When Deputy US Trade Representative Karan Bhatia visited Taipei in May, the local media called it progress. It was the first visit by a senior US government official in a long time. Over the 1990s there had been Cabinet-level visits, but none in the present administration of US President George W. Bush. That's progress?
The purpose of the visit was a long awaited Trade and Investment Framework Agreement meeting. Taiwan had shown sufficient progress on intellectal property rights to remove it from the 301 Priority Watch List. In this meeting, Taiwan continued to show progress on other matters but work still had to be done.
However, the real interest in the meeting was in the potential for a free trade agreement between Taiwan and the US, and its impact on cross-strait relations. There are various interests on cross-strait issues within Taiwan, but some of the Taiwan media played the FTA issue as most important.
Soon afterwards the issue of a possible FTA for Taiwan was raised in Bhatia's testimony to the US House International Relations Committee. It seems to be common in Washington these days, with it's almost complete focus on the Middle East and North Korea, that the usually ambiguous words used on other sensitive issues easily get policy vocabulary a bit twisted.
The first talks between the US and Taiwan on the feasibility of a FTA took place several years ago. The competition among countries that wanted to sign a FTA agreement with the US at that time was just as difficult as it is today. Then as now, the US Trade Representative (USTR) established the economic goals the US wants from a FTA.
What was seen by the US side in those early years, and openly agreed by many on the Taiwan side, was that the FTA priority for Taiwan was political -- including support for Taiwan's participation in the international community and strengthening its position in cross-strait relations. The USTR, with its economic priorities, saw this as an opportunity to improve on bilateral economic problems, most wanted by US companies or industries, such as intellectual property rights, not on a FTA agreement that would be of less importance to US companies.
Taiwan now seems to have established a much stronger economic basis for arguing its case on a FTA, helped ironically by the rise of China's economic importance. Ironically also, however, it seems the US side has changed its strategy on the FTA issue with Taiwan -- in entirely the opposite direction. There is now in Taiwan a very strong and important debate on the extent Taiwan's economy can gain from greater relations with China's economy, without losing it's separate identity, sovereignty and democracy. That is of crucial importance to Taiwan, but it also is equally important to the US and Japan.
Taiwanese companies need to expand to other countries besides China. Over the years, they have demonstrated their capacity to move quickly from one country to another when necessary, especially in Southeast Asia, but elsewhere as well. Many US companies in China have Taiwanese supervisors and technicians. Having a US-Taiwan FTA partnership would be important for both the US and Taiwan.
The statements in the press made by Bhatia seem to suggest that Taiwan should have closer ties to China. That "given the important role China plays in the East Asian economy, and given the integration of the East Asia economy that is ongoing, it's important that Taiwan not be economically isolated from developments in the rest of East Asia ... and cross-strait relations affect that."
His remarks were about Taiwan's need to move closer to China for its own interests as well as those of US companies with China exposure -- and that might help in getting a FTA agreement. He seems to believe that it is Taiwan's policies, not China's, that are preventing this from happening.
Setting aside the internal struggle within Taiwan on matters dealing with cross-strait issues and Taiwan's liberty, the suggestion is that Taiwan's industry, more closely tagged to China, would be better for the US. There may be some US companies that would like it, but it's doubtful that leaders responsible for security -- in the US, Taiwan or other allies -- would agree.
The Taiwanese government has often called for dialogue with China to discuss the many practical issues that need to be addressed. The US government publicly encourages this.
It is still US policy that a change in Taiwan's relationship with China, such as that being suggested, would need the assent of the people of Taiwan.
Now that Taiwan has developed a sound economic basis to argue for a FTA, the USTR seems to think that Taiwan should cozy-up to China. That is close to a policy of no FTA until Taiwan is part of China (the price the PRC demands is that, ultimately, Taiwan must accept becoming a part of China). While most observers feel the US had never been interested in negotiating a FTA with Taiwan, few thought it would come to this.
In the end, the price Taiwan would have to pay for agreeing to an FTA, as suggested by the USTR, would be beyond what a free country finds acceptable. A Taiwan that can help the region maintain its economic and political liberties, might convince US businesses that the price would be too high even for them.
Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and is now a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers