2013年06月25日
陈光诚到访台湾，盛赞当地民主制度
AUSTIN RAMZY
台北——去年在一场外交危机中携家人离开中国的法律维权活动人士陈光诚在周一称赞台湾的民主，同时拒绝谈论在美国遭遇的争议。
陈光诚到台湾开始进行为期18天的访问，他在台北的一次新闻发布会上避而不谈最近他对收留自己一年的纽约大学(New York University)的指责，也不愿谈论纽约大学的说法，后者称他在美国的一个支持者给了他装有间谍软件的电子设备。根据陈光诚的指责，纽约大学一直受到中国方面要求赶走他的压力。
纽约大学准备在上海设立一个校区，并与中国有重要的学生和教职员工交流活动，一旦中国官方打算实施报复，这些项目就会受到牵连。该大学已经否认，陈光诚计划离开是中国干涉的结果。
陈光诚称该校受到了压力，但没有透露细节。周一被人问及自己早前的说法时，他表示，"我没什么要补充了。我现在既然在台湾，那就让我们关注台湾和这里的民主吧。"
对华援助协会(ChinaAid)是一家支持中国基督徒的非政府组织，也是陈光诚长期以来的盟友。该协会创始人傅希秋(Bob Fu)称，美国的大学在极力争取来自中国的机会，因此就对收容可能会触怒中共领导层的异见人士十分谨慎。
上周，傅希秋陷入了陈光诚事件中又一场风波的核心，因为纽约大学声称，对华援助协会给陈光诚和他家人的iPad和iPhone上装有间谍软件，外界可以藉此跟踪这些设备的行踪和使用情况。傅希秋否认自己知晓监控软件的事情，并称自己和其他人一样想知道软件的来源。
周一，陈光诚在被问及这些说法时说，"我不是电脑专家，所以不能回答你的问题。"
相反，他试图把注意力集中在中国的人权问题上，并把中国的状况和台湾这个有着充分言论自由的汉语民主社会进行对照。他说，"台湾的民主和法治表明，民主不是西方独有的体制。台湾民主的成功也揭露了中国政府关于民主不适合中国人的谎言。"
自1949年中国内战结束后，台湾一直处于自治状态，中国大陆现在依然声称台湾是中国领土的一部分。在台湾，人们一直把陈光诚视为一个象征，象征着与中国关系太过密切会带来的危险。
"台湾政府一直在吹嘘同北京达成的许多两岸协议，但这些协议更多得依赖中国大陆的善意，而不是法律细节，"陈光诚抵台之前，《台北时报》(The Taipei Times)在一篇社论中写道，"陈光诚就是一个活生生的例子，表明北京的善意及其法律制度都靠不住。"
台湾的一些人担心同大陆之间日益密切的关系会威胁到台湾的自治，还担心在大陆居住和工作的台湾人可能会成为其专断法律制度的受害者。一项允许台湾和大陆互设办事处的提议已经搁浅，因为北京方面不愿让台湾的代表不受限制地接触被关押在大陆的台湾人。
去年，台湾拒绝了此前曾三次访问台湾的达赖喇嘛前往台湾，人们普遍认为这是为了避免激怒中国政府，因为中国政府反对这位流亡的藏人精神领袖。
自2008年掌权以来，台湾执政党国民党一直在推动台湾同大陆建立更紧密的联系，其主席马英九总统(Ma Ying-jeou)以及台湾立法院长王金平(Wang Jin-pyng)都没有会见陈光诚的计划。
"我觉得，他们对会见一个中国政府不喜欢的人物很敏感，"由政府赞助的台湾中央研究院政治学研究所(Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica)研究员林继文(Lin Jih-wen)说，"他们不想给自己找麻烦。"
陈光诚预计会于周二在台湾立法院发表讲话，并同台湾的反对派政治人士见面，比如民进党(Democratic Progressive Party)主席苏贞昌(Su Tseng-chang)。
北京方面几乎未对陈光诚到访台湾发表任何评论，然而，关于中国的影响导致陈光诚离开纽约大学的说法促使中国外交部发言人表示，要么是消息有误，要么就是陈光诚在"编造什么信息"。
上周，共产党党报《人民日报》集团旗下的北京报纸《环球时报》撰文称，陈光诚"当前的尴尬是前些年中国'民运人士'在美国大多都经历过的"。
纽约大学法学教授、陈光诚的老朋友孔杰荣(Jerome Cohen)表示，他支持不要在陈光诚访台期间讨论美国的这些争议。去年，正是他协助将陈光诚带到了美国。
"我不希望它们分散人们的注意力，"孔杰荣说。在亚洲待了几周后，他与陈光诚在台湾碰了面。"我们尽可以谈谈纽约大学有没有屈服，或者谈谈间谍软件，但不管这些有多重要，我们都会失去焦点。谁想让北京高高兴兴地看我们吵架呢？"
Shih-han Huang对本报道有研究贡献。
翻译：陈亦亭、张亮亮
June 25, 2013
Chinese Activist, in Taiwan, Praises its Democracy
By AUSTIN RAMZY
TAIPEI — Chen Guangcheng, the legal activist who left China with his family amid a diplomatic crisis last year, praised Taiwanese democracy on Monday while refusing to talk about controversies in the United States.
At a news conference in Taipei to start his 18-day visit to Taiwan, Mr. Chen avoided discussing his recent allegation that New York University, which has hosted him for the past year, had been pressured by China to remove him, or the university's assertion that one of Mr. Chen's supporters in the United States had given him electronic equipment with spyware installed.
New York University is establishing a campus in Shanghai and has important exchanges of students and faculty with China, any of which could be jeopardized if the Chinese authorities wanted to retaliate. The university has denied that Mr. Chen's planned departure was the result of Chinese interference.
Mr. Chen has not provided details of his claims that the university was pressured. "I have nothing to add," Mr. Chen said when asked Monday about his earlier claims. "Now that I'm in Taiwan let's focus on Taiwan and its democracy."
Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, a nongovernmental organization supporting Chinese Christians and a longtime ally of Mr. Chen's, said that American universities were desperate for opportunities in China and thus wary of hosting dissidents who might anger the country's Communist Party leadership.
Last week, Mr. Fu was at the center of another twist in Mr. Chen's saga, when New York University said that an iPad and iPhone given to the activist and his family by ChinaAid had spyware installed that would allow outside parties to track their movements and use. Mr. Fu denied knowledge of the monitoring software and said he wanted as much as anyone to learn its origin.
Asked about those allegations Monday, Mr. Chen said, "I'm not a computer expert, so I can't answer your question."
He, instead, sought to focus on human rights issues in China and to contrast them with Taiwan, a Chinese-speaking democracy with a boisterous free press. "The democracy and rule of law in Taiwan show that democracy is not an institution that is unique to the West," Mr. Chen said. "The success of democracy in Taiwan also exposed the Chinese government's lie that democracy does not work for the Chinese."
In Taiwan, which has been governed autonomously since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and which China still claims as its territory, Mr. Chen has been portrayed as a symbol of the dangers of growing too comfortable with China.
"Taiwan's government has trumpeted its many cross-strait agreements with Beijing, but these deals rely more on China's good will than legal niceties," The Taipei Times wrote in an editorial before Mr. Chen's arrival. "Chen is living proof that neither Beijing's good will nor its legal system can be relied upon."
Some in Taiwan fear that its autonomy is under threat from growing ties with China, and worry that Taiwanese who live and work in China could fall victim to its arbitrary legal system. A proposal to allow Taiwan and China to set up mutual representative offices has stalled over Beijing's unwillingness to allow Taiwan's representatives unrestricted access to their compatriots detained on the mainland.
Taiwan's refusal last year to allow a visit by the Dalai Lama, who had been to the island three times previously, was widely seen as an effort to avoid angering the Chinese government, which opposes the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
President Ma Ying-jeou, whose Kuomintang, the governing party, has pushed for closer relations between Taiwan and China since taking office in 2008, is not scheduled to meet Mr. Chen, nor is Wang Jin-pyng, the legislative speaker.
"I think they are sensitive to seeing a figure the Chinese government doesn't like," said Lin Jih-wen, a research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, a government-sponsored academy. "They don't want to get into trouble."
Mr. Chen is expected to address the Legislature in Taiwan on Tuesday and meet opposition politicians, including Su Tseng-chang, chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party.
Mr. Chen's visit to Taiwan has brought little comment from Beijing, although the allegations of Chinese influence in his departure from New York University prompted a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman to say the news was either erroneous or Mr. Chen was "fabricating information."
The Global Times, a Beijing newspaper run by the Communist Party-owned People's Daily Group, wrote last week that Mr. Chen's "embarrassing situation mirrors the fate of many 'pro-democratic activists' in the 1980s."
Jerome Cohen, an New York University law professor and longtime friend of Mr. Chen's who helped bring him to the United States last year, said he supported not talking about the controversies in the United States during the activist's trip to Taiwan.
"I don't want them to become a distraction," said Mr. Cohen, who joined Mr. Chen in Taipei after spending several weeks in Asia. "We could have talked about did N.Y.U. succumb or not, we could have talked about spyware, but however important that is, we would lose focus. Who wants to give Beijing the satisfaction of seeing us squabble?"
Shih-han Huang contributed reporting.
