The meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore on Saturday last week was merely one link in the process by which the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have, over the past eight years, been plotting to construct a “status quo” that consists of upholding a framework of eventual unification.
Despite the massive defeat suffered by the KMT in last year’s nine-in-one local elections, the Chinese government keeps saying that the so-called “1992 consensus” is the political basis for exchanges and consultations across the Taiwan Strait, and that if this basis is not maintained, some kind of earth-shaking consequences will ensue.
However, the reality is quite the opposite. Since the elections, exchanges between the KMT and the CCP have intensified, and their decisions are being implemented faster than ever before. China has taken things a step further with its policy of focusing on Taiwan’s “three middles and the youth,” meaning residents of central and southern Taiwan, middle and low-income families, small and medium-sized enterprises and young people.
More important, the two sides are hurrying to finalize the cross-strait trade in goods agreement ahead of January’s presidential and legislative elections, plainly stating that the agreements on trade in services and trade in goods are both essential and must come into force at an early date. The purpose is to create a “status quo” that consists of upholding a “framework of eventual colonial unification” and have it set in stone before the end of Ma’s presidency.
The elements of this framework include the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), which would be better described as an “eventual colonization framework agreement,” the trade in services and trade in goods agreements and the establishment of a Chinese representative office in Taiwan and vice versa. The KMT hopes that, following its expected defeat in the January elections, it will still be able to make a comeback in 2020 and revive the colonial rule and martial law that the KMT imposed on Taiwan from 1945 to 1987.
The KMT and the CCP’s joint efforts so far this year have yielded quite a few results.
In May, the Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Committee, which was set up under the ECFA, set up a new working group devoted to cooperation on small and medium-scale enterprises.
In June, authorities formally approved the establishment of a representative office in Taipei of the Association of Economy and Trade Across the Taiwan Straits, which is subordinate to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, thus setting a precedent for the mutual establishment of representative offices under the guise of trade.
In August, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) held a meeting in Fuzhou, China, at which they signed cross-strait agreements on taxation cooperation and flight safety.
Last month, a meeting between Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) and China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) in Guangzhou arrived at a consensus to finalize the cross-strait trade in goods agreement by the end of this year.
On Oct. 24, the Ma administration announced in the legislature that it expected negotiations on the trade in goods agreement to be completed in the 12th round of negotiations in Taipei this month.
Is it really so important to finalize the trade in goods agreement? For the KMT, the CCP and Ma, the completed goods trade agreement can, along with the trade in services agreement and the ECFA, comprise the economic aspect of the “status quo” in cross-strait relations. They can then put pressure on Taiwan’s new government to stick to the DPP’s promise to maintain the “status quo,” otherwise, as Xi said, “the earth will shake.”
They know full well that once the trade in services and trade in goods agreements are ratified and come into force, China’s fifth column will be able to come over to Taiwan with all its capital and penetrate into every corner of the land. Within four years, it will be able to occupy tens of thousands of niches in Taiwan and hire “vote captains,” giving it firm control over any future elections in Taiwan.
Based on the above, the true purpose of the Ma-Xi meeting can be analyzed and deduced. Apart from serving Ma’s personal interests and desires, it probably had two main purposes.
First, by way of the Ma-Xi meeting and with Beijing’s endorsement, to make the “status quo” one that consists of making an eventual colonial unification framework, including the ECFA, even more irreversible than it already is. This would be done by using a carrot-and-stick approach to link the ECFA and related agreements up with the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and then requiring the Taiwanese public and the incoming government to accept in toto this “new status-quo arrangement” in cross-strait economic relations.
Second, to reiterate the “1992 consensus” and “one China” principle, making subtle and open threats as to what would happen if anyone goes against the “status quo” imposed by the KMT and the CCP, and requiring the new government to submit to it.
Should the new government accept all these things in toto? One only needs to look at the recent arrogant behavior of China’s Tsinghua Unigroup to see what Taiwan could be like in four years’ time.
According to a study carried out by Academia Sinica, 46.4 percent of people in Taiwan prefer independence, while only 16.1 percent favor unification with China. The crisis is looming. It is time for those 46.4 percent of people to wake up, stand up and make their opinions known loud and clear.
Huang Tien-lin is a former presidential adviser.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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