The meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was postponed to next month after the Dalai Lama’s recent visit to Taiwan. The negotiations on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), originally scheduled for the middle of last month, have also been delayed repeatedly. On Nov. 1, China alarmed Taiwan when Taipei was suddenly informed about the cancelation of talks in Beijing. Fortunately, Beijing quickly sent Deputy ARATS Chairman Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中) to Taipei to prepare for the Chiang-Chen meeting and ease tensions.
The Chiang-Chen meeting was delayed by political factors, while the ECFA negotiations were delayed for economic reasons. The two sides have constantly argued over whether cross-strait talks should put economics before politics or focus on both, but now it seems there are both economic and political problems.
Politically, the problem is quite serious. It is not the Dalai Lama’s visit or the screening of the documentary about Rebiya Kadeer. Rather, the problem is Ma’s three conditions for political negotiations that he proposed indirectly through Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies chairman Chao Chun-shan (趙春山).
The first condition is finalizing a cross-strait financial memorandum of understanding (MOU) and signing an ECFA. This places business before politics, something that China does not like.
The second is a domestic Taiwanese consensus; since mainstream opinion supports Taiwanese independence, China is not pleased.
The third is international approval, which not only overturns Ma’s own promise that cross-strait relations override diplomatic concerns, it also invites foreign forces to interfere in what Beijing sees as China’s domestic affairs. This is even less acceptable to China.
Business talks will not be any easier. The biggest argument is not the controversy over importing Chinese towels or agricultural products. These represent a relatively small sum of money, and China could make a great display of goodwill by relenting on these requirements.
The real problem involves setting up financial institutions. Beijing insists on different entry thresholds for Taiwanese firms in China and Chinese firms in Taiwan, and it also wants to be allowed to invest in 8.5-generation flat screen plants in Taiwan using Taiwanese technology and personnel, but it refuses to promise not to block Taiwan from negotiating free-trade agreements with other countries.
These problems mean that Taipei has finally encountered Beijing’s most ambitious attack against Taiwan’s core strategic sectors, and this conundrum will not be easily resolved.
With political and economic problems appearing at the same time, the two governments are trying hard to maintain smooth exchanges on the surface to avoid damage to their prestige. However, it will be difficult to cover the fact that the cross-strait honeymoon was a result of Ma’s excessively pro-China policies.
Ma’s pro-China policies are based on four points of wishful thinking, and all four points are now looking problematic.
First, Ma believes Taiwan can survive the economic problems caused by the US financial crisis simply by strengthening economic and trade relations with China through direct links. This is a complete miscalculation. Despite the opening of the three links and China’s purchase of Taiwan-made home appliances for rural areas, Taiwanese exports to China and Hong Kong dropped by US$16.7 billion in the first three quarters of the year. This decline exceeded the decrease in exports to the US, which fell by US$4.8 billion during the same period.
The Port of Kaohsiung has declined since the opening of direct links, experiencing the second-highest decline among Asia’s top 10 harbors, proving that opening the three links was ineffective.
Second, Ma believes China will reward Taiwan economically for making political concessions. However, after Taipei agreed to define cross-strait routes as domestic in sea transportation negotiations, Beijing squeezes out 97 percent of Taiwanese and foreign container ships from cross-strait routes. This has severely damaged Taiwanese harbors and shipping firms and turned Taiwan’s airports into Chinese satellites. It now insists on squeezing Taiwan through unequal bank entry thresholds.
Third, Ma believes that if Taiwan can uphold its “diplomatic truce” by prioritizing cross-strait relations over diplomatic relations and acting like a dependent, Beijing will give him some advantages under the “one China, different interpretations” principle. Unexpectedly, China clearly rejected this offer in Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) six-point statement, instead piling pressure on Ma with the “one China” principle, “one country, two systems” and “peaceful unification.”
Fourth, Ma’s team is keenly aware that public support for Taiwanese independence has grown continuously in recent years, but they believe that if Beijing offers the three favors, they will be able to use China’s external pressure to increase the domestic pressure and reshape national identification and improve support ratings. But since the first three points are just a matter of wishful thinking, the fourth point also falls. The rising support for Taiwanese independence and the decreasing support for unification shows that the public questions Ma’s pro-unification tendencies.
As a result, Ma had no choice but to propose the three conditions for political negotiations through Chao in an attempt to avoid Beijing pushing Taiwan to surrender by signing a peace agreement.
Ma’s misunderstandings have led him to adopt a lop-sided, pro-China policy, exciting Beijing and stirring up unrealistic expectations in Taiwan. The attempt by Ma’s team to make a political U-turn and resist the Chinese strategic economic attack is dangerous. The sweetness of the honeymoon with Beijing only existed in Ma’s imagination, and he is now about to taste the bitterness of reality.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US