, who set the ball rolling by setting up the Sustainable Development Council, a series of consultation processes and reports have, as yet, not led to much action.

Yet the statistics released yesterday clearly define and detail the reasons why the government should be acting decisively rather than dragging its feet on such important matters.

Our population growth, now mainly due to new arrivals from the mainland, has been slowing. Official estimates had anticipated an average annual growth rate of 1 per cent. Plans for infrastructure and other developments have been based on these projections. But the by-census shows that over the past five years the annual average growth rate has been only 0.4 per cent. Our birth rate, among the lowest in the world, is partly to blame; but there is also the matter of fewer than expected mainland people wanting to take up residence here and a declining interest from those in western countries in taking up jobs.

These facts should come as no shock, given that cities such as Hong Kong that are financial and services centres make it attractive for women to delay having families for the sake of careers, plus our relatively high cost of living, air pollution and cramped living conditions. No wonder our population and its composition is changing.

Of as much concern to the government should be the ageing population, with the median age rising from 34 a decade ago to 36 in 2001 and 39 at the by-census. The trend is not substantially different than that for developed regions the world over, but whereas other governments are working towards solutions, Hong Kong is lagging behind. How the medical costs of so many more older people among our population should be dealt with is one issue that should not be left unresolved any longer. But the government appears nonplussed.

Hong Kong has reached a point where the population figure has levelled out. Without the need for development projects to cater for substantial growth, making our city more liveable and attractive has to be the government's priority. There are obviously difficulties ahead, as the latest by-census figures show. But there is no reason why creative solutions cannot be found.


What is now needed is for our leaders to recognise the urgency of determining the way forward - and putting plans into action.




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Monday, February 26, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
China, Russia must allay fears over warming ties



   
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   China's burgeoning relationship with Russia is based on economic, energy and military considerations, but there is also a geopolitical dimension that is troubling for some nations, the US among them. Beijing needs to take this into consideration when furthering its co-operation so as not to cause undue tensions.
Ties between China and Russia have led to friction with Washington several times in recent months. As the sides grow closer, the possibility of greater suspicion, and as a result the opportunity for misunderstanding, will increase.

  
No government would want a reoccurrence of the cold war, when rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union and their allies took the world to the brink of nuclear conflict. For this reason, openness and careful evaluation of decisions has to be foremost as China and Russia continue to build their partnership. The matter is not only one for Beijing and Moscow; Washington's actions in its "war on terrorism" have fuelled concern and US President George W. Bush has to be just as judicious about his future foreign policy decisions.

Of most worry is Iran, a key partner of China and Russia, which is engaged in a war of rhetoric with the US. Nowhere is there a greater need for a cooling of heels. Accused by the Bush administration of trying to develop nuclear weapons, supporting insurgents in Iraq and funding anti-Israel extremists in the Middle East, Tehran has been the subject of UN sanctions and repeated western calls for compliance with international treaties. China and Russia have been less enthusiastic about acting against an ally, using the threat of exercising their UN Security Council veto powers to have punitive measures watered down.

Given that Iran has ignored the sanctions and International Atomic Energy Agency demands over its nuclear programme, Beijing and Moscow leave themselves open to allegations of putting self interest ahead of global good. The same could be said over their joining forces last month to veto a US-drafted Security Council resolution that would have demanded Myanmar's military regime end political and human rights repression. China is Myanmar's staunchest ally.

President Hu Jintao met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, three times last year - more than any other foreign leader - and will hold more talks during Russia's Year of China, which begins today. Premier Wen Jiabao will also go to Moscow. Arms sales will continue growing, as will co-operation on military, space and technology matters.

There is nothing wrong with neighbours, especially ones as large and important as China and Russia, having such relations. To allay concerns from the US and its allies, though, they should consider the implications of their decisions so as to make sure the world is not taken down the path towards another cold war.



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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

ARMS SPENDING
Reining in American foreign policy


DOUG BANDOW
   
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   The Iraq war continues to consume lives, both American and Iraqi. The conflict is also burning mountains of cash. The Bush administration this month proposed a complex US$715-billion defence spending package, including US$481 billion for standard Pentagon operations and US$142 billion for the Iraq war next year.
So far, Iraq and Afghanistan have cost an estimated US$661 billion. By the time US forces finally go home, Americans will be US$1 trillion or more out of pocket. But Iraq is only part of a larger problem: the US spends so much on the military because of Washington's policy of promiscuous foreign intervention.

  
Indeed, America's military budget must be seen as the price of America's foreign policy. The more Washington policymakers desire to do around the globe, the more American taxpayers will have to pay. America is engaged in cold war spending without a cold war. The high price of global intervention is most obvious when comparing American expenditure with that of other nations. The International Institute for Strategic Studies calculated 2005 world military outlays at US$1.2 trillion. America accounted for US$495.3 billion, or 41 per cent.

American expenditure is roughly twice that of the rest of Nato, 4.5 times that of China and 8.5 times that of Russia. Washington spends as much as the next 20 countries combined, most of which are allies and friends. Indeed, the US devotes almost three times as much to the military as do all its potential adversaries combined: China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Myanmar, Venezuela and a handful of others.

America is not alone, however. Toss in Nato, non-Nato but friendly European countries, America's Asian allies and Israel, and the "free-world coalition" comes in at US$873.8 billion, or 72 per cent of global spending. Most of the rest aren't hostile, of course, simply not fully allied.

In short, America's military spending is vastly disproportionate to the threats it faces. The US continues to deploy hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe, which faces no military threats; Japan, which could defend its own interests; and South Korea, which vastly outranges its northern antagonist. Without an over- arching global threat, the security of such allies is no longer vital to the security of America.

The US could spend far less while remaining the most powerful single nation, able to play the role of an "offshore balancer" dedicated to ensuring that no hegemonic power dominates Eurasia. Real threats to the US primarily involve terrorism and nuclear proliferation. However, these dangers are not easily met with carrier groups, armoured divisions and vast military spending.

It's time to transform US foreign policy. Most pressing is the task of getting out of Iraq, sooner rather than later. But it is also time to focus on protecting the homeland, withdrawing America's outdated garrisons strung across the globe.

The US would be far more secure if it returned to a more traditional foreign policy, treating most international events with benign detachment.

Then its defence budget would be genuinely devoted to the country's defence. And it would cost Americans far less.

Doug Bandow is a former special assistant to president Ronald Reagan.



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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Plight of Afghanistan cannot be ignored



   
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   Whether US Vice-President Dick Cheney was the target of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan yesterday is a moot point given that there seems little likelihood that he could have been harmed in light of the top-level security around him. That was not the case for those killed, of course, or for the vast majority of Afghans who have increasingly become vulnerable to such attacks in the past year.
The reality is that Afghanistan, promised a new beginning when the Taleban regime was overthrown by US-led troops a little over five years ago, is no closer to the promised peace and security. Such is sadly also the case for Iraq.

  
There is a major difference, though; the talk among American leaders centres on Iraq, where there are more than 130,000 American soldiers and a further 21,000 gradually being deployed under plans announced last month by President George W. Bush. Afghanistan, a nation bigger in area and population, hosts 27,000 US soldiers among the 34,000 foreign troops under the transatlantic security alliance Nato based there.

Yet, as the attack near the air base where Mr Cheney was staying showed, the scale of violence can be as severe in Afghanistan as Iraq. Over the past year, the number of suicide bombings in Afghanistan has risen fivefold. The Taleban has made significant gains in winning back territory it lost and reimposing its extremist Islamist views on the population.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has voiced his concern time and again that the world is not watching his country as closely as it should be to usher in the peace it promised. The billions of dollars in aid promised at donors' meetings have trickled in. Some of the hospitals, schools and roads that have been built have been destroyed by the Taleban.

The US has not taken its eye from the country. Mr Bush made a surprise visit there last March and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there three months later. Mr Cheney's trip further cemented the US' involvement.

As high-profile as the visits are, though, they lack the substance of a genuine commitment to bringing stability to Afghanistan so that infrastructure can be put in place and reconstruction begin in earnest. Without security, there will be no investment, essential if the nation is to move forward. That will only come about with a sizeable increase in foreign troop numbers. This has been realised by Britain, which has announced an increase in troop presence. The US and other Nato nations would do well to follow suit.

Iraq is the focus of international interest, but the plight of Afghans is as great. Efforts must be taken to correct the imbalance.

Mr Cheney's ordeal may have unwittingly gone some way to achieving this. The increased awareness of Afghanistan's problems that has resulted must continue.





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Thursday, March 1, 2007

OBSERVER
A free media and China's economy


TOM PLATE
   
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   The irrepressible Mahathir Mohamad, while Malaysia's long-reigning prime minister, once muttered something to the effect that people do not have the right to know everything, and that it won't kill them if they don't. This cavalier attitude towards freedom of information - a principle so revered in the west - is not unknown elsewhere in Asia, as well.
But Dr Mahathir was no dope. As the information technology revolution unfolded in front of our eyes, he became one of the first of Asia's leaders to recognise the importance of timely economic and political information in the context of the country's development.

  
The problem for Asia's leaders - who pined for continued economic growth - was thus how best to square the need for information with the desire to maintain governmental control of it. These days, that problem seems increasingly dramatic in mainland China - with its system of surveillance that overhangs everything like an oppressive rainforest.

In recent university and media appearances, I have been struck by how worried many people are about mainland China. Goodwill and high hopes for the world's most populous state are evident almost everywhere. But, increasingly, doubts are raised about the wisdom of Beijing's public-information policies. People wonder how China can possibly move forwards if its media policies are heading backwards.

A lively group of students and professors at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University assembled recently to discuss contemporary media issues. The range of students' interests was sweeping, but one question from a mainland student was especially striking. She wondered how one could be hopeful about the mainland if its media policies are not evolving in step with its economic and global ambitions.

Beijing's media policies do seem to be undergoing a back-to-the future directional change. "A few years ago, it was possible to talk about a combination of liberalisation and censorship in the Chinese media industry," wrote University of California PhD candidate James Paradise, in a review of a new volume of the authoritative mainland tome China's Media and Entertainment Law. "Now the story is more about censorship and a variety of other restrictions as the Chinese government seeks to reassert control after a period of rapid change."

The book is a collection of essays, some by Beijing officials, and it notes: "In mid-2005, the PRC government suddenly tightened the reins on China's media sectors, slowing and in some ways reversing its recent liberalisation of the television industry. [These changes] coincided with the turnover of top Sarft [State Administration of Radio, Film and Television] officials."

Beijing appears unembarrassed about an official change of direction that might bring back some of the distressful features of the bad old days of Mao Zedong . The mainland student's anguish was more than academic. Economic development in other parts of Asia gave rise to an increasingly monied and assertive middle class.

From Seoul to Taipei, that profound sociological development forced governments to lighten media control. The result was to spawn, with dizzying rapidity, near-modern economies that were suddenly wildly competitive globally.

Hong Kong, with as vigorous a media environment as anyone, sits proudly atop Asia's list of leaders in per-person income. Behind it are media-lively South Korea and Taiwan.

To be sure, Singapore tops them both, and sports a media system that can only be described as unique (controlled but high-quality).

As for the mainland, the question is whether a restrictive media policy will permit its per-person income to rise to the level of South Korea or push it in the other direction.

It may not be too western-centric to suggest that, by reducing media freedoms, China's leaders may be putting at risk its long-term chances of economic success. That, in any event, is the question that has so many people in Asia worried.

Tom Plate is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. Distributed by the UCLA Media Centre




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Amid all the extreme right-wing talk in Japan playing down or denying war-time atrocities, it is easy to forget that there are other voices. They may not be as vocal or have as powerful backers, but they are there, trying to chip away at the false rhetoric being spun.
As the report on our Behind the News section today shows, such opposing views are struggling to be heard. Nationalists in the government hold sway. Their anti-China stance will make efforts to mend ties between the countries an uphill task, unless the flaws in their arguments can be revealed to as wide a Japanese audience as possible.

  
In such circumstances, the work of organisations like the Chukiren Peace Memorial Museum have to be applauded. By standing up to those trying to play down or rewrite the history of Japan's aggression against Asians by presenting the facts conservatives do not want to hear or see, they are providing a great service to their country. Japan has nothing to gain, after all, by infuriating China through a refusal by its leaders to acknowledge atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers during the first half of last century. Through stability, the two nations can prosper together; at loggerheads, Japan will lose economically. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would appear to have shed his conservative outlook in trying to improve relations. His meeting in Tokyo with Premier Wen Jiabao next month will build on the steps already taken. With concerted effort, the sides will be able to put in place measures to substantially repair the damage done by Mr Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.

Mr Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are remembered along with Japan's war dead, outraged China, Korea and other nations occupied by Japanese troops. School textbooks whitewashing Japan's war-time atrocities, the massacre of up to 300,000 people during the Nanking Massacre among them, have further fuelled the anger. A refusal by leaders to fully apologise has hardened the resolve.

As yet, Mr Abe has not said whether he intends to follow Mr Koizumi's lead on the shrine, although there are worrying signs: a government spokesman hinted on Wednesday that he may. He visited there before becoming prime minister and was among lawmakers who backed a school textbook referring to the Nanking Massacre as an "incident". As today's report reveals, legislators are also giving financial support to a film trying to prove that such war crimes never occurred.

The bravery of those trying to present the truth is laudable. They are few in number and countering influential people.

Resolving the differences between China and Japan will not happen at one meeting between their leaders. Until Mr Abe and those around him appreciate what is keeping the sides apart and make amends, the prospect of a new beginning will be limited.


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Monday, March 5, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Transparency will help keep the peace



  
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   Whenever military matters are raised by China, the rest of the world looks on with concern. This is, after all, a rapidly rising nation economically and politically, and an equally fast military rise would dramatically shift the global balance of power.
Beijing's unveiling of its defence budget for this year will not allay those fears: an increase of 17.8 per cent to 350.9 billion yuan catapults the nation into second spot in the spending stakes behind the United States.

  

The US is, of course, far ahead, with a defence budget almost nine times larger, even excluding spending on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Washington and its allies Japan and South Korea are ever-mindful of the mainland's military intentions and all developments are eyed with suspicion.

There is good reason for such mistrust: while Beijing repeatedly stresses that its intentions are peaceful and its military is solely for defence, it is far from transparent when it comes to revealing how its defence budget is allocated. Nor would defence appear to be Beijing's only objective when a large proportion of its most powerful military equipment - missiles chief among them - are aimed at Taiwan and in the direction of Japan.

There is no better proof of the need for the mainland to be open about its military programme than its destruction of an old weather satellite with a medium-range ballistic missile on January 11.

Amid alarm about the first such test in 20 years Beijing remained silent for 12 days until international pressure forced it to admit to the exercise. This was a carbon copy of the way the central government dealt with its missile and nuclear tests in the past. But those were the days when China had fewer financial resources and could not afford the double-digit budget increases that have for the past few years been given to the People's Liberation Army.

With the financial resources to modernise its outdated military equipment, China is losing no time in getting its defence house in order. Deals have been struck with Russia to get new aircraft, tanks and guns, and soldiers will be given pay rises.

Exactly what is being spent or acquired is shrouded in secrecy, however. While the US and other developed nations give highly detailed breakdowns of their defence budgets - the minutiae of which is publicly thrashed out by lawmakers - China gives scant figures beyond its overall spending. Even that is in doubt, with western critics saying the numbers are underestimated by two or three times.

The release of a defence white paper in December showed that Beijing is slowly changing its ways. Greater insight was given into how the military operates and where spending is allocated. Nonetheless, what was presented fell far short of what is revealed by western nations.

Being open is essential in the 21st century. Secrecy breeds mistrust and leads to miscalculations. Wars almost invariably start as a result of miscalculations. Beijing certainly does not want a war and is quick to point out that its foremost objective is peace. But it must also be remembered that Taiwan's unification with the mainland is a priority and that any attempt by the island's leaders to declare sovereignty will, Beijing vows, result in conflict.

The central government has been quite clear on this position - although exactly what military capabilities it would be able to devote to such a cause remains unclear. The number of missiles aimed across the Taiwan Strait is only guessed at by foreign observers.

The more China's military spending is hidden from scrutiny, the more mistrust and misunderstanding is created with the US and its allies. While such a situation continues, there will be no peace, only the danger of an arms race and insecurity. On military matters, it is therefore essential that the central government strives for transparency.



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Tuesday, March 6, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
A pragmatic blueprint for democracy



  
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   The proposals for democratic reform put forward by Anson Chan Fang On-sang's think-tank yesterday are both principled and pragmatic. For that reason they will not find favour with people at either end of the political spectrum. But the blueprint, which includes a timetable for introducing universal suffrage, deserves serious consideration. It is a genuine attempt to come up with a formula that has a realistic chance of receiving mainstream approval.
Some democrats will, understandably, be unhappy with the group's reluctant acceptance that direct elections for all Legislative Council seats may not be possible until 2016. This seems too long to wait. Members of the business community may, on the other hand, feel uncomfortable with the suggestion that the existing corporate voting system be scrapped next year as a transitional step towards abolishing functional constituencies altogether. This, after all, will threaten the privileged position enjoyed by some influential members of our community.

  
But those on each side of the debate must understand that some compromises will be necessary as the process continues. Hong Kong has a constitutional duty to make progress towards universal suffrage and that is what the majority of people want. It is inevitable there will be different opinions on how to proceed. These can no longer be used as an excuse for making no progress at all.

Mrs Chan's group cannot be faulted for the principles it adopts when searching for a way forward. The aim must be universal and equal suffrage. Hong Kong needs a system that - whatever form it takes - expresses the will of the community. Elections should be open, transparent and fair. They must lead to a government that is genuinely representative.

The group has, at the same time, been careful to ensure its suggestions fall squarely within the terms of the Basic Law and, where the 2008 poll is concerned, Beijing's ruling three years ago. It has sensibly avoided any proposals that would require constitutional amendments.

None of this is particularly controversial. But the means of achieving universal suffrage and, especially, the time frame are matters of contention. The group has, therefore, adopted a pragmatic approach. It suggests keeping the functional constituencies in 2008 - and maybe 2012 - but reforming them. The idea is to scrap voting by corporations, a system that is outdated, open to abuse and incompatible with any credible definition of democracy. The size of the functional constituencies would be increased and they would be reduced in number. This is an improvement on the current system but - at least in the form the group suggests - it is far from ideal and only worth discussing as a transitional step.

Mrs Chan's group would prefer to see direct elections for all seats in Legco in 2012. Certainly, all sides should see that as the target date for universal suffrage. But the fallback position, which defers such a step until 2016, is perhaps necessary as it ensures a timetable remains in place even if agreement cannot be reached on the earlier date.

The chief executive election proposals are more straightforward, involving a vote on the basis of universal suffrage beginning in 2012. The group rightly envisages a nominating committee to put forward candidates, as required by the Basic Law. This should be a truly representative body. Much will depend on how it is elected. The number of nominations required to stand should not be set too high.

Hong Kong has been waiting a very long time for a fully democratic system. It is sobering to recall, on reading the group's report, that the process began more than 20 years ago and that little progress has been made since the handover.

The pro-democracy camp put forward its proposals last week. Now there is another model to consider. The government should produce its own proposals as soon as possible. If a consensus can be reached in Hong Kong, it will be easier to persuade Beijing that it has nothing to fear from allowing Hong Kong to realise the Basic Law's promise of universal suffrage.



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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

INDIA'S CIVIL SERVICE
Where bureaucrats prefer to stick to the old ways


KEVIN RAFFERTY
   
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"Welcome to India's first fully computerised post office", say the signs at the Parliament Street head post office in New Delhi. Sure enough, there are clerks with their heads bent over computers in the back office; and computers are in reach of most of the counters dealing with such things as money orders, postal savings, provident fund, insurance and Speed Post.
The place is also much less chaotic than it used to be in the old days, when Parliament Street had more than 300 counters - each with its own rugby scrum of customers, and don't you dare stray into another scrum or you'll be sent to the back of the pack.

But there is still one thing that the Indian liberalising economists and politicians have failed to do - computerise the brains of the clerks, let alone dare to endow them with some capacity for thought.

Stamps, for example, are still necessary for sending letters, and stamps go back in India to 1852. But if you want stamps at Parliament Street, there are no machines or computers to dispense them. You have to apply to a person, and the person sometimes seems on his or her own planet.

There was no queue, but the two men on duty at the stamp counter were quite preoccupied with their own chitchat for five minutes until disturbed by a colleague. I presume he was a colleague because he reached over the counter and lodged his motorcycle helmet somewhere underneath while chatting to the two clerks on duty.

Then he disappeared behind an opaque glass screen, probably to do some more chatting before actually reporting for duty.

Finally, the clerks issuing stamps finished with their urgent personal matters and had time to spare for the customer. "I would like some stamps for sending postcards abroad: 10, please," I said. He took out some very humdrum-looking four- rupee stamps of a painted stork, and told me to attach two to each card.

I asked if he had any more interesting varieties, but he said no, that was the philatelic department - and he waved me vaguely somewhere round the corner.

I stuck the stamps on the cards and handed them over to the clerk who had sold them, hoping he would frank them. Franking had to be done elsewhere, he explained, pointing me to another counter.

There was no one on that counter, so I set off in search of the philately section - which turned out to be right next to the man who had sold me the stamps, with not even a flimsy partition between them.

But no one was there, and no sign said that this was the philately counter; or that the officer on duty was out to lunch, visiting the bathroom or on holiday - as post offices in any other country might inform you, out of courtesy.

After another 10 minutes of flitting between the empty franking counter and the empty philately counter, I saw a woman return to the latter. She proceeded to take an age to store her purse, pull her stamps out of a drawer and open another drawer to count her money. She looked quite cross when I had the temerity to ask if  she had the newly issued rose stamps for Valentine's Day.

Instead, she presented me with a stamp of a carved elephant, emitting a heady smell of sandalwood. Only when I had bought it did she bring out the rose stamps, with their overpowering scent of roses. Two weeks later, the fragrance is still stunning, and has a calming effect.

I went back to the franking counter and the young man there duly franked the cards and handed them back to me. "No", I said, "please process them." He replied: "But I don't work here."

Spending a few extra minutes in the post office smelling the roses is hardly a hardship at all, but it is worrying in other places that the babus, or clerks, in charge continue in their own stubborn way.

Earlier in the day I went with an old Indian friend to the Home Ministry to try to discuss a visa issue. My friend has some influence, so we bypassed the initial queue where people take a number and wait for an hour or so to get a chance to explain the problem.

He talked to a mid-ranking official, who said that the matter was best discussed with a senior official - adding with pride that it was better to set aside a whole day for the wait. My friend was disgusted by that attitude, which essentially declared that "we are in charge and take pride in making you wait".

So he went, unannounced, to the house of the vice-president of India, an elected official, not an unelected babu, who kept him waiting for all of 15 minutes before they spent 45 minutes in discussions.

At the airport leaving India, it took 50 minutes to negotiate a security queue that Hong Kong airport would have disposed of in five minutes. The reason soon became clear - not one, but two khaki-uniformed security staff were checking bags. They were stopping the scanning machines for up to five minutes at a time to do the searches, plus time off for their own chitchat.

The person in front of me had her bag opened "because you have liquid in it" - which turned out to be a packet of tea. I had my bag opened "because you have metal in it" - yes, a camera. I groaned at why it took so long. "We have to make sure that everything is secure," the security detail said. "I would feel more secure if you were not so insecure," I replied.

India's economic take-off has brought impressive changes, but they would be more impressive still if the people running the mid-level bureaucracy could be reprogrammed to think - or at least to serve the customers - instead of stubbornly following their own, old rule book.

Kevin Rafferty is a political commentator.




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Perhaps in an ideal world, people all across Asia would simply ignore the sad Japanese leader who slides embarrassingly and inelegantly into seemingly pointless denial over the comfort women issue of the second world war. Perhaps in another world that sight would prompt concern about the leader's mental health rather than abject contempt for his soul.
It would arguably be better for the equanimity of all concerned if they could simply accept that, in the largely ageing sector of Japanese society, there remain older people whose stubbornness over the issue of war-time atrocities will follow them to the grave. And further, that youthful Japanese simply and understandably refuse to accept finger-pointing from Asian leaders for something they did not do.

  
Remember that Japan remains, to its honour and credit, a largely pacifist and non-nuclear nation. This is not true of China and it may not be true of North Korea - two of Japan's traditional enemies. Nor is it true of the United States, the one country that has used atomic weapons - dropping them on Japan.

It is in such a context that the declared moral superiority of Korean and Chinese leaders becomes a more clouded issue. If more in Asia were to face up to their own issues of inhumanity, the entire region would become a far better place; and the exercise of lecturing the old, grumpy and hopeless moral holdouts in Japan more pointed and effective.

This observation is as true of China as of anyone, so the world must welcome a recent admission by Premier Wen Jiabao . He openly admitted that not all of his country's problems should be attributed to foreign aggression and imperialism: "Since the founding of our new China, our socialist construction has had great achievements. However, our biggest mistake - especially the Cultural Revolution disaster of 10 years - lost us a great chance to develop."

Government policies killed maybe half a million people during the Cultural Revolution; official neglect and incompetence during the Great Leap Forward took the lives of maybe 30 million. In sheer numbers, these self-inflicted tolls dwarf atrocities like the brutal Rape of Nanking by the Japanese imperial army.

Mr Wen increases his clarity and credibility on these regional issues by displaying candour about his country's own destructive past. By the same logic, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe loses a lot of ground by denying that the Japanese army forcibly drafted countless Asian women into sexual slavery for the enjoyment of its soldiers.

Seoul and Beijing have registered official complaints but, so far, neither has gone notably ballistic over Mr Abe's Hamlet-like retreat from reality. In fact, the less they say, the worse and more isolated Mr Abe looks; the more they say, the more the Japanese people - especially younger ones - doubt their sincerity and dismiss them as politically motivated.

The Japanese public is the only force in Asia with the power to deal decisively with the disappointing Mr Abe, who started so promisingly last autumn by reaching out to Seoul and Beijing. But his stature has shrunk like a fast-ageing lemon ever since.

Their opportunity will come in July, when half the seats in the upper house of Japan's legislature go to the voters. If the governing Liberal Democratic Party loses control of the largely symbolic chamber, the party itself may blame Mr Abe, whose public-opinion ratings have gone limp.

The unfavorable upper house election of 1998 caused the resignation of then prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.

It would be unseemly for an American columnist to profess a winning or losing interest in a foreign election. But if Japan's prime minister is in retreat from international moral responsibility, it is the job of his sovereign masters to remove him.

The Japanese political system needs to offer the world a new prime minister soon. Perhaps the next leader will publicly apologise for the immensely inappropriate and insulting remarks of his predecessor. They only shame a rightly proud and otherwise awesome nation



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While most Hongkongers are enjoying the fun of watching two chief executive election candidates sling mud at each other, I am in Beijing attending the annual meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
One morning this week, I sat in the Great Hall and watched the gathering of about 6,000 people repeatedly applaud during Premier Wen Jiabao's annual report to the State Council. Judging from the overwhelming reaction, I can safely assert that should there be a popular election, both President Hu Jintao and Mr Wen would no doubt enjoy a landslide victory. But, as we all know, there is no universal suffrage on the mainland and very few people are seriously clamouring for it.

  
Most Chinese regard democracy as a means to good governance rather than a basic human right. As long as people are happy minding their own business, they do not much care how their government comes about. A government that is not doing a good job is a bad government, whether or not it was popularly elected. In the case of a bad, elected government, theoretically people can throw it out of office in the next election. In reality, though, the incumbent government, with enormous resources at its disposal, can always find a way to stay in power.

Democracy is neither a guarantee of a good government nor an effective way to get rid of a bad one. Thousands of years of recorded Chinese history prove just one point: when there's a really bad government, the people's only option is to throw it out violently. The mere possibility of an uprising is an effective deterrent to any political group that seriously wants to stay in power.

The ruling Communist Party is on record as constantly reminding itself about the risk of "losing the country and the party" if it misbehaves. In the back of their minds, Beijing leaders know that their only justification for staying in power is to deliver. They have kept doing that, and they are still there, enjoying extremely high popularity.

On the mainland, officialdom is a highly competitive arena. Civil servants must compete for a five-year term. They are assessed by an elaborate system with an ever-more-demanding set of criteria. They will be kicked out should they make mistakes.

Many Hong Kong officials would not be qualified in the first place, and could not survive in this harsh environment. Yet this is the tradition of the Chinese civil service.

In the Chinese tradition, the country is run by an elite with a common view of morality - be it Confucian or communist. It is governed by meritocracy rather than populism, and in that respect it's closer to the western ideal of the "philosopher king".

Democracy, in the sense of public participation, serves two vital functions. First, public engagement provides new perspectives and new ideas. Second, it serves to monitor the system and adjust its course. In the old days, these two functions relied heavily on the benevolence of rulers. Now we think in terms of a system of checks and balances under a legal and institutional framework.

Such a framework is currently under construction at a hectic pace. In our current phase, we still have to count on the goodwill of the ruling party and its leaders. Also, the construction period is messy: it will inevitably inconvenience some people. For example, press freedom is to a certain degree sacrificed, but the trend - and the ultimate objective - is towards openness and transparency.

This is baloney, of course, to democratic fundamentalists. But let us think of the alternative: a rapid embrace of completely open and competitive elections in China - with 1.3 billion people living across vast geographical diversity. The risks - as experienced in other democracies - are simply too high even to think about it seriously.

Many people still believe stereotypes about mainland China's political system as authoritarian. Just a casual visit would prove that it's a lot more free and open than many people imagine. As the record shows, the ruling party makes very good decisions for the welfare of the people.

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


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Monday, March 12, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Extra cash no cure for health system's ills



  
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   Our public health system is constantly having greater demands imposed on it. With an ageing society like Hong Kong's, this is unavoidable: the older the population, the greater the need for medical treatment and, subsequently, the higher the costs.
The government well knows this, which is why Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen proposed a 2.4 per cent increase in the Hospital Authority's budget for this financial year to HK$28.6 billion. As the authority's executive director Shane Solomon has revealed, it will be mainly spent on employing hundreds more doctors and buying equipment.

  
Given the strains the authority is under, these are necessary moves. But they are only interim, short-term sticking plasters to a wound that requires bolder steps to ensure sustained healing.

Well-trained and dedicated medical professionals are the centrepiece of a properly run health-care system. Hong Kong's government has been fortunate to have such people in its public hospitals and clinics and the dividends are clearly shown in the high quality treatment available. The standards are so good that demand for private medical insurance is relatively low here compared with other parts of the world.

But cracks have been showing, as highlighted by complaints in recent years by doctors about the long hours they have been working. Some have been forced to work for 36 hours at a stretch, a situation that is not good for their health and morale, or the patients they are tending. They took the authority to court and a year ago, judges held that they should be compensated for working on their rest days and statutory holidays. A HK$400 million compensation deal was later struck.

Mr Solomon is now making good with pledges to shorten doctors' working hours by hiring more medics. He has not stipulated the ideal number of hours they should work, although this should be in line with other recognised centres of medical excellence such as Britain and Australia, where doctors work shifts of no more than 13 and 16 hours respectively. Reducing hours to such levels would be a step in the right direction.

Improving standards with the latest equipment also is necessary. Medicine is constantly evolving, with new findings leading to better treatments. More advanced equipment is an important part of modern medicine.

But health care is not just about spending money. Efficient and cost-effective service also has to be provided, especially when it is being paid for out of the public purse. Mr Solomon appreciates this; he has suggested that nighttime emergency wards be reduced in number. This is a sound suggestion, provided that it is thought through carefully so that lives are not put at risk.

As worthy as these recommendations are, they do not directly broach the issue of health-care financing reform, a pressing matter that the government is avoiding. The older the population gets, the more urgent the need, and with the population's median age at 39.4 - and rising - prompt action is necessary.

The government has ordered several studies and consultation exercises on the issue over the past decade, to no avail. It reformed the relevant advisory committee in 2005 and said concrete proposals would be released by the end of last year. The exercise was again postponed, apparently until after the election for chief executive later this month.

Health-care financing reform is a matter of urgency, but the government is not taking it seriously. Mr Solomon's suggestions go some way to rectifying problems within the public hospital system, but do not deal with the wider concerns. Efforts to tackle those have to begin in earnest this year. Delaying the inevitable will only make the impact of the decisions taken more difficult to endure.




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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

CHIEF EXECUTIVE DEBATE II
A strange case of missing support


TSANG YOK-SING
   
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   To Civic Party members and their allies, Alan Leong Kah-kit was definitely the winner in the March 1 election debate. They described his performance as "brilliant", and "much better than in [their] wildest dreams".
They cited the "poor performance" of Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, and said he was hesitant and awkward because he "had to defend unpopular government policies". Civic Party leader Audrey Eu Yuet-mee said: "The reason why [Mr Leong] did so well was because he actually believed in what he said."

  
Mr Tsang's supporters, however, had an entirely different impression of the debate. They claimed the contest showed beyond any doubt that Mr Tsang was much better qualified to be the head of government. They contrasted Mr Tsang's "sensible and pragmatic pledges" with the "empty slogans" of Mr Leong.

One said: "Mr Tsang obviously performed far better, with a clear mindset, and the policies he raised were first class. Mr Leong failed to make it." One can hardly expect supporters to give unbiased assessments of their candidate's performance - at least, not in public. An objective observer would probably agree that Mr Leong exhibited superior debating skills, while Mr Tsang displayed a better command of public administration.

Also, as commentators have noted, Mr Leong was on the offensive and Mr Tsang on the defensive for most of the debate. This is not surprising, given that Mr Tsang is the incumbent and Mr Leong the challenger. The latter's strategy was to attack his opponent in areas where members of the public may have grievances against the government, like constitutional development, conservation and education.

He had only to point out the problems and inadequacies of existing government policies, and did not feel compelled to provide solutions. Mr Tsang, on the other hand, had to be very careful when discussing controversial public policy issues. He could not express any views inconsistent with government policy, nor make any promises he might not be able to fulfil.

Mr Tsang had to guard against saying anything that could embarrass the present or next governments; Mr Leong could score points by doing just that. Apart from prudence, Mr Tsang's meekness and self-restraint could have been a deliberate tactic: according to one of his campaign strategists, Mr Tsang had been advised to "deliver his pledges with modesty and humility" in order to appeal to the public more effectively.

Everyone knows Mr Tsang has a guaranteed second term, and the key goal of his election campaign is to keep his popularity high. His aides believe that, to retain the goodwill of the people, he should avoid showing any arrogance and never lose his temper in public. As one said: "So long as we can maintain Mr Tsang's high popularity rating, we're okay with this debate." Polls conducted after the debate seem to prove the success of this restrained tactic. A poll co-sponsored by the South China Morning Post, for example, found that Mr Tsang "continued to lead his rival by a wide margin in public support" after the debate.

Moreover, 46.3 per cent of respondents in the poll believed Mr Tsang performed better in the debate, while 33.7 per cent were more impressed with Mr Leong. Other surveys gave similar results. Mr Leong gained a few percentage points in popular support, but Mr Tsang still led by a ratio of over three to one - his support apparently not affected at all.

Televised election debates elsewhere have caused significant swings in popular support for candidates. If the March 1 debate had little such impact here, then either the public saw fewer contrasts in their performance than political analysts did, or Hongkongers attach less importance to election debates than expected.

Some may argue that it was not a genuine election debate, since only a few hundred people are entitled to vote. But if that concern were really important, then surely the public would have been more supportive of Mr Leong's performance, since universal suffrage is part of his political platform.


The fact remains that, when asked to choose the most suitable candidate for the next chief executive - before and after the debate - the proportion that picked Mr Tsang remained largely unchanged. Another debate is set for Thursday; this time, members of the public will ask questions instead of Election Committee members. It is unlikely that we will see big differences, however, both in the candidates' performance or in subsequent poll results.

Tsang Yok-sing is a directly elected legislator for Kowloon West and a member of the Election Committee.



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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Cadres turn deaf ear to well-intentioned words



  
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   While delegates to the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference sessions in Beijing have been reiterating leaders' calls to build a peaceful and harmonious nation, 1,300km to the south, in Hunan province , villagers angry over an 80 per cent rise in bus fares have been battling riot police. The incident is embarrassing proof that what gets said in the capital is often meaningless to the people at whom such words are directed.
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have long been talking of harmony and stability. Launching Lunar New Year celebrations last year, they took a joint stance, saying the way ahead for the nation lay in creating a harmonious society.

  
The annual meeting in October of the Communist Party's Central Committee took the pledge a step further, formally adopting President Hu's proposal to "build a harmonious socialist society". Since then, words like harmony, peace and stability have been frequently heard when issues such as rural development, land seizures, corruption, the migrant workforce, Taiwan and Tibet have come up.

Given the emphasis being placed on the concept, it is deeply ironic that as delegates were praising its merits, a teenager was reportedly killed and dozens injured in Zhushan village in a confrontation with authorities that has been raging since Friday.

The protest began when public bus fares were increased from 5 yuan to  9 yuan - an amount that would raise hackles in far more affluent Hong Kong, as happened in 1966 when fares on the Star Ferry were lifted by a comparatively modest 25 per cent. Then, three days of riots left one person dead and several dozen injured. More than 1,000 were arrested.

Farmers in Zhushan approached local government officials about the fare rise and were answered with busloads of thugs sent to enforce the increase. Police backed the officials.

Social harmony, as envisaged by President Hu and others, is about consultation and transparency, backed by good governance and the rule of law. At the grass-roots level, it has meant democracy in rural areas through the election of local officials. Broadening the system through all levels of society will achieve the goals of harmony, peace and stability, the message goes.

As worthy as this sounds, it is worthless if it is not implemented with determination. The farmers found, to their cost, that the consultative process promised by the central government had little meaning for those setting the rules in their village.

Such is the case for many other rules and regulations formulated in Beijing and enshrined in law. The sessions of the NPC and CPPCC have been considering many such drafts in recent days and will soon vote on them and turn them into legislation.

But while reform of the legal system and the enacting of laws on private property - among the raft of measures that will be approved - is essential, implementation throughout the nation remains a sticking point. As long as this is the case, the ills of mainland society - social disturbances and their causes (corruption, illegal land grabs and the like) - will prevail.

President Hu's vision is grounded in tried and tested thinking. What it lacks is the backing of the protective measures well-functioning societies have at their core: a free media, strong rule of law, transparent government and a process for citizens to have their voices heard.

What has occurred at Zhushan highlights the need for such an all-embracing approach. If the mechanism for hearing grievances had been in place, tragedy could have been avoided.

President Hu and his fellow leaders meeting in Beijing this week would do well to heed the lesson. They are considering reforms with far-reaching implications that have the good of the nation at heart, but they need to make stronger efforts to ensure that their intentions can be put into practice.


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Thursday, March 15, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Property law sows right seeds for rural harmony



  
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   With the gap between rich and poor on the mainland ever-widening, finding fault with the central government's approach to alleviating rural poverty is not difficult. Now that the director of the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences has pointed this out in the most public of ways - to delegates of the National People's Congress - authorities would do well to take heed and consider the proffered alternatives.
Beijing's strategy to deal with the uneven development of the nation has been to throw money at the problem in the form of subsidies to farmers. In total, the amount is impressive, but so too is the number of unemployed people living in rural areas who are migrating to the economic hot spots of the east coast.

  
The result has been that while those in cities and towns are in the vanguard of the economic miracle and becoming increasingly wealthy, the 60 per cent of the nation's people living in rural regions have been receiving meaningless amounts of cash and remaining in poverty.

This, as the central government should have learned by now, is a recipe for instability. The tens of thousands of disputes involving violence each year have clearly indicated the need for reform.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have not been dumb to the challenge, hence their calls for social harmony. The congress' approval of legislation enshrining private property rights will go some way towards attaining that goal.

This law will mean much to farmers, until now uncertain about their right to land that has often been in family hands for many generations. Rural land seizures by officials and companies for all manner of projects - golf courses and luxury property developments among them - have been the cause for many of the protests by rural communities.

Ensuring that the property law is implemented and policed is essential for Beijing, given the unrest that has occurred. This is easier said than done, if the central government's track record on enacting legislation is any guide. It must do so, though, if social stability throughout the nation is to be assured.

Experience elsewhere in the world has shown the value of such a policy. Ensuring farmers the right to land encourages them to make investments that maximise productivity and income. This, in turn, increases their purchasing power.

Land rights also generate non-agricultural employment, as the ability of farmers to spend more money stimulates the rural consumer market. Farming families become more anchored to their communities, making for less migration to cities in search of jobs. Lastly, more political stability ensues from farmers having their own land through their greater stake in their community.

This is only part of the answer to rectifying the disparity in wealth. Just as essential as protecting property rights is, as the academy director indicated, permitting market forces to hold sway in determining the prices of farm produce.

The government's subsidies have been keeping these prices artificially low, making for minimal returns for farmers. Freer prices will raise their returns and, subsequently, increase their wealth.

With such a large percentage of China's population tied to the soil, it would be wrong to portray the benefits from property rights and market liberalisation as being the panacea in themselves to bridging the wealth gap. The government must also properly implement such policies and ensure that the officials who enact them are above corruption.

Nor will change come about quickly. Putting such reforms into practice among a population the size of the mainland's is a daunting task for any government, let alone one that is evolving. Teething problems are inevitable.

Beijing is taking the bold step of property reform, but this, in itself, is only part of the solution to rural stability. Economic liberalisation, ensuring implementation and tackling corruption are as important.

Only this way can the harmony leaders seek be attained.



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Friday, March 16, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Disputes over medicines putting lives at risk



   
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   The international rules are straightforward: at no time should intellectual property rights get in the way of national public health emergencies. But as the dispute between Thailand's government and the US pharmaceutical company Abbott Laboratories over an Aids-fighting drug highlights, there are deficiencies in the regulations and a rethink is required to protect the lives of the world's most vulnerable people.
Thailand is the first country to issue a compulsory licence under World Trade Organisation rules for an Aids drug. This will allow it to produce a low-cost, generic, version of Abbott's commonly used patented antiretroviral drug Kaletra. The company has responded by declaring it will no longer launch new medications in the nation.

  
The WTO's 2001 ministerial conference in Doha issued a waiver to its 1995 agreement protecting intellectual property rights that stated intellectual property should not take precedence over public health. This gave member nations facing a health crisis the right to copy drugs that were patented before the 1995 agreement and, under a system called compulsory licensing, make generic versions of subsequently produced medications.

Thailand took the step after negotiations with Abbott to make Kaletra available for a more affordable price for Thais broke down. With 580,000 of the nation's people infected with HIV/Aids, the government cannot be blamed for turning to the only remaining option.

Abbott's reaction was not within the spirit of the WTO's rules. Given the high cost of creating and marketing a drug like Kaletra, however, it is justified in wanting to get the best possible price.

The issue has long consumed the world's developed nations, many of them grappling with Aids. Their people cannot generally afford to pay the prices the drugs sell for in the US and Europe, where the companies which have researched and developed the treatments are based.

Governments, UN agencies, non-governmental groups and private foundations have lobbied for lower prices for the drugs for people in developing countries and deals have sometimes been struck. Some companies have permitted genetic manufacture of their medications.

After talks with Abbott failed, Thailand has opted for a route not previously tried with Aids drugs. It is a legal one, but a precedent has been set which the WTO needs to deal with quickly to prevent other companies taking similar actions to those of Abbott. The WTO has a mechanism to deal with disputes, but it is clearly not flexible enough to settle them in a timely manner. This must change.

Aids has, after all, already caused havoc in many African countries and it is threatening to do so in Asia. With so many lives at risk, ensuring medication is available to as many people as possible is essential.



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Monday, March 19, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Mideast peace effort requires unity of will



   
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   Palestinian political factions have ironed out differences and formed a government of unity, but being able to speak with a single voice does not hide the fundamental flaw that remains: there can be no peace in the Middle East until all members acknowledge Israel's right to exist. With the Islamist Hamas movement of prime minister Ismail Haniyeh refusing to renounce violence, security and stability will continue to be a dream for the region's people.
Turning back the clock to before Israel's creation and joining of the United Nations in 1948, as Hamas wants, is simply not an option. To think otherwise is to give unrealistic aspirations to the world's 9.4 million Palestinians. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, made that clear yesterday, as has the US, the foremost power-broker in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moving forward in peace negotiations is not possible while an integral part of the Palestinian government refuses to recognise Israeli sovereignty.

  
Peace is not the most pressing matter for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, Israeli-occupied West Bank and in refugee camps throughout the Middle East: their most immediate craving is respite from the poverty exacerbated by the freeze in foreign aid that Hamas' election win last year prompted. The lack of funding for the government resulted in faction-fighting that brought Palestinian society to the brink of collapse.

Now that Hamas and president Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group have been able to weld together a government of unity, some of the aid will return. But as long as Hamas stubbornly remains rooted in the doctrine of its founding, there will be no significant movement in brokering peace with Israel, the goal that will drag Palestinians beyond international handouts to self-sufficiency.

Israelis want peace with their neighbours as much as Palestinians do. Mr Olmert has filled the void since Hamas' election victory with discussions with Mr Abbas on how to push ahead with the road map for peace brokered in 2003 by the quartet of the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

Those talks will continue, as will other behind-the-scenes meetings between Israelis and Palestinians and other interested groups and individuals. Resumption of the peace process will remain elusive, though, while Hamas continues to push for its objective of Israel's destruction.

There can obviously be no two-state solution - Israel and a separate Palestinian nation - as outlined in the road map, while this stance continues. Nor is Hamas' position to be tolerated: Israel is a member of the UN and Palestinians are likewise represented, and a founding principle of the world body is that nations recognise one another's right to exist.

A unified government moves Palestinians from the brink of starvation and offers them hope of poverty alleviation. But only when Hamas turns to diplomacy and a redefining of its ways to meet 21st century expectations will Palestinians truly have the chance for the peace and prosperity that they deserve.



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Tuesday, March 20, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Not enough done to help new town's needy



  
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   There is a disconnect between what officials say about tackling Hong Kong's social ills and the circumstances of the people in the northwest New Territories district of Tin Shui Wai. The lack of concerted government effort in alleviating the high rates of poverty, unemployment and domestic violence there has prompted some residents to tackle the problems themselves.
Groups such as the 40 or so women who are working to cool tempers among husbands and wives are to be commended. Housewives Chan Suk-chun and Pang Wan-fong, the driving force behind the initiative to build mutual support, are models for their community. In the absence of sufficient government resources, they have taken it upon themselves to take action. It is a pity that our leaders, so outspoken in recent months on issues such as poverty and domestic violence, have been of little help beyond the relatively small grant received by the group.

  
Given Hong Kong's compact size, blackspots such as Tin Shui Wai should not exist. Statistics clearly indicate a problem: the second-lowest household incomes in the city, high rates of domestic violence and excessive unemployment. Police and media reports and even a best-selling book have shown the scale of the difficulties the district's people face.

Most shocking was the tragedy in April 2004, when a man killed his wife and two daughters before committing suicide. The victims died hours after leaving a government-run shelter and seeking police help. There have been similar incidents since, but the government has not done enough to deal with the issues at the core of such violence.

Similarly, although census data reveals the median household income in Tin Shui Wai is HK$13,750, the second-lowest of any district in the city, the efforts to improve the economic circumstances of residents have been rudimentary.

There is no secret as to why Tin Shui Wai faces the problems it does. In Hong Kong terms it is isolated, not being well linked to the city's transport networks. This has meant few businesses have been attracted to the area and correspondingly, it is relatively expensive for residents to travel to workplaces. Unemployment is therefore high and family incomes low.

Many of those living in the district are migrants from the mainland. Often, they are the wives of Hong Kong residents and generally much younger than their spouses. The age gap, social workers say, has been at the root of the domestic violence, with husbands and wives not being able to adequately communicate with one another. Divorce rates are consequently high, resulting in many single-parent households in Tin Shui Wai.

The government has provided few recreational facilities and social services in the area. Shelters for women involved in domestic violence cases are few, as are counsellors to talk to them and their spouses about their problems.

Yet, as the tens of billions of dollars Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen announced as a surplus in his budget last month revealed, there is no shortage of funds to tackle Hong Kong's problems. The difficulty, it would seem, is directing the money to where it is most needed.

That is one of the reasons the Commission on Poverty was set up in 2005. It aims to better co-ordinate government departments and policies. Worthy schemes have been announced, such as the travel allowance for the needy and other poverty-alleviation measures unveiled by Mr Tang.

Nor is Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen unaware of the difficulties some residents face. His platform for re-election lists a good many projects, among them holding a summit on fighting poverty and setting up social enterprises in communities with high concentrations of low-income families to create employment opportunities.

As Tin Shui Wai shows, however, the efforts taken so far are not enough. The government has said much about improving the lives of Hong Kong's people, but the rhetoric needs to be backed with firmer action to better the lot of those in the community who are less fortunate.



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Wednesday, March 21, 2007

JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA
Healing the deep wounds of history


JUNBEOM PYON and YUKA TSUKAGOSHI
   
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We are dismayed by the current state of relations between Japan and South Korea. The two countries are natural partners: both are US allies, they have democratic societies and share similar values and security concerns. During the cold war, both feared the expansion of communism from the Soviet Union and China, and a North Korean invasion of  the South. Today, both face the North's nuclear threat and share concerns about the rise of China. In addition to common interests, Japan and South Korea have similar customs and culture.
All this suggests that it would be logical and desirable for the two countries to have a strong, co-operative bilateral relationship. But that logic is outweighed by mutual distrust, suspicion and hatred in Japan and South Korea. These feelings manifest themselves in protests - a cycle of action and reaction - in both countries.

The causes vary: disputes over territory and fisheries, and differing views about the Japanese colonisation of the Korean Peninsula. The list includes Japanese history textbooks, "comfort women", crimes committed by the Japanese imperial army and the politicisation of the relationship. Koreans demand that the Japanese apologise for all the crimes of the past.

The root of anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea is wounded pride. Koreans feel humiliated and insulted that they, a highly civilised society, were invaded by the Japanese. Japan seeks to move the relationship forward, but South Korea's continued complaints prevent that.

The two nations are like teeth and lips: the deterioration of relations hurts them both. It is in their best interest to see a stronger, reunified Korean Peninsula under Seoul's leadership that serves as a first line of defence for Japan - and a stronger Japan that supports Korea against an overwhelming China.

Tokyo could achieve this by encouraging the emperor to make a public statement acknowledging the imperial family's roots in Korea. Such an acknowledgement would not be new: Emperor Akihito has noted on a number of occasions that the Shoku Nihongi, an 8th century chronicle, traces the lineage of his 8th century ancestor, Emperor Kammu, to King Muryong of 6th century Paekche, one of Korea's ancient kingdoms. "People from the Korean Peninsula came to the nascent kingdom in central Japan, bringing East Asian culture and technology," he said.

Koreans believe these facts are not taught or accepted in Japan because of government intervention. If the emperor would again acknowledge his Korean heritage - this time with the support and approval of the Japanese government - it would greatly restore pride and transform thinking in Korea.

Koreans would no longer have been invaded by "barbarians", but by a highly civilised and advanced society formed by the descendants of Korean kingdoms. Such an acknowledgment would help Koreans overcome the inferiority complex that is the real cause of their anti-Japanese sentiment. It would also help Koreans accept Japanese achievements in the 20th century and allow them to share in the pride of these achievements because, ultimately, the Japanese and the Koreans share the same heritage.

What would Japan gain?

First, the issue of comfort women, and other crimes committed by the Japanese imperial army, would continue to be discussed. But the magnitude and nature of the discussions would be diminished. Second, Koreans would be able to push that history into the past, and move  towards a future with Japan.

Third, a stronger partnership would improve the security environment in both countries. Tokyo and Seoul would be able to focus on solving the North Korean nuclear issue and work together for the peaceful unification of the peninsula. Fourth, both countries would be able to further co-operate at a strategic level to deal with China's growth and re-emergence on the world stage. Fifth, it would help to settle disputes over territorial claims and fisheries. Seoul and Tokyo would be able to solve disputes when they begin to see each other as partners, not enemies.

A Tokyo-Seoul partnership would be bigger than the sum of its parts. Together, the two could contribute to the growth and development of other Asian countries by sharing resources, technology and know-how. This, again, would bring the two countries closer together. Ultimately, it would also result in a solid US-South Korea-Japan trilateral partnership that strengthens regional stability and peace. In the spirit of compromise that would animate such an agreement, Seoul would do well to take positive steps, as well. It could promise Tokyo that it would change the way Korean schools teach about Japan. Seoul could adopt regulations that prohibit teachers and textbooks from stirring up anti-Japan sentiment.

South Korea could officially discourage the sort of anti-Japanese propaganda often seen in its movies and TV programmes. And, finally, it should support Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Political leaders in both countries should learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, and put their national  image and national interests above their domestic political concerns.

Junbeom Pyon is the 2006-2007 Vasey  Fellow at the Pacific Forum CSIS. Yuka Tsukagoshi is a policy analyst at Mizuho Research Institute. Distributed by Pacific Forum CSIS



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Thursday, March 22, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Rethink needed on population policies



   
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   A key advisory group's call for the government to adopt more family-friendly policies to stimulate Hong Kong's lagging population growth is welcome. It also is a reminder of the need for bold initiatives.
The support group on population policy for the Council for Sustainable Development has completed a draft report that includes a package of family measures. The report focuses on the declining fertility rate, the ageing population and quality of life. The group has revealed only a glimpse of the initiatives to be recommended to the government in June. They range from paternity leave for civil servants to discounted family tickets for activities like museum visits, music concerts and sports activities.

  
Paternity leave would be a step in the right direction and a lead to the business community, although a few companies already grant it. It will be remembered that the introduction of a five-day week for civil servants was quickly adopted by some big employers such as banks.

Hopefully the second suggestion is no more than a bonus as part of a bold, comprehensive package. Cut-price outings are not going to solve issues such as working mothers and financial security versus family sacrifice, the cost of adequate housing and education and the quality of life, to mention just a few.

Standing alone, a few days' paternity leave will not make much difference either. The council should convince the government of the merits of setting an example with a more flexible approach to parental baby leave that better reflects the modern concept of shared family responsibilities. Hong Kong's 10 weeks' paid maternity leave compares favourably with other Asian countries. But it has not stopped our population from growing less and ageing more.

The recent by-census figures were a wake-up call to government planners. Annual population growth since 2001 has been only 0.4 per cent, with a marginal increase in births and fewer people from developed economies coming here to work. The population stands at just over 6.9 million. But the government is sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure, including transport, on the basis of outdated predictions that the population would now be well in excess of 7 million and growing apace. It would be sensible to adopt policies that put the horse back in front of the cart, with the emphasis on ensuring that the city remains an attractive place in which to live and do business.

Population group convenor Wong Siu-lun says few measures are recommended to change immigration policy, because the public has not reached consensus. But a family-friendly environment is positive for immigration. The city's future as a knowledge-based economy depends on being able to compete internationally for the brightest young talent. The more who put down their roots here and raise families the better.





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Friday, March 23, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Home ownership must be more than a dream



   
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   The deep-rooted Chinese cultural desire to own the roof over one's head, combined with rising property prices and interest rates, is leading to a crisis in mainland cities. While the wealthy can fulfil the dream, the rest of  society is increasingly falling into a financial bind that the government has promised to tackle, but has yet to adequately respond to.
Much of the problem lies in the lack of a uniform policy on housing. With the property and associated mortgage markets immature in their development, there is the danger that a crucial sector of society could be financially ruined by the system. Premier Wen Jiabao's work report at the recently concluded National People's Congress mentioned the soaring property prices, and city administrations have since reiterated pledges to cool economic growth. Such rhetoric in the past has not been followed by concerted action and fears persist that the housing bubble will burst and lead to economic disarray.

  
Warnings yesterday from a leading economist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that those from the middle and lower income groups may be forced to default on mortgage payments because of the financial pressures they face are a cause for concern. The subsidised housing system for the poor is no longer functioning in the way it was intended, and with property developers focused on profits by building luxury housing that is beyond the reach of the majority, government intervention is necessary.


Housing prices across the nation rose by an average of 5.5 per cent last year, and in Beijing and Shanghai by at least two or three times more. Salaries barely rose 5 per cent, though, and with the one-year benchmark lending rate raised .27 per cent this week to 6.39 per cent, there is great pressure on those who have taken out mortgages - more than 90 per cent of whom are estimated to have loans with variable rates.

The mainland has a market-driven real estate system and a bank-loan-dominated housing finance one. Officials, such as Central Bank deputy governor Wu Xiaoling , have maintained that the model is suitable, although acknowledging that it needs to be closely watched.

Clearly, mere watching is insufficient - nor is capping economic growth going to resolve the problem.

While returning to the socialist model of the past, where the government provided housing, is impractical in a market-driven system, authorities can still put in place policies to ensure even the poor can have a roof over their heads. Cheap land can be allocated to developers to build affordable housing and a predetermined percentage of developments can be set aside for cheaper apartments. With property ownership now enshrined in law, the mainland has to do its utmost to ensure that the dreams of its people to own their own homes can be attained.



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Monday, March 26, 2007

Winning the war against poverty


ROSANNA WONG
   
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   All members of the UN agreed that poverty was a key strategic challenge facing the world, through the Millennium Declaration of 2000 and its associated Millennium Development Goals. Since then, the issue has worked its way up policy-making agendas, with governments in both developing and developed countries resolving not only to alleviate poverty's symptoms, but also to attack its root causes.
What about here in Hong Kong? Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen pledged, during the run-up to the chief executive election, that poverty would be one of his priority issues. For many, poverty may seem like a non-issue, given our robust economy and gross national income per capita of US$27,670.

  
When the Poverty Commission says there is no official poverty line in Hong Kong, what exactly does "poverty" refer to?

Here in Hong Kong, there is a certain invisibility about poverty. As a result, the level of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance is used as a practical measure of what has been called a "de facto poverty line". What makes this a particularly relevant topic now is the recognition that this section of the population grew, by 9.6 per cent per year, on average, between 1995 and 2004.

So what can we do? The government has pledged to set aside HK$900 million for measures to help the poor, and has devised a policy to move from welfare to self-reliance. I have no quarrel with this, but there are certain facts that need to be stated.

The first is that the government has a fundamental obligation to all its people. This means that welfare services and support must always be available to those who require them. Handing out monetary assistance is crucial, especially to those in dire need, making welfare a guaranteed safety net to protect the most vulnerable in the community.

Second, self-reliance is not something new. Non-governmental organisations and charity agencies have been implementing self-reliance measures for a long time. Perhaps less well known is that many projects and programmes encourage and endorse self-reliance, to assist people out of poverty. The government needs to recognise these, and possibly build on them. It is also important to examine the government's initiatives, without prejudice. For example, one idea is to create a business model that is more socially responsible, and which will help people get involved in such areas as employment, welfare, education and even the environment.

The community needs to become familiar with the details of what is entailed. Only then will it be possible to assess it properly.


Another government initiative is the Children's Development Fund, to support youngsters from low-income families by promoting their development instead of simply providing income support. This is also worth careful consideration, especially as it appears to be a long-term plan to alleviate inter-generational poverty. Again, we need to know more about how it will work.

While I am cautiously optimistic about both these plans, poverty should also be dealt with at a more human level. Before any project can be implemented, hope must be instilled, to give people the drive and determination to push forward.

This may be the hardest part, but it is not impossible. For example, poverty alleviation should not be the government's responsibility alone: efforts must be made to engage the community, too. And these initiatives should not be too bureaucratic and intrusive. Finally, all opportunities - in education and employment - should be provided with sensitivity and compassion. The bottom line should not simply be the attainment of qualifications or the acquisition of a job. The opportunities afforded should also help awaken self-respect and self-esteem. Dignity is an equally potent aspect of tackling the issue of poverty.

Absolute poverty, of course, will never be fully eradicated. But, as we move towards narrowing the gap between the haves and have-nots, let's find a way to balance the practical, enforceable aspects of policy measures with the human side of positive reinforcement, leading towards the real economic and social development of Hong Kong.

Rosanna Wong is executive director of the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups and a member of the Working Group of the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor



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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

EDITORIAL/LEADER
Cautionary lesson for seafood lovers



  
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   Our seemingly insatiable appetite for seafood is helping empty the world's waters of fish. The guide released yesterday by WWF Hong Kong is therefore a welcome weapon in the armoury to educate us in making more sustainable eating choices. A visit to wet markets or the seafood section of supermarkets does not give the impression that our fish supplies are drying up. Only those involved in the industry or in conservation would know otherwise; that year by year, suppliers have to widen their search as traditional sources are fished out.
As the world's biggest per capita consumers of seafood - and with affluence, increasingly looking for more exotic species - we have been largely oblivious to our appetites driving some varieties into extinction. Fish farms have gone some way to meeting our demand, but cannot repair the damaged marine ecosystems that overfishing has created.

  
WWF's seafood guide, showing which species are recommended and which should involve a second thought or be avoided, is a good start in helping people make informed choices. That it has come from a non-governmental organisation rather than the government or the catering industry shows just how unconcerned those with the ability to control overfishing seemingly are on the issue.

Yet bringing native species back to our waters and making fish that were enjoyed by past generations again available at the dinner or banquet table is a matter that involves all groups.

The government has joined the process with discussion on the naming of species, partly prompted by the health concerns over oil fish recently being sold as cod. Catfish is being sold as Vietnamese sole and river cobbler, more attractive names, but not indicative of their species. If fish are given standardised names that better reflect their species, we can make better choices. Such efforts from authorities need to be stepped up.

Similarly, restaurants can help by more carefully choosing which fish to put on menus. More exotic varieties will make more profit, but also will lead to species declining in number - and ecosystem damage. Those farming fish also can assist through better catering to local tastes or even directing consumers towards more sustainable choices.

The WWF's guide is a useful educational tool in the battle to stop overfishing. Its distribution through as wide as possible a breadth of the community will raise awareness that some fish, for various biological reasons, are more vulnerable to overfishing.

Armed with such information, we will be able to make better choices when shopping for seafood or dining out. But the process of stopping overfishing of particular species and regenerating our damaged sub-tropical waters will take the involvement of all other sectors with a stake in the fishing industry, the government included. Only through working together can the change that is needed come about.



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