Taiwan succeeds fine without 'one China'

As China's Vice President Hu Jintao visited here last week, I would like to express my objection to the "one China" policy the Chinese government has been pressing the island nation of Taiwan to accept.

The People's Republic of China has never obtained sovereignty of the island nation since its establishment in 1949. The Taiwanese people have rejected China's bullying tactics by voting a pro-independent candidate to be their president in the 2000 election.

With a gross domestic product of $363.4 billion, a per capita GDP of $16,300 and free elections, Taiwan is a full-fledged democratic, prosperous, de facto independent country.

China has used identical ethnicity and language to substantiate their "one China" claim. This would be like the United Kingdom claiming a "one England" policy with the United States as part of that nation.

The truth is that there is one China and one Taiwan. They should live together peacefully and help each other -- like the U.K. and the U.S.A.

Naoky Tsai

Senators pressured to vote for Alaska drilling

I first became aware of George W. Bush's plans to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when I worked with the Gore 2000 national campaign. Oil prices were used as a political weapon, and key states were targeted for higher oil prices.The elderly feared they would not have heating oil during the winter. The high oil prices were blamed on the "environmental wackos," such as then-Vice President Al Gore.

Hawaii is isolated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A disruption of oil would be a disaster to our local economy. Higher jet fuel prices would result in fewer flights to Hawaii. Our electrical grid also runs on oil.

Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka are under special political and regional economic pressures. I do not have a problem with their decision to vote for drilling. They knew there was a comfortable margin by which the drilling would be voted down.

A. Clifton
Paia, Maui

Put the country back in radio music

I am at a loss as to why country music is not broadcast locally. It was, for a time on AM and then FM; it stopped and started. Broadcasters should face the fact that there is an audience for country music. Obviously there has to be, when it is one of the largest broadcast music formats in terms of the number of stations on the mainland.

No, it will not be No. 1, but it will garner a good audience share. It should do as well as some of the cellar dwellers that now exist with all the various tweaked formats of rock, hard rock, easy rock and "trash" rock.

The good thing is -- and this goes for all radio stations -- we have cable access to a choice of formats at home.

With the direct satellite broadcasting coming at us, when it is affordable, on-air radio may kiss many of it stations goodbye. At that point we will have what we want at home and in the car. So why not country, and mix in a little paniolo with it? So goes mainland ownership of island businesses: the bottom line, not the public interest.

Robert Zimmer

Harano deserved honor of tunnel name

The primary purpose of the federal interstate highway system, of which H-1, H-2 and H-3 are a part, is a defensive corridor by which military installations are connected by wide, better-built roadways. It was originated during the late 1950s by the Eisenhower administration and is named after him.

The interstate system is built with 90 percent to 100 percent federal tax money. It is an expensive system, but it is needed to aid the defense of the United States.

The naming of such things as tunnels within the interstate system is left to the state's politicians or legislators. I think it was appropriate that retired state highways chief Tetsuo Harano had the H-3 tunnels named after him, because he was there from the beginning of the idea, throughout the chaos of the years of protests, and there at the end of the H-3 construction.

Russell Pang
Engineer
State of Hawaii

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