Visit to Taiwan and the Philippines

Published on Tue 27th Jun 2006

I've not been in Brussels this week and have not picked up much news of events there, though I was pleased to learn that External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told our foreign affairs committee she is prepared to take tit-for-tat measures against the USA if they continue to refuse visa free entry for Greek and central European EU citizens.

Instead, I paid a visit to Taiwan and then led a delegation of five of my MEPs to Manila in the Philippines for a conference with MPs from the ten Asian countries with Liberal parties grouped together in the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD).

I had not been to Taiwan since 2003 and was a little out of touch with the Liberal government of this nation of 23 million people which suffers from the double standards of the democratic world by being shunned in favour of diplomatic recognition of the People's Republic of China, one of the few remaining vile communist dictatorships. True, when the Americans led the move in the UN in 1971 to have Taiwan expelled and Communist China admitted, the island was run by the corrupt and autocratic right wing dictatorship of the Kuomintang (KMT). But since 1987 it has grown into a thriving democracy which thoroughly disproves the theory that Asian values are different. Freedom and democracy are just as important to asians as to caucasians.

In the capital Taipei I met the new deputy Prime Minister, an impressive lady in her fifties called Tsai Ing-wen. She studied in London and speaks fluent English free of the American accent so common among - and sought after by - Taiwanese (in Taiwan, language schools boast of teaching American English in a bid to attract students). We discussed current policy challenges and the antics of the Kuomintang opposition, which is currently trying to have the President impeached for corruption on the basis that his son in law is awaiting trial for insider dealing on the stock market: about which President Chen "must have known", they allege. Ma Ing-jeou, the opposition KMT leader, pulled out at short notice from the meeting I'd requested with him; which is a pity, since I know he has two teenage daughters who will no doubt be married by the time he ever becomes President and I wanted to ask whether he expected to be aware of everything their husbands got up to.

The Speaker of the Legislative Yuan, Wang Jin-pyng, is an old contact of mine and kindly hosted a lunch for me with eight MPs from across the party spectrum. He thanked me for having procured for him an official visit to the European Parliament, which was one of my achievements when my predecessor and colleague Pat Cox was speaker of the EP. Official policy may not recognise Taiwan, but we can at least recognise their democratic parliament.

After lunch President Chen Shui-bian received me and gave me a generous three quarters of an hour, which was particularly kind since he had to prepare a televised address to the nation for that evening defending himself against the impeachment motion. He spent time in prison fighting for democracy for his country and his wife has been for many years in a wheelchair, having had her legs crushed by a tractor in an 'accident' at a pro-democracy protest rally. I've met him on a few occasions and was invited to his inauguration in 2000 (and again to his second inauguration in 2004, which I could not accept since it fell in the middle of the European election campaign.) Chen Shui bian has known greater adversity than this current difficulty and will survive it, but it is particularly galling for him since he was elected on a platform of rooting out corruption. Moreover, some of the mud being flung by the KMT will almost inevitably stick, which is what motivates their move. Despite having won two successive Presidential elections, the Democratic Progress Party has never won a majority in parliament; and the opposition make life as difficult as possible for the President and Prime Minister.

After courtesy visits to the DPP HQ (our party has helped them with training in campaign techniques) and the foreign office and a trip up the world's tallest building, Taipei 101, I went the following morning to meet a man who is now in his late seventies. Former President Lee Teng-hui is to me the real hero of Taiwan. A native Taiwanese, he nonetheless rose to power in the KMT to become first Vice President then President (1988-2000). He is the man who brought his country to democracy; he had the courage to seize the moment when his chance came. I believe he knew that his party would lose power in the Presidential elections in 2000 and willed on his opponent, believing it was in the best interests of his country.

He has since left the KMT, founded a new party, the Taiwan Solidarity Union (pro independence from China) and now runs a think tank in his semi retirement which publishes works stressing Taiwan's historic independence from China. The People's Republic still sees the island as part of greater China. He gave me an hour of his time and convincing answers to four of my five questions. I was not disappointed.

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I flew on to Manila and met my colleagues from the EP for a conference organised jointly by my Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats and the Liberal International. Our theme was 'Eastern and western responses to current policy challenges' and we studied population trends, economic policy and terrorism. Most of all it was a chance for MEPs and some MPs from Europe and Africa to get to know MPs from south east Asia.

This is actually the third such conference. The genesis of the idea came ten years ago in Cebu, southern Philippines, when I met Philippines Congressman Nereus Acosta at a conference organised by the Asia Europe Foundation (ASEF) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. That conference brought together young political leaders from Europe and Asia. At forty, I only just qualified, while 30 year old Congressman Acosta was well within the limits. We decided we needed a regular parliamentarians' conference to discuss global issues and when I was elected to lead my Group in the EP six years later I managed to institute it with a meeting in Seoul in 2003. We met again in Brussels in 2004, missed last year but will host a fourth conference next year in Europe. The success of the partnership can be judged not simply in the solidarity we have engendered between Liberals in Burma, Cambodia, Singapore (to take the really difficult ones first), Japan, Thailand, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Europe; but also in the spontaneous karaoke evening we enjoyed on Friday at the spectacular Taal Vista hotel in Tagaytay. The MPs present seemed to sense that, like mountain climbers, we have to rope ourselves together in the task of promoting freedom, democracy and the rule of law. (Though the real reason mountain climbers rope themselves together is out of fear that otherwise the intelligent ones would go home.)

Does this sound like a lot of junketing? I write this newsletter as I fly back via Hong Kong on Saturday night. I'll enjoy fewer than 24 hours at home before heading back for Brussels. Every achievement in politics comes with a price tag.