The returns on cross-strait economic exchanges may be diminishing because the Chinese economic model is changing, former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan Richard Bush said on Wednesday.
“Taiwan was a real beneficiary of export-led growth relying on essentially cheap labor, abuse of the environment and local corruption,” he said.
However, China was moving away from that model, and Taiwanese companies aiming to position themselves in the middle of the global supply chain had better move with it, he said.
At the same time, Chinese companies that would like to displace their Taiwanese partners are coming to prominence, he added.
Under these circumstances, Taiwan’s economic future cannot rest solely on liberalizing the nation’s relationship with China.
Taipei should beware of “putting all of its eggs in that basket,” he said.
Now director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, Bush launched his new book Uncharted Strait: the Future of China-Taiwan Relations.
He said that Taiwan needed to deregulate and improve economic relations with all of its major trading partners.
Bush said that although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) understood that the country had to lift some of its protectionist trade barriers, politically it was extremely tough for him to put new policies into action.
Ma had used some of his political capital and had removed one key barrier involving the import of US beef, Bush said.
“I hope that leads to liberalizing steps between our two countries,” Bush said.
“We all understand how difficult this is to do in Taiwan’s domestic political context, but from a long-term perspective it is essential,” he said.
Bush said that it might be possible for Taipei to reach a separate and independent fisheries agreement with Japan before some kind of general agreement was reached between Beijing and Tokyo over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known in Japan as the Senkakus.
“My personal understanding is that the Ma administration would very much like to see a new fisheries agreement with Japan — if only to improve the livelihood of the Taiwan fishermen,” Bush said.
He added that negotiations for such an agreement had gone on for some time and had now been given “a new urgency.”
“I hope that progress can be made soon, because the fishing season is coming. I don’t think that Beijing would be unhappy if Taiwan reached such an agreement,” Bush said.
He said that Taiwan’s agreements “in the economic area” seemed to be “OK” with Beijing.
Bush said that he wanted to “stress the danger” in the current dispute over the Diaoyutai islands.
“Realistic people understand that resolving the territorial dispute is a long way off, and very difficult,” he said.
One solution might center around “some sort of joint development” of the islands’ resources because that would emphasize cooperation, he added.
“The way countries — particularly China — are operating in the vicinity of the islands is worrisome,” Bush said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods