Last week's historic visit to Taiwan by Beijing's cross-strait chief, Chen Yunlin, which culminated in four useful agreements, focused attention on issues of human rights as well as politics. Some issues concerned the proper government response to public protests in a free society. Others involved fair investigation of former and present government leaders suspected of corruption.
Chinese have recognised the importance of protecting foreign envoys for almost 3,000 years. The feudal states that contended for power before establishment of the Qin dynasty reciprocally assured the personal safety of their emissaries. Such protection has continued to be indispensable to inter-state co-operation.
After police in Tainan failed to prevent an assault on Mr Chen's deputy, president Ma Ying-jeou's government was obligated to do better during Mr Chen's visit. Although police could not prevent Mr Chen from being trapped in a hotel for eight hours by a huge mob of protesters, they did defend him against bodily harm throughout a stressful week.
In doing so, they went beyond the limits of a free society, forbidding peaceful protesters from displaying Taiwanese and Tibetan flags, confiscating flags from demonstrators, closing a store that played Taiwanese songs and seeking to minimise the visitors' awareness of the protests. There were also incidents of police brutality, albeit sometimes in response to violent provocations by demonstrators.
The police misconduct even outraged many local supporters of Mr Chen's visit. Mr Ma, in addition to implementing his campaign pledge to sponsor revision of the Assembly and Parade Law to eliminate protesters' need for advance official permission, should recommend amendments prohibiting the kind of undemocratic police practices that recently occurred and order training designed to enhance police compliance with the law. It is encouraging to note that Democratic Progressive Party chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen, who led the massive opposition demonstration, has subsequently called not only for a government review of police misconduct but also for a re-examination by her own party of its failures to maintain order among its demonstrators. The DPP, if it is to fulfil its essential role as democratic opposition, must not degenerate into an army of street fighters.
Some Taiwanese and foreign critics took the occasion of Mr Chen's visit to call attention to another crucial feature of democratic government - the fair prosecution of current and former officials suspected of corruption. The critics voiced three serious complaints about recent arrests and incommunicado detentions of prominent DPP figures who have served as government officials. They imply that the DPP is being singled out for prosecutions while corruption among Kuomintang leaders is being ignored. They also claim that: most DPP suspects have been held incommunicado without a court examination of the justification for their detentions; and that prosecutors' offices have been leaking detrimental information about the suspects to the media while denying them knowledge of the leaks and a chance to refute the 'trial by press'.