Strait talk: Washington increasingly opts out不插手

TAIPEI - It has become an article of faith among observers of US foreign policy that US preoccupations當務之急 in the Middle East and with the "war on terror" have diverted diplomatic and military activities away from Northeast Asia. Leon Sigal, a program director at the New York-based Social Science Research Council, has coined the term "hawk disengagement" to describe the Bush administration's approach to the region.

This is particularly evident in the matter of Taiwan-China relations. President George W Bush came into office as possibly the most pro-Taiwan president in years. Early in his administration, he authorized a huge weapons deal, then priced at US$18 billion, now pared down below $15 billion. Bush stated the US would do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan. But the tune coming out of Washington has changed in recent years.

Particularly over the past two years, there has been perceptively less willingness in Washington to engage with either Taiwan or mainland China over the details of their convoluted relationship. Since late 2003 and Bush's now-famous call for both sides to respect the status quo in cross-strait relations, US policy has been distinctly passive, if not actually hostile to Taiwan.

But this is not because Washington's attention is focused elsewhere. US disengagement is a function of changes in Taipei and Beijing that the United States is less and less able to influence. Rather than withdrawing from the Taiwan Strait, the US is being quietly ousted. The difference between a withdrawal and an ejection is not just semantic. The former implies far more energy in US policy than the latter and places responsibility for the current state of play in cross-strait relations where it should be: in Taipei and Beijing.

Taiwan's part in this drama is complex, as the island is strongly dependent on the US for its security, and the two sides have a history of close relations. Nonetheless, Taiwan's democratic evolution is actually undermining US support, despite the rhetoric emanating from Washington about promoting and defending democracy.

Some of this was probably to be expected. As the former head of the American Institute in Taiwan, Nat Bellocchi, has noted, the framework of US-Taiwan relations was imposed unilaterally by the United States during the island's authoritarian past, and it is increasingly difficult to keep a democratic Taiwan in this foreign-policy straitjacket.

But there are aspects to this "democratic rejection" of the US that are specific to contemporary Taiwanese politics. On the one hand, there is the ongoing delay in the purchase of defensive weaponry from the US. The current package, worth $15 billion and including Patriot missiles, submarines and surveillance aircraft, has been struck down in the island's legislature consistently for more than two years. Last Tuesday, the procurement budget was voted down for the 50th time.

In the bad old days of martial law, the chiefs of staff set the defense budget and a compliant legislature produced the necessary funds. Now Taiwan has a civilian defense minister, and the government must ask for, not demand, appropriations.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian hails from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) and its coalition partner the People's First Party control the Legislative Yuan. The legislative "pan-blue" alliance is opposed to the arms package for a variety of reasons, but primary among these is a desire to undermine Chen's authority. Recent assurances by KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou during his recent Washington trip that his party would back a "reasonable arms budget" in the most recent legislative review apparently fell through.

On the other hand, Taipei itself is slowly choosing to opt out of the status quo in cross-strait relations - that is, the implicit agreement among Taipei, Beijing and Washington to leave Taiwan's political status undecided, which Bush has made a hallmark of his administration's China policy.

Chen's DPP was defeated in local elections last December, and he suffers from record low approval ratings of about 18%, according to an independent poll conducted by Shih Hsin University in Taipei at the end of last month. Perversely, this has made Chen even more determined to advance his party's pro-independence platform. It was behind his decision in February to scrap the island's National Unification Council, an institution most observers agree is an integral part of the status quo and which Chen originally promised to keep intact.

China's part to play in the ejection of the US is certainly less subtle than its island sibling, but no less definitive. Since the mid-1990s, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has spent considerable time and money turning the cross-strait impasse, which at the start of the Deng Xiaoping era was a diplomatic tussle, into a military matter. This commenced with missile tests off the coast of Taiwan in 1995-96, and includes the current deployment of somewhere between 700 and 800 short to medium-range missiles targeted at the island.

The PRC's defense budget has seen annual double-digit increases for the past decade, and this year's expenditure is expected to hit $35 billion, nearly 15% higher than in 2005. A report published by the Washington-based Rand Corporation last year, however, suggests that the official Chinese figures could understate actual military expenditures by as much as 70%. The US rightly believes that the target of the bulk of this outlay is Taiwan.

The PRC leadership is genuinely concerned about a determined push in Taiwan to turn de facto independence into de jure separation from China, even though only about 20% of the population favors it. Increasingly, it sees a military solution as the only way to prevent the push from succeeding. The Anti-Secession Law passed by the National People's Congress in March 2005 codified this concern, and marked the end of a brief period in which the PRC sought US diplomatic help to "contain" Taiwan's national aspirations.

The increasing insecurity of China's current leadership adds immediacy to this realist calculation. The current generation of communist leaders, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, are technocrats engaged in a Herculean task of economic transformation - but devoid of any political reforms. Opposition is building: by the government's own admission, 87,000 incidents of "social unrest" were recorded in 2005, up 66% on the previous year.

The US is disengaging from the cross-strait imbroglio, but through no choice of its own. Only a serious change of heart in Taipei and Beijing will reverse the trend.

Craig Meer is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.

由於在中東（特別是伊拉克和伊朗）和全球反恐戰爭中投入過多精力，美國分身乏術，在東北亞的外交、軍事活動也受到很大影響。美國社會科學研究會 （Social Science Research Council）的東北亞合作安全項目負責人里昂•西格爾（Leon Sigal）更創造出「強勢脫離」（hawk disengagement）一詞，來形容布什政府對該地區進行的戰略調整。

在台海關係上，華盛頓的 轉變顯得更加明顯。上臺之初，布什被認為是多年來和臺灣走得最近的美國總統。2001年，美國通過一項價值達180億美元的對台軍售案，其中包括出售12 架P3反潛機，6個「愛國者」三型導彈連，以及8艘柴油動力潛艇。這是美國自1979年美台斷交之後的最大對台軍售。布什甚至表示「將不惜一切代價協防臺 灣」。

然而，美國近年來的立場發生轉變，逐漸走向消極；連臺灣都認為有些「失寵」。過去兩年裏，華盛頓越來越不情願插手這「剪不斷、理還亂」的台海關係。在去年訪華期間，布什強調「反對任何單方面改變現狀，要通過對話和平解決」。

實 際上，美國的「強勢脫離」並非因注意力轉移所致；而是由於台海問題的不斷演變，夾在北京和臺北當局中間的美國如今實難再施展較大影響力。美國也不是主動撤 出了臺灣這個「不沉的航空母艦」，而是遭到了海峽兩岸的「驅逐」，情非得已。「撤出」和「被驅逐」不僅有著語義上的差別：與後者相比，前者更意味著美國利 用外交政策調整，將維持台海現狀的重任交給北京和臺北這兩個當事人。

臺灣在此中扮演的角色有些複雜，因為它完全依賴美國為其提供安全保障，數十年來一直關係密切。不過，隨著臺灣民主力量的蓬勃發展，視「推廣、捍衛民主」為己任的美國發現它對臺灣的扶持受到了阻絆。

其實，這也是意料中之事。曾任美國在台協會（American Institute in Taiwan）理事主席的白樂崎（Nat Bellocchi）說過，鑒於美台關係框架是在蔣介石獨裁統治時美國單方面制定的，在民主化的臺灣繼續舊制自然有些不合時宜。

美國在台海問題上遭到「民主邊緣化」境地，與臺北的政局有關。一方面，雖然美國2001年就批准了對台軍售案，但這項數目龐大的軍購案遲遲未在臺灣的立法院通過。4月4日，軍購案在立法院遭到第50次的否決。

在戒嚴時期（1949-1988），臺北當局制定出國防預算，毫無實權的「立法院」只能乖乖準備好必要資金；而如今，在實現民主的臺灣，政府只能「申請」，而不能「要求」它批准預算。

臺 灣總統陳水扁領導著執政黨民進黨（DPP），而反對黨國民黨（KMT）和親民黨（PFP）組成的「泛藍陣營」則控制了立法院。它們否決軍購案，是 出於多個原因；但其中最主要就是希望以此繼續削弱陳水扁的權威。今年3月，國民黨主席馬英九訪問華盛頓。出行之前，他曾多次表達「國民黨支持合理軍購」的 立場，希望將「軍購案的通過」作為「訪美大禮」送給華盛頓；不過這次美國還是沒能得償所願。

另一方面，臺北當局鋌而走險，選擇了「改變台海 現狀」這條不歸路。正如前面所提，對「維持台海現狀」這條北京、華盛頓和臺北當局三方之間的不成文協議，布什也給予了肯定和支援。當民進黨在去年12月的 臺灣地方選舉中遭到嚴重挫折後，世新大學（Shih Hsin University）民意調查中心上月底公佈的一項調查顯示，陳水扁的支持率跌至前所未有的18%。

像輸了錢的賭徒一樣，陳水扁希望借推進台獨進程挽回民心。2月，他宣佈廢除國統會（National Unification Council）和國統綱領；觀察家皆認為，該機構在維持台海現狀起著必不可缺的作用，陳水扁當初也承諾將保留該機構。

美國在台海問題上遭遇「邊緣化」其中也有北京的因素。在鄧小平時代，台海問題僅處於外交爭鬥階段；到了江澤民治下，它已升級到軍事爭鬥的層面。北京1995-96年先後在臺灣海峽試射導彈，據說目前還部署有700～800枚中短程導彈瞄準著臺灣。

過 去10年裏，中國的軍費一直保持著兩位數的增幅；今年的軍費開支將有望達到350億美元，較上年增長15%。美國國際戰略研究機構蘭德公司（Rand Corporation）去年稱，中國官方公佈的資料可能比實際支出少70%。華盛頓認為，北京大舉增加軍費，意在臺灣。

雖然只有20%的 民眾支持「台獨」，臺北當局似乎執意將「事實獨立」推進到「法理獨立」。這種趨勢，引起了北京的異常緊張。因而，通過軍事行動來解決這場潛在危機的方案， 開始佔據了上風。去年3月，中國通過了《反國家分裂法》，從而為對台動武提供了法律依據；同時，這也標誌著北京不會僅僅依靠美國來維持台海現狀。

中國國內的不穩定，也為這種現實的解決方案增添了緊迫感。這一代領導人（包括國家主席胡錦濤和總理溫家寶在內）都是經歷了經濟轉型「洗禮」的技術派官僚，卻 鮮有政治改革的經驗。去年，中國總共發生了87,000起群體抗爭事件，平均每天238起。（去年8月，公安部長周永康說，涉及100人以上的「群體事 件」2004年大約發生了7.4萬，超過370萬人參與其中；這個數字大大超過了1994年的1萬起和2003年的 5.8萬起。

出於無奈，美國逐減淡出臺海紛爭。看來大概只有北京和臺北當局回心轉意，認識到美國也是維持台海「和平穩定」現狀的重要力量，華盛頓才能繼續發揮作用。

How Piracy Opens Doors for Windows

Bill Gates may not be entirely dismayed沮喪 by software thieves. They seed the world market and make Microsoft a standard.

Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy — and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made.

Although the world's largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat搏殺 illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege — and Microsoft acknowledges — that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs.

The gist要旨 of the beneficial piracy argument is that the retail price Microsoft charges for signature products such as Windows and Office — as much as $669, depending on the version — can rival the average annual household income in some developing countries. So the vast majority of those users opt for pirated versions.

The proliferation繁殖 of pirated copies nevertheless establishes Microsoft products — particularly Windows and Office — as the software standard. As economies mature and flourish and people and companies begin buying legitimate versions, they usually buy Microsoft because most others already use it. It's called the network effect.

"The first dose is free," said Hal Varian, a professor of information management at UC Berkeley, facetiously開玩笑 comparing Microsoft's anti-piracy policy to street-corner marketing of illicit drugs. "Once you start using a product, you keep using it."

Even as the Internet makes global piracy easier than ever, Microsoft's revenue and profit have risen steadily. It earned $12 billion on $41.4 billion in revenue in calendar '05.

That record of success has led many experts and software companies to regard piracy as less of a problem than initially assumed or even part of a comprehensive strategy, said Eric Goldman, a law professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee and the former chief counsel of a Silicon Valley Internet firm.

"Is widespread piracy simply foregone revenue, a business model by accident or a business model by design?" he asked. "Maybe all three."

Of course, Microsoft executives prefer that people buy, but theft can build market share more quickly, as company co-founder and Chairman Bill Gates acknowledged in an unguarded moment in 1998.

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

That's exactly what has happened around the globe, according to the Business Software Alliance, a Microsoft-backed anti-piracy group. Even Vietnam, which at more than 90% has the highest piracy rate in the world, has improved from 100% in 1994. The No. 1 software firm in Vietnam: Microsoft.

Closer to the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters, the decline of piracy in the United States has tracked Microsoft's rise. Stratospheric 25 years ago, the U.S. piracy rate dropped to 31% in 1994, then to 21% in 2004 — the lowest in the world.

Microsoft's public posture on piracy is one of zero tolerance.

"We're all working five days a week and getting paid for three," said Cori Hartje, the company's director of license compliance. "We do everything we can to stop piracy."

The company sues online auctioneers and computer makers that supply pirated products, including Windows, the operating system for more than 90% of the world's personal computers. It cooperates with law enforcement agencies to seize pirated discs and warns users around the globe that counterfeit贋品 programs may destabilize their systems.

The effort even prompted Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia and Egypt to declare fatwas, or religious edicts, against software piracy.

Microsoft, like most other software companies, has experimented with technical tricks to prevent copying, such as discs that could be used only once and hardware "dongles" that had to be connected to the PC before a software program could run.

Legitimate users complained bitterly. Such methods caused software bugs and prevented customers from reinstalling programs when their computers malfunctioned, yet hackers quickly subverted each new attempt.

"Copy protection is a balancing act because it always reduces the value of your product," said Bruce Schneier, chief technical officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. "State-of-the-art copy protection makes your customers hate you."

By 1986, like most other software companies, Microsoft abandoned copy protection.

Now it attacks piracy with technical and legal carrots and sticks. In 2004, it launched the Windows Genuine Advantage program, which offers special features and updates for legal users. It also requires a product activation key — a string of letters and numbers the retail buyer of Windows or applications such as Word must enter to install the product on a computer.

Experts applauded額手稱臣 the approach as thoughtful, given past problems with copy protection. But it does little to deter piracy, because thousands of activation keys — stolen or generated by software programs — can be found easily on the Web.

Microsoft's legal approach differs sharply with that of the music industry, which sues as if it were in the fight of its life, said John G. Palfrey Jr., director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

"They put Napster out of business and sued Grokster to the Supreme Court," he said.

Like Microsoft, the music industry sees network effects from piracy. For little-known artists who have trouble getting airtime, piracy can be crucial to create buzz. But instead of generating revenue growth, pirated music generally replaces a CD purchase. In most countries, music revenue is falling.

In a loudly public campaign, music publishers have pressed more than 15,000 suits against individual pirates worldwide. Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance have rarely sued individuals, instead making claims against dozens of distributors and institutional users of illicit products.

More commonly, according to industry observers, Microsoft has cut pragmatic deals to convert institutional piracy into standard sales. Instead of suing, it asks organizations found to use illicit copies to replace them with licensed, paid versions. Microsoft wares become entrenched without competitive bidding, via piracy, and formal forgiveness cements the commercial relationship.

Microsoft declined to comment on how often it uses this approach.

Piracy also prevents free, open-source alternatives such as Linux from chipping away at Microsoft's monopolies, especially in developing nations.

China, for instance, promotes Red Flag Linux — a local, open-source competitor to Windows. As Gates concluded in 1998, piracy may be the only way Microsoft can stay in that market, embracing the opportunity to gradually convert pirates to payers. If Microsoft launched a draconian crackdown, UC Berkeley's Varian said, it would provoke the obvious reaction: "People would just switch to open source."

In China, pirated versions of Windows are easy to find on the street for 5 yuan, or about 62 cents. Why doesn't Microsoft put the thieves out of business by giving away or deeply discounting local-language versions of its products? The strategy would offer network benefits while providing better data on users.

Consistent global pricing reduces confusion for multinational buyers, Hartje said.

Experts believe high prices encourage piracy but offer the company offsetting advantages. If Microsoft sold Windows for, say, $10, it would lose money on every copy because of manufacturing, distribution and support costs. At zero cost to Microsoft, piracy enhances network effects by getting Windows out to users who can't or won't pay, without undercutting normal prices.

"Microsoft benefits from piracy, then says, 'If you think prices are high, blame the Chinese, because they are the thieves,' " said Ariel Katz, a law professor at the University of Toronto and an expert on the economics of piracy.

"They like us to feel guilty — to think that piracy is wrong and immoral. Economically, it's not necessarily true, but it resonates共嗚 with the public."

微軟公司估計去年因盜版軟體猖獗而損失一百四十億美元（台幣四千五百廿億元），批評者卻指出，盜版猖獗有時候反能幫助微軟打入新興市場，有效化解免費共享資源程式構成的威脅，微軟也承認此說有理。

盜版有益說的主要論點是，微軟視窗、Office等產品的售價可達六百六十九美元（約台幣二萬一千六百元），有時候相當於部分開發中國家的家庭平均年收入，迫使絕大多數用戶採用盜版。

盜版盛行使微軟的產品—尤其是視窗與Office

—成為軟體的標準。隨著一個國家或地區的經濟逐漸成熟、繁榮，民眾與企業開始購買合法版本，他們通常採用微軟的產品，因為多數人已經用慣了相同產品。這是 所謂的網路效應。柏克萊加州大學資訊管理學教授維里安表示：「第一次免費。一旦開始使用某種特定產品，你就會一直用下去。」

網路發達助長全球的盜版風，微軟的收入與利潤卻穩定增加。以去年為例，微軟的總營收大約四百一十四億美元（台幣一兆三千四百億元），利潤大約一百廿億美元 （台幣三千八百八十億元）。密爾瓦基馬凱特大學法學教授高德曼表示，這種成功的實例使許多專家及軟體公司認為，盜版問題其實非但不如各界最初想像的嚴重， 甚至可能是業者全盤經營策略的一環。他表示：「盜版普遍是否使業者蒙受損失，是意外形成的生意模式，還是有意為之的手法？也許三者皆是。」

微軟高層當然希望消費者購買合法版本，然而盜版卻使它得以更快速的提高市占率。微軟董事長比爾蓋茲不諱言確實如此。他在一次演說時指出：「在中國，消費者 每年購買的電腦平均大約三百萬台，不過他們並未承擔軟體的成本。這種情況終有改變的一天。只要有人繼續盜拷，我們希望對方盜拷微軟的產品。他們已經上癮， 今後十年我們總會想出如何從中獲利的有效辦法。」

「商業軟體聯盟」指出，這正是全球各地的現況，但表面上，微軟對盜版採絕不姑息的立場。