This year’s APEC economic leaders’ meeting takes place in Beijing on Monday and Tuesday. Former vice president Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) is to again represent President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) at the meeting, where he has a chance to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
When Taiwan’s representatives are dealing with Beijing, be it a meeting between Siew and Xi or between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), the media must offer a word of advice. APEC is a forum for multilateral dialogue, so Taiwan should not give China its sole attention at the expense of more diverse connections.
Taiwan’s representatives might want to take full advantage of this opportunity for a high-level meeting with their Chinese counterparts, but for cross-strait relations to develop normally, it is also necessary to face problems honestly and frankly. Only such an approach can help to promote understanding and avoid misjudgements.
Ever since he stepped down as vice president, Siew has been devoting a great deal of effort to setting up the Zijinshan cross-strait entrepreneurs’ summits. These forums are seen as a club for rich and powerful politicians and businesspeople, and as a platform for the kind of interchange that promotes unification.
The present atmosphere in Taiwan is one of revulsion against the collusion of interest groups associated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Given that mood, the government must first consider public perceptions when it decides who is authorized to do what at this international get-together. If it does not, it would give rise to further popular resentment, while losing sight of the real purpose of the nation’s efforts to broaden its foreign relations.
From Taiwan’s perspective, the APEC summit has an important background factor that cannot be ignored, namely the communique adopted by the fourth plenum of the CCP Central Committee, which ended on Oct. 23.
The communique calls for doing things strictly in accordance with the Chinese constitution and the Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macau. It calls for implementing central government powers in accordance with the law, supporting the chief executives and governments of the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative zones in governing according to the law, and preventing and opposing interference in the affairs of Hong Kong and Macau by outside forces.
The communique also stresses using legal means to uphold the “one China” principle, oppose Taiwanese independence and promote a common recognition of the need to maintain the “one China” framework.
These two declared standpoints could be understood as a response to Ma’s Double Ten National Day address. Siew and Wang cannot evade or remain silent about this issue during their Beijing trip.
As the president’s special envoys, Siew and Wang must at least reiterate the public statement of government policy that Ma made in his Oct. 10 speech.
First, Ma said that now is a good opportunity for China to move toward constitutional democracy. Second, he expressed support for Hong Kongers’ pursuit of universal suffrage, saying that he hoped Beijing would “let some people go democratic first,” thus fulfilling the pledge it made to Hong Kong 17 years ago.
The CCP plenum rebuffed Ma’s two suggestions by swearing to uphold the Chinese constitution, of which one-party rule is an integral part, and by advocating the use of legal ways and means to oppose Taiwanese independence, as well as opposing interference in the affairs of Hong Kong and Macau by outside forces.
Siew therefore has a duty to make further efforts to communicate Ma’s message to China’s leaders when he meets them face-to-face. This is something that would make his exchanges with other leaders really valuable.
If Siew and Wang cannot find a way of establishing such a precedent, their attendance at the meeting and adherence to protocol are likely to be misinterpreted by the public as signaling the government’s acceptance of and agreement with the CCP’s communique. If such a misunderstanding were to occur just two weeks before the nine-in-one local elections, KMT candidates would suffer the greatest fallout.
Although Siew met with Xi at last year’s APEC summit in Bali, this year Taiwan and China have both experienced considerable changes in their domestic political situations. In China, former head of domestic security Zhou Yongkang (周永康) and former Central Military Commission vice chairman Xu Caihou (徐才厚) have become targets for Xi’s anti-corruption campaign. The whole network of associates of former paramount leader Jiang Zemin (江澤民) must be shaking in their boots at the prospect of the flames spreading wider.
As for Siew, for the past few years, he has been fostering a network of connections in China. Taking the entrepreneurs’ forums as an example, his main interlocutor is former Chinese vice premier Zeng Peiyan (曾培炎). Zeng, who co-chairs the forums with Siew, belongs to Jiang’s faction. These old connections are not as useful as they once were, so the National Security Bureau needs to work on a new script that is more pleasing to Xi’s ear.
As for Taiwan, the KMT’s attempt in March to push through legislative approval of the cross-strait agreement on trade in services prompted the Sunflower movement protests. In the few short months since then, all the undesirable effects of the secretive political connections and backroom deals that have been going on between the KMT and the CCP have been coming to light.
For example, Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), which started investing money back home in Taiwan after making a fortune in China, halted the production line at its subsidiary Cheng I Food Co (正義股份) in favor of the more profitable business of importing inferior oils from other countries. Is that not a typical example of the Chinese way of development?
The Association of Taiwan Investment Enterprises on the Mainland has announced that it is mobilizing Taiwanese businesspeople in China and their families to return home to support the KMT in the Nov. 29 elections — a move that is presumably intended to ensure that the main guarantor of entwined political and business interests is not toppled.
Taiwanese consumers may take into account the complicated connections between food safety concerns and the machinations of cross-strait political and business interests, and if they do, they will naturally reassess the purpose and necessity of Siew’s trip to Beijing to shake hands with China’s leaders.
The CCP plenum has rebuffed the calls that Ma voiced in his Oct. 10 speech. If Siew does not manage to return the ball during his meeting with Xi, leaving it in the hands of the KMT, it will be a very troublesome hot potato.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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