Two former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) directors and other analysts from the US yesterday urged a renewed effort between the US and Taiwan to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) struggles to convince Taiwanese not to depend on China for economic prosperity.
They made the call at a forum on Taiwan-US relations hosted by the Taiwan Thinktank and the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute in Taipei.
This year’s event focused on how Taiwan and the US can work together to face China’s power.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
As China’s sharp power influence grows, in addition to finding a more creative approach to support Taiwan’s military needs and encouraging visits by senior-level US officials, Washington should also renew efforts to nail down an FTA with Taipei at an early date, former AIT director Stephen Young said.
“But Taiwan needs to do something to control some of its agricultural lobby demands,” Young said, referring to opposition to the lifting of a ban on the import of US pork containing the leanness-enhancing drug ractopamine and US beef offal products.
Taiwan’s import restrictions on US pork and certain beef products have long been considered a major hurdle in trade relations, most notably impeding the signing of a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Former AIT director William Stanton said the US government should also look at the inking of an FTA with Taiwan from a more strategic point of view.
“If you look at the history of the US’ FTAs, the very first FTA we had was with Israel. Was it because we thought Israel was an important economic partner? Or why did we have an FTA with Morocco or Jordan? Was it because they were important economic partners? No, it was … for strategic reasons,” he said.
In the same vein, the US needs to think more strategically about Taiwan and “not just simply [about] the need to export more pork to Taiwan,” Stanton said.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Nien Su (蘇思年), a former chief economic adviser to the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, said that with the strong bipartisan support Taiwan enjoys in the US Congress, free trade is an area both sides can work on, but the Taiwanese government needs to give a clear signal of intent to the US.
Taiwan and the US should make free trade a priority next year and try to achieve positive movement on trade negotiations or any type of agreement before 2020 to avoid another missed opportunity, Su said.
The window of opportunity is rapidly closing as more issues are being put on the plate of US policymakers, he added.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
However, Project 2049 Institute executive director Mark Stokes suggested signing a fair-trade agreement instead.
A fair-trade agreement would not only be in the US’ political interest, it would also be conducive to Taiwan and the US moving toward a more normal, stable and constructive relationship, said Stokes, a former Pentagon official who served as senior country director for Taiwan and China.
Commenting on the nine-in-one elections, Taiwan Thinktank chairman Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said it was very “regrettable” that during the campaign, Taiwan had suffered systematic and organized disinformation efforts from China designed to influence Taiwanese voters.
“China is also facilitating the dissemination of false information through the control of newspaper, television, radio and online media in Taiwan. Even more disturbing is that China has directly supported the pro-China forces within Taiwan to speak on behalf of Beijing,” Wu said, calling China’s sharp power a “Trojan horse.”
Stanton said he only has one concern regarding Taiwan’s recent elections, which is that some people might misinterpret the results as that the majority of Taiwanese hope to see a closer cross-strait relationship.
He said economic issues, such as low salaries and high housing prices, were more likely the reasons behind the Democratic Progressive Party’s losses.
John Tkacik, director of the US-based International Assessment and Strategy Center’s Future Asia Project, said China is a rising power that is attempting to dismantle the geopolitical “status quo” in the Indo-Pacific.
“Taiwan’s unique geographic position in the Western Pacific … fits into the partnership strategy to meet the challenges of China’s global aspirations, i.e. the ‘China Dream’ and the Belt and Road Initiative,” Tkacik said.
Taiwan has a clearly important role to play in keeping the Indo-Pacific region free and open, he said.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
INTERCEPTION: The 30km test ceiling shows that the CSIST is capable of producing missiles that could stop inbound missiles as they re-enter the atmosphere Recent missile tests by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) show that Taiwan’s missiles are capable of intercepting ballistic missiles as they re-enter the atmosphere and pose a significant deterrent to Chinese missile threats, former Hsiung Feng III missile development project chief engineer Chang Cheng (張誠) said yesterday. The military-affiliated institute has been conducting missile tests, believed to be related to Project Chiang Kung (強弓) at Pingtung County’s Jiupeng Military Base, with many tests deviating from past practices of setting restriction zones at “unlimited” and instead clearly stating a 30.48km range, Chang said. “Unlimited” restrictions zones for missile tests is
NO CHANGES: A Japanese spokesperson said that Tokyo remains consistent and open for dialogue, while Beijing has canceled diplomatic engagements A Japanese official blasted China’s claims that Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has altered Japan’s position on a Taiwan crisis as “entirely baseless,” calling for more dialogue to stop ties between Asia’s top economies from spiraling. China vowed to take resolute self-defense against Japan if it “dared to intervene militarily in the Taiwan Strait” in a letter delivered Friday to the UN. “I’m aware of this letter,” said Maki Kobayashi, a senior Japanese government spokeswoman. “The claim our country has altered its position is entirely baseless,” she said on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Johannesburg on Saturday. The Chinese Ministry
RSS