馬症腐失言錄

馬症腐失言錄

失言! 王建煊:漢人較原民聰明

內政部長江宜樺昨脫口說出「台灣島」惹議。資料照片

馬簽ECFA 呂秀蓮:矮化國格

2010/09/25

ECFA簽署到底對台灣後續影響如何，前副總統呂秀蓮今天南下彰化參與「ECFA時代台灣前途新思維」研討會時表示，馬政府簽署ECFA不但是矮化國格，對台灣經濟也有很大危害。

雖然已經卸任2年多，前副總統呂秀蓮仍舊關心台灣前途，她表示簽署ECFA將有利中國在台灣掌握更多的產業，號稱有3百萬中國客來台觀光，事實上對台灣產業並沒有幫助，她勉勵國人，要自立自強，以因應ECFA可能帶來的衝擊。

Chinese policy's mixed results

Chinese policy's mixed results

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Chinese government's programme to develop its far western provinces.

China has been investing a huge amount of money into Xinjiang, its largest administrative region, hoping that it will catch up with the rest of the country's fast growing economy.

Because of Xinjiang, China has become the second largest producer of wind power in the world. However, not all the region's residents believe that the Chinese government's involvement has benefited them.

Most of the religiously diverse population remains poor and people from the Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, feel marginalised and discriminated against.

Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan reports from Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

AlJazeeraEnglish

Protesters rally against China, Iran

against竹幕及其附庸國將成為不可逆的主流趨勢


ReutersVideo :

Demonstrators gather near the United Nations in New York in protest of China's treatment of Tibet, and calling for greater freedoms in Iran

ReutersVideo

北京觀察／中資銀彈攻勢 難買盟邦友誼

瓷器國境內外怨聲載道,亞太各國遠至歐美對於北京當局耍流氓的不滿有增無減
As China finds bigger place in world affairs, its wealth breeds hostility

(參考譯文)北京觀察／中資銀彈攻勢 難買盟邦友誼

編譯管淑平／特譯

「有錢買不到愛情」這句話或許適用中國現今在國際舞台處境。在中國影響力日增、對全球事務扮演更重要角色之際，經濟成長帶來的財富難以贏得外界好感，反而滋長敵意，中國如今越來越面臨到一個問題：中國的財富和影響力招致忌妒，有時甚至是暴力的敵意。今年三月底，中國的中亞重要貿易夥伴吉爾吉斯暴動期間，當地中國商人受到攻擊就反映出此一現實。

當時那場推翻吉爾吉斯總統巴基耶夫的暴動，原本目標都是總統府和政府相關單位，但後來轉向一個較不明顯的目標：滿是中國進口廉價商品的中國商城。在首都比斯凱克最能代表中國在當地經濟參與的象徵─「國英」商城，暗夜遭暴民攻擊、打劫，然後放火燒了，之後另一家中國商城「大唐」也被劫、數十名中國人遇襲。一名當地中國商會領袖說，「中國人在此處境越來越困難。」

華盛頓郵報指出，在中國於全球市場擴大地盤、對全球事務發言越來越有份量之際，這個一度侈言「四海之內都有知己」的國家，卻也日益面臨到美國長期面對的問題：用財富和影響力也許得到心有畏懼戒慎的尊敬，但也造成忌妒，有時是暴力的敵意相向。

與存有排華歷史的印尼等東南亞不同的是，吉爾吉斯中商並非在中國還沒壯大以前，而是過去十年中國經濟飛漲的同時到此發展的。中亞天然資源豐富，又與中國存有分離問題的偏遠省份新疆接壤八百多公里，中國在中亞的利益都以經濟和安全為主軸，因此儘管吉爾吉斯多山、貧瘠、面積不大，卻已成中國對中亞再出口平台，二○○八年雙邊貿易增加到逾九十三億美元（約台幣兩千九百七十二億元），幾乎是吉爾吉斯國內生產總值的兩倍。

吉爾吉斯有些人歡迎中國提高在當地經濟參與，認為可制衡傳統上在該國背後的老大哥俄羅斯。但俄羅斯仍有很大影響力，如主宰當地能源事業，而中國對當地主要外交工具：上海合作組織成效又有限，哥倫比亞大學教授庫里說：「有很多空談，卻無實質作為。」

許多當地失業青年、生意人和無法與中國貨競爭的製造業者，也對中國的經濟參與心懷怨恨。法國智庫「法國國際關係研究所」（ＩＦＲＩ）去年一份報告點出，儘管中國是吉爾吉斯許多建設、計畫的重要資金來源，但也「危害」當地產業，而且並未創造許多就業機會，因為「中國企業都把勞工帶來」。

已將「國英」商城重建完成的商城老闆何成羽說，「中國現在很強大，也越來越強，但是我們在這裡還是局外人。」

By Andrew Higgins

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, September 8, 2010; 3:11 AM

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN - In a spasm of violence this spring, an angry mob toppled the Kyrgyzstan president, torched his office and ransacked other buildings associated with his hated authoritarian regime. The crowd then turned on a less obvious target: a popular Chinese-owned shopping mall stuffed with cheap clothes and electronics from China.

Armed with iron bars and clubs, the mob stormed into the Guoying center in the middle of the night, looting, smashing and then burning the best-known emblem of China's economic presence here in the capital of this volatile Central Asian nation.

"There was nothing we could do to stop them,'' recalled He Chengyu, the center's owner. He cowered in the dark during the attack, ordering security guards not to resist and staying out of view for fear that he, too, might become a target.

As China pushes beyond its borders in search of markets, jobs and a bigger voice in world affairs, a nation that once boasted of "having friends everywhere" increasingly confronts a problem long faced by the United States: Its wealth and clout might inspire awe and wary respect, but they also generate envy and, at times, violent hostility.

Since the attack on the Guoying center in April, dozens of Chinese nationals in Bishkek have been assaulted or robbed. In August, thieves broke into Tataan, another big and mostly Chinese shopping center in the capital, prying open the safes of a dozen or more Chinese traders. A Chinese diplomat who rushed to the scene said that as much as $500,000 was stolen. Angry Chinese merchants gathered outside the mall the morning after the heist and listed a catalogue of recent beatings, knife attacks and other assaults.

Xie Yincheng, who trades in wooden doors and paneling imported from China, lost more than $10,000 in the mall robbery. "It is getting very difficult to be Chinese here," said Xie, who heads an association of Chinese traders.

In Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, ethnic Chinese businessmen have long been viewed with suspicion and are often targeted in times of turmoil. But the travails of their counterparts here in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere represent a new phenomenon: They did not arrive generations ago when China was on its knees but came in the past decade as China boomed.

China's interests in Central Asia revolve around economics - the region offers a cornucopia of natural resources - and security. Kyrgyzstan has a 536-mile border with China's restive westernmost region, Xinjiang, whose periodically rebellious Muslim Uighur population has close links to brethren across the frontier.

Although mountainous, poor and tiny - it has only 5.3 million people - Kyrgyzstan has become China's main re-export platform for the region. Two-way trade, nearly all of it in Chinese exports, surged to more than $9.3 billion in 2008, according to Chinese customs figures. That was nearly double the value of Kyrgyzstan's entire gross domestic product. Trade decreased last year but is now rising again.

Some welcome China's surging presence as a counterbalance to the region's traditional and often overbearing overlord, Russia, which grabbed control in the 19h century and ruled Kyrgyzstan as a Soviet republic until the collapse of communism in 1991.

Edil Baisalov, a human rights activist who served as chief of staff to Kyrgyzstan's new president, Roza Otunbayeva, recalled with glee how, at a meeting with both the Russian and Chinese ambassadors, he shocked the Russian by greeting Beijing's envoy in Chinese. "You should have seen the Russian's face," said Baisalov, who is learning Chinese. "It was my way of telling him this is the future."

The past, however, still looms large. Baisalov, like most educated Kyrgyz, converses mainly in Russian. His English is far better than his Chinese. Russia's state-controlled energy giant, Gazprom, dominates the local fuel business. China has at times stumbled badly: Its first major project in Kyrgyzstan, a paper factory financed with soft loans, took eight years to get off the ground. Three years after it opened in 2002, the factory went bankrupt amid allegations of graft and illegal Chinese workers.

China has also had limited success with its main diplomatic initiative for the region, a group of states known as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Launched with great fanfare in 2001 as an organization that would combat "extremism" and be a counterweight to American influence, it generated "lots of hype but in reality has done nothing," said Alexander Cooley, a Columbia University scholar who has studied the body. Russia, a member of the Shanghai grouping, initially backed it with gusto but has since cooled on what it considers a vehicle for Chinese ambitions.

China's economic presence, meanwhile, has stirred bitter resentment among many Kyrgyz, from jobless youths to local traders and manufacturers who cannot compete with Chinese goods. A report last year by IFRI, a French think tank, noted that China - while an important source of funding for roads, schools and other projects - has "endangered" local industries and created few jobs because "Chinese companies bring labor with them."

Populist politicians in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere in the region play on fears of a Chinese "invasion." In January, protesters in Almaty, the capital of neighboring Kazakhstan, rallied to denounce a plan to lease a vast tract of Kazakh land to China to grow food. The Kazakh government dropped the proposal.

China has cultivated close relations with the region's mostly autocratic leaders, but that has sometimes backfired. In Kyrgyzstan, public anger at a 1999 border deal with China that nationalists condemned as a sellout helped fuel a protest movement that eventually led to the overthrow of the president who signed the deal. An outspoken critic of the border deal, Azimbek Beknazarov, is now a leading member of the new Kyrgyz government and a robust champion of Kyrgyz nationalism.

Amid rising nationalist sentiment, China has become an easy target for populist potshots, despite the fact that Russia remains the dominant power and, along with the United States, has a military base in Kyrgyzstan. China has not helped its case by sometimes making clumsy moves, such as a request to the United Nations that it list a Kyrgyz poem - the Epic of Manas - as a Chinese contribution to world cultural heritage. (China's Xinjiang region has a small population of ethnic Kyrgyz.) China's claim on the poem stirred outraged accusations of cultural theft.

Such tensions will increase sharply if China goes ahead with a far-reaching plan under discussion to build a new railway line from Xinjiang to Kyrgyzstan and then on to Uzbekistan. Most of the work on what would be one of the world's most ambitious infrastructure projects probably would be done by Chinese laborers.

He, the owner of the shopping mall gutted by fire, has just finished rebuilding his property and plans to reopen in September. He has put metal bars on the windows in the hope that they might deter any looters. His mall has been torched twice in five years, and he worries that the next time could be worse. "We don't know what to do. China is big and getting stronger, but here we are still outsiders."

中國食品安全嗎?

中國人權是最好的?

KMT真廉潔?