Depoliticize transport links issue

Among all cross-strait issues, the issue of direct transportation is the most controversial and slowest-moving. Yet it is also what the public cares about most. Upon joining the Institute for National Policy Research in 1989, the first project I dealt with concerned direct cross-strait links. Over the past 15 years, I have hosted several initiatives at the Mainland Affairs Council and the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association. I also exchanged opinions with the relevant Chinese authorities. Direct cross-strait transportation, however, has yet to materialize.

Governments people on both sides have wished for direct cross-strait transportation for many years. The sluggish progress results from suspicion and buck-passing on both sides. With no foundation for mutual trust at the current stage, it is difficult to initiate cross-strait talks on highly political issues.

Political or talks about mutual military trust are unlikely. Talks on issues of a low-level political nature, however, do not help the present situation and may even fall victim to the discrepant political views of both sides.

In addition to creating an atmosphere of goodwill, pushing forward negotiations on direct transportation could serve as a touchstone for improving cross-strait relations. Direct transportation is hardly a simple economic issue. It involves complicated political and national security concerns.

In dealing with the issue, we first encounter two principle challenges: how to position the cross-strait transport routes and what can serve as a negotiation mechanism.

Positioning direct cross-strait transport routes can be either thorny or easy. If Beijing constantly stresses its "one China" premise and views the cross-strait transport routes as a domestic affair, or attempts to advance a similar political agenda during talks, it will be difficult to get Taiwan to sit down at the negotiating table or sign any agreements.

However, if Beijing does not attempt to embody or implement its "one China" policy, but only prevents Taiwan from declaring one country on each side of the Strait or making the cross-strait transport routes international ones, then cross-strait talks will be likely to proceed.

Similarly, if Taiwan uses the "one country on each side" of the Strait model as the premise for negotiations or attempts to use the talks to embody a political objective, it will be extremely difficult to get Beijing to sit down at the negotiation table and sign agreements. However, if Taiwan aims at preventing the cross-strait transport routes from becoming China's "internal" routes, it will be easy to make the direct transportation talks happen.

Since government authorization is indispensable to flight talks, we need still to ask what may serve as the negotiation mechanism. There is actually common ground between what President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and China's Vice Premier Qian Qichen (錢其琛) have said. They've both said the negotiation mechanism has to be equal, pragmatic and does not have to be between governments or between Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait.

As a matter of fact, Taiwan seldom takes part in flight negotiations under government auspices. The two most frequently used representatives for flight negotiations are the Taipei Association of Civil Aviation and the airlines themselves. Not even the title of the SEF was used in the flight negotiations with Hong Kong after 1997.

A double authorization mechanism -- allowing the SEF to further authorize another entity to delegate negotiations -- was introduced in last year's amendment to the Statute Governing the Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例). The purpose of such a legal change is to ensure a flexible mechanism for future negotiations between Taiwan and China.

Direct links are important to the division of labor in industries as well as businesses' global deployment. They also affect whether China and Taiwan will be able to better share resources, thus complementing each other in the globalization trend. And they will have an immediate positive impact on cross-strait peace and development.

While China aims to use direct cross-strait links to achieve unification, Taiwan wants to strengthen itself, using its superior competitiveness as support for its political security. Once direct links are in place, will Taiwan be forced to unify with China? Or will it grow strong enough to have its own way? The answer is determined by the country's strength and competitiveness, not by the unilateral wishes of the government on either side.

In the face of delays in initiating direct links, both sides pass the buck to the other. If Beijing does not return to Qian's stance to position the cross-strait flights and separate the issue from the "one China" policy, then China will have to shoulder the blame for an impasse. But if Taiwan does not activate the double authorization mechanism now that the statute has been amended and the SEF restructured, then Taiwan is to blame.

The more political implications can be detached from the issue of direct cross-strait transportation, the easier it will be to start negotiations.

Chang Wu-ueh is an associate professor at the Institute of China Studies at Tamkang University.

Translated by Jennie Shih