With the number of Chinese tour groups in Taiwan plummeting, tour operators have protested. I have researched China’s economic sanctions and would like to make a few long-term strategic suggestions:
When Beijing applies economic sanctions, it usually does not announce them outright. Instead, it uses red tape, tariffs and a “voluntary boycott” by Chinese to decrease trade volumes between itself and the target nation. The sanctions are usually terminated under one of three conditions: Beijing has achieved its political objectives; intervention from international organizations; or China has incurred great economic losses itself.
In April 2012, there was a standoff between a Chinese frigate and Philippine maritime surveillance ships near Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島). The number of Chinese visiting the Philippines decreased the next month. In June that year, Philippine ships evacuated the region due to typhoons and the Scarborough Shoal fell into Chinese hands. China’s political mission was accomplished and the number of Chinese visiting the Philippines surged from February 2013.
In September 2010, a collision near the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) saw Japan detain a Chinese trawler, its captain and crew. After the incident, China used an investigation into smuggling as an excuse to impose stringent inspections on exports of rare-earth minerals to Japan. Although the measure ended at the end of November that year, the market panicked and prices of rare-earth minerals rocketed. Japan collaborated with the US and EU to bring a case to the WTO against China’s actions. Several years of lawsuits later, China lost. Near the end of 2014, China abolished the restrictions.
In September 2012, Tokyo nationalized the Diaoyutais, drawing protests in China. The next month, the number of Chinese visiting Japan plunged. However, from January last year, the number started to increase. Why would China ban its people from traveling to Japan for two years and then suddenly lift the ban? The reason might be that China wanted to improve the trade levels between the two countries. In 2012, demonstrators vandalized Japanese stores in China, shocking the Japanese public. China became a risky place to invest and in 2014 Japanese investment in China dropped by 38.8 percent. Beijing realized it had to improve its economic relationship with Japan.
China has made it clear that it will only remove the restrictions on visitors to Taiwan if the government recognizes the “1992 consensus” or that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China.” However, even a United Daily News poll in March said more than 70 percent of the public regard themselves as Taiwanese, while only 20 percent see themselves as Chinese, or as both Taiwanese and Chinese. When the majority of Taiwanese do not regard themselves as Chinese, to ask the government to acknowledge “one China” is asking it to act against public opinion.
Although it is possible to resolve disputes through the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism, tourism is not the WTO’s responsibility. A reduction in Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan will not really hurt China economically, with the exception of a few Chinese airline companies.
The Chinese government is keeping its people from traveling to Taiwan, and there does not seem to be a way out of this situation for the time being. Hence the government has to continue to negotiate to minimize the damage. Meanwhile, the government should make long-term adjustments, facilitate transformation of the tourism industry and minimize the ramifications of Chinese economic sanctions.
Guo Yung-hsing is a professor at National Taichung University of Science and Technology’s department of international trade.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers