As expected, the Economic Development Advisory Conference yesterday recommended scrapping the "no haste, be patient" policy of restricting investment in China and gave a thumbs up to lifting the 51-year-old ban on direct links. Despite cross-strait issues being only one of five areas dealt with by the conference, the real reason for convening the meeting in the first place was to reach exactly this conclusion.
Now that the conference has spoken, though, as Mainland Affairs Council Chairperson Tsai Ying-wen (
But the real issue of the moment is, as ever, direct links. Tsai said yesterday that under its obligations for entering the WTO, which can realistically be expected early next year, Taiwan would be obliged to allow direct trade with China. It would also be precluded from banning direct communications. As for transportation, while nothing in the WTO protocols mandates this, any attempt to keep the direct transportation ban in the face of opening up to direct trade would make Taiwan an international laughing stock -- and rightfully so.
So can Taiwan's business community breath a big sigh of relief that the shackles on operating in China -- an obvious industrial hinterland for Taiwan companies as well as a big potential market -- are to be removed? Not yet. After all, opening up to China is not just Taiwan's decision to make, it also depends on the degree to which China is willing to work with Taiwan to create the necessary bilateral mechanisms for such an opening to take place.
The conference's conclusions now put China in an interesting quandary. The New Party, Beijing's de facto representatives at the conference, failed, thank goodness, to get the conference to endorse a return to the so-called "1992 consensus" -- actually it was a lack of consensus -- under which Taiwan adhered to the "one China" principle -- to its immense diplomatic damage for the rest of the decade.
Hardliners in Beijing insist on Taiwan's reiteration of the "one China" principle as the price Taiwan has to pay for the kind of talks needed to enable the openings endorsed by the conference. Obviously Taiwan cannot and must not do this, for to do so would be tantamount to renouncing its status as an independent sovereignty.
On the other hand, a contending school of thought claims that the best way to lure Taiwan back into the fold is to further its economic dependence on China -- for which China would presumably facilitate Taiwanese businesses to "boldly march west." The irony is that this is exactly the reason why "no haste, be patient" was adopted in the first place.
China has to decide how tough it wants to be, and its slowing growth is likely to have some impact on that decision. If it decides to be cooperative, Taiwan has to understand that this is not because Beijing's respect for Taiwan's people or political or economic system has increased, but because China believes that Taiwan is walking into exactly the trap that the perhaps soon-to-be-ditched restrictions were supposed to protect it from.
They won't forget this. Neither should we.
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