Late last month, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said the Chinese government would look after the interests of Taiwan’s small and medium enterprises as well as Taiwanese nationals, especially farmers. Wen said China could make interest concessions because “Taiwanese compatriots are our brothers.” He sounded as if he were trying to run for the Taiwanese presidency.
Not long afterward, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) said Taiwan and China would likely sign an economic cooperation and framework agreement (ECFA) in May or June. Over the course of just a few days, Chinese officials, both high and low, talked about making interest concessions and set up dates for the signing of an ECFA. This is very suspicious.
China’s reasoning is simple. According to WTO regulations, once Taiwan and China sign an ECFA, they must sign a free-trade agreement (FTA) within 10 years. Therefore, an ECFA is like a legally binding engagement ceremony that requires marriage within a certain period of time, a marriage one cannot withdraw from. China is therefore prepared to make all sorts of promises before the engagement, because once an ECFA is signed, Taiwan will have no way of getting out of a cross-strait FTA.
In addition to mutual tariff exemptions, an FTA requires that the signatories deregulate their service industries. This implies that large numbers of people in the Chinese service industry will move to Taiwan, thereby bringing about a “one China market.” Research by Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research estimates that 60 percent of Taiwan’s increased exports following the signing of an ECFA would go to China, while imports of Chinese products to Taiwan would crowd out products from other countries. Taiwan’s trade would become concentrated on China, which will give Beijing more power to manipulate Taiwan’s economy.
Because of the difference in size between China and Taiwan in a “one China market,” Beijing’s power to call the shots on Taiwan’s economic policy will increase, and Chinese authorities will be able to control the distribution of economic benefits among the Taiwanese public. Taiwanese businesspeople and political hacks who only care about their own interests will have to kowtow to China and avoid saying and doing things that could offend the Chinese government and powerful people there. Politicians will have to pay heed to their master when handling cross-strait relations and Taiwan’s domestic affairs, which would give China control over Taiwan’s political and economic situation and annex Taiwan without sacrificing a single soldier.
It was not very strange, then, that Wen juxtaposed an ECFA and peaceful unification on Friday last week, because one is a natural and necessary prerequisite for the other. While officials have said an ECFA will not include mention of unification, unification is precisely what it is aimed at, and that is a very smart form of trickery. This is why it is a total hoax when Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said he would resign if an ECFA mentions the word “unification.”
Once an ECFA is signed, it will only be a matter of time before the Chinese Communist Party gains control over Taiwan’s economic and political interests and annexes the country. When that happens, China will retract all the benefits it has used as bait to get Taiwan on the hook.
In the whole ECFA hoax, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has the shadiest role. Is he really a fool fishing for short-term gain or a swindler pretending to be a fool?
Lin Kien-tsu is a member of the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
Having lived through former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s tumultuous and scandal-ridden administration, the last place I had expected to come face-to-face with “Mr Brexit” was in a hotel ballroom in Taipei. Should I have been so surprised? Over the past few years, Taiwan has unfortunately become the destination of choice for washed-up Western politicians to turn up long after their political careers have ended, making grandiose speeches in exchange for extraordinarily large paychecks far exceeding the annual salary of all but the wealthiest of Taiwan’s business tycoons. Taiwan’s pursuit of bygone politicians with little to no influence in their home
In a recent essay, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” a former adviser to US President Donald Trump, Christian Whiton, accuses Taiwan of diplomatic incompetence — claiming Taipei failed to reach out to Trump, botched trade negotiations and mishandled its defense posture. Whiton’s narrative overlooks a fundamental truth: Taiwan was never in a position to “win” Trump’s favor in the first place. The playing field was asymmetrical from the outset, dominated by a transactional US president on one side and the looming threat of Chinese coercion on the other. From the outset of his second term, which began in January, Trump reaffirmed his
It is difficult not to agree with a few points stated by Christian Whiton in his article, “How Taiwan Lost Trump,” and yet the main idea is flawed. I am a Polish journalist who considers Taiwan her second home. I am conservative, and I might disagree with some social changes being promoted in Taiwan right now, especially the push for progressiveness backed by leftists from the West — we need to clean up our mess before blaming the Taiwanese. However, I would never think that those issues should dominate the West’s judgement of Taiwan’s geopolitical importance. The question is not whether
In 2025, it is easy to believe that Taiwan has always played a central role in various assessments of global national interests. But that is a mistaken belief. Taiwan’s position in the world and the international support it presently enjoys are relatively new and remain highly vulnerable to challenges from China. In the early 2000s, the George W. Bush Administration had plans to elevate bilateral relations and to boost Taiwan’s defense. It designated Taiwan as a non-NATO ally, and in 2001 made available to Taiwan a significant package of arms to enhance the island’s defenses including the submarines it long sought.
RSS