Facing ‘death by China’
Political leaders always see the future with vision, while cunning politicians only see the time being with short sight.
In 1996 then-president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) China policy was “no haste, be patient”; in 2000 then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) changed it to “active opening, effective management” and then “active management, effective opening” in 2006; in 2010, then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) made the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement his trade policy with China, locking Taiwan into the “one China” system.
Taiwan is still fighting job losses, deteriorating trade and weak finances.
In the US, on March 8, 2000, then-US president Bill Clinton addressed Johns Hopkins University regarding “permanent national trade relations status for China.”
He said: “If you believe in a future of greater openness and freedom for the people of China, you ought to be for this agreement. If you believe in a future of greater prosperity for the American people, you certainly should be for this agreement. If you believe in a future of peace and security for Asia and the world, you should be for this agreement.”
He said this was a one-way street forcing China to open its market to the US.
Was it true, or did it instead open the US market wide to China?
Through Clinton’s effort, in 2001, China joined the WTO and began flooding the US with illegally subsidized exports. The US markets have been flooded with all kinds of merchandise made in China.
In 2011, Peter Navarro published a book, Death by China, saying, among other things, that China is using the WTO as a weapon of US job destruction by polluting for profit, worker abuse, slave labor, currency manipulation, abusive trade policies, illegal export subsidies, counterfeiting and piracy, and that its “peaceful rise” is a cover for military buildup that has caused a loss of 57,000 factories and 25,000,000 job opportunities in the US and a US$3 trillion debt to China.
This is what Clinton predicted in 2000 would bring greater prosperity for the American people.
Last year, Navarro served as a policy adviser to US President Donald Trump’s campaign team. After the election, Navarro was appointed to head a newly created federal agency, the White House National Trade Council, the principal forum used by the US president to advise on innovative strategies in trade negotiations and coordinate with other agencies to assess US manufacturing capabilities and the defense industrial base.
Trump read Navarro’s book soon after it was published. It helped him plan his campaign strategy and form the national policy for his government.
This tells us he has a vision following principles for America that are predictable, rather than unpredictable as critics are saying.
Some academics in Taiwan and the US see things differently and accuse the Trump administration of being unpredictable and lacking guidelines.
They appraised China as a rising star to challenge the US in the South China Sea and warned the Trump administration against causing trouble with China.
They have also urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to accept the “1992 consensus.”
Taiwan and the US are facing the threat of “death by China,” but Tsai and Trump use different strategies to run their governments.
Trump appointed patriotic Republicans to his Cabinet to carry out his policy, while Tsai made Lin Chuan (林全) her premier and appointed KMT members as ministers, keeping her promise to form a “joint” Cabinet. She has been busy working on a series of overdue reforms, such as a pension plan, long-term care, education reform and transitional justice.
Two very different approaches toward the same threat of “death by China.”
In order to overcome the threat, Trump recruited die-hard supporters to fight to “make America great again.”
Hopefully, Taiwan will do the same one day.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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