Mon, Nov 21, 2016 page6

• EDITORIAL: APEC coverage a public disservice

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  Leaders, ministers and businesspeople from 21 APEC members gathered in Lima, Peru, over the weekend for a summit with the theme “Quality Growth and Human Development,” but their discussions were largely dominated by fears of rising protectionism and opposition to globalization around the world.

  It is ironic that while delegates to this year’s APEC forum were trying to promote free trade and promote regional economic integration, the victory of US president-elect Donald Trump and Britain’s decision to leave the EU in June seem to suggest a rising sentiment toward deglobalization.

  No matter whether US Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton or Trump won the US election, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact among 12 Pacific Rim countries as well as the US-EU Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement have at best only a slim chance of being approved by all member states.

  It is not because people do not want to pursue globalization and regional trade cooperation — free trade has actually lifted many poor nations out of poverty and created jobs for poor people.

  Yet people in some parts of the globe are rebelling and become increasingly skeptical of the benefits of free trade because globalization has also created problems that have gone unresolved for years.

  World leaders have acknowledged that one of those problems is an increase in economic inequality between the world’s rich and poor nations as well as between the rich and poor in individual countries, but their policies have often exacerbated this issue.

  Even so, Asian nations are still interested in inking regional trade deals, be it the TPP, China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) or the broader-scale Free-Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

  Implementation of the TPP may be off the table for now, but at the Lima meetings, Mexico, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore are reported to have agreed to continue with the TPP with or without the US. Discussions about pushing ahead with talks on the RCEP are continuing, while ministers from APEC nations have offered their support for an eventual realization of the FTAAP to help boost the group’s regional economic integration.

  However, Taiwan’s Chinese-language media focused their coverage of the summit largely on the nation’s representative to it, People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), and his meetings and encounters with world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), with few paying attention to how the official delegation worked to redefine Taiwan’s role in regional development under the government’s “new southbound policy.”

  This negligence not only discounts Taiwan’s actual achievements in engaging its trade partners, but also downplays the significance of participation in one of the few international forums in which this nation has equal membership with other participants.

  The media shed little light on how Taiwan is using APEC to conduct trade discussions with other member states; to look for bilateral or trilateral trade deals; or to reinforce the nation’s international engagement.

  There were reports about the launch of a Taiwan-US fund to empower women’s participation in the economy and there were glimpses of the activities of our delegates at the annual gathering, but the media were largely preoccupied by domestic issues, ranging from the workweek schedule dispute to proposed same-sex marriage amendments to imports of food products from five Japanese prefectures.

  What has been most lost in the coverage of the APEC summit is the nation’s strategy for foreign trade — in view of an environment of lukewarm trade activity, weak growth of the global economy and the greater role taken by China in global trade. In this the Chinese-language media have badly let down their readers, viewers and listeners.
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