The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held their fourth economic forum over the weekend in Shanghai. Since Council for Economic Planning and Development Vice Chairman San Gee (單驥) is a political appointee, his participation in the forum was controversial. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) announcement that civil servants were allowed to visit China was an attempt to justify the KMT-CCP meetings after the fact.
The Regulations Governing Entry Permission to Mainland China for Government Employees and Persons with Special Status in the Taiwan Area (台灣地區公務員及特定身分人員進入大陸地區許可辦法) stipulate that political appointees can only visit China to take part in conferences organized by international bodies. The KMT-CCP forum hardly qualifies.
This is not the first time that a political appointee has broken the law to visit China. Financial Supervisory Commission Vice Chairwoman Lee Jih-chu’s (李紀珠) attendance at a cross-strait financial seminar last month was another example.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is committed to promoting cross-strait exchanges, but it must draw up supplementary measures to make sure they are legal. The Mainland Affairs Council should have amended the law earlier. Since it did not, the KMT has only itself to blame for the criticism it has received.
The main obstacle for civil servants visiting China lies in the terms of the Regulations Governing Entry Permission to Mainland China for Government Employees and Persons with Special Status in the Taiwan Area. But since this regulation is an executive order, it can be amended by the Executive Yuan simply by public announcement. Even if it were necessary to amend the Act Governing Relations between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which can only be done by the legislature, this would not be hard since the KMT holds a legislative majority.
Considering that cross-strait exchanges are a mainstay of current policy, one would expect the government to remove legal obstacles in an orderly way ahead of time. The current confusion highlights the fact that the administration is in a rush to put all its eggs in the China basket. But China may not be the safe haven from the global economic storm that the KMT government imagines.
Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), chairman of China’s People’s Political Consultative Conference says that China wants to sign a comprehensive economic cooperation agreement with Taiwan. The pact would be modeled on the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) Beijing signed with Hong Kong in 2003. Beijing wants to create a single Chinese market, using economic union to pave the way for political union.
The CEPA only brought transitory benefits to Hong Kong. Its costs have outweighed its benefits. Now that the financial tsunami has hit, the economic bubble has burst and Hong Kong’s ailing economy is more dependent on China than ever.
Taiwan’s leaders should open their eyes to the fact that China, too, is suffering from the global economic downturn, and many Taiwanese businesses with investments in China are pulling out. This is hardly the time to be rushing headlong into China.
Rather than putting their faith in a shaky Chinese market, the government should try to boost domestic demand and salvage the economy by investing in Taiwan.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS