After two years of resistance and a wait-and-see attitude, China seems to have changed its "listening to his words and observing his actions" policy toward President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). During a visit to Tatan island on May 10, Chen said his government would not rule out authorizing non-government groups to negotiate direct links with China. Within 10 days, Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), director of the Taiwan Affairs Office at China's State Council, responded positively, calling on Taiwan to quickly authorize a group for direct-links negotiations. The long-halted cross-strait relations now seems to be showing signs of movement.
However, Chen Yunlin's remarks are also a cause for concern that China may be sending Taiwan a Trojan horse.
In his remarks, Chen Yunlin openly named two people China would like to see appointed as Taiwan's negotiators -- Kao Ching-yuan (高清愿), president of Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業) and Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), chairman of the Formosa Plastics Group (
In other words, China is not just saying it wants to negotiate. It is also appointing Taiwan's negotiators on Taiwan's behalf. China's attempts to control the negotiation agenda are obvious. Not only is such a mode of negotiation unacceptable for the people of Taiwan, but the heavy-handedness of it is also quite unprecedented.
In demanding that Taiwan authorize businesspeople who in the past have ignored government restrictions on investment in China, Beijing actually wants to dump the existing negotiation channels -- Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF,
The best mechanism for resuming negotiations is the WTO -- on the basis of international regulations. The second best way is to negotiate through the existing semi-official SEF-ARATS channel. These are organizations officially authorized by their governments. They also have adequate experience and resources to conduct negotiations on direct links. A worse strategy is to authorize non-government groups to negotiate -- for example, sending aviation associations to negotiate air links, business associations to negotiate trade issues, industrial associations to negotiate investment regulations, financial associations to negotiate issues regarding capital flow, and so on. The problem with this method is that there is no shared set of standards in these talks. This can easily lead to discrepancies between the measures agreed upon in different areas. Also, the agreements reached by the associations will inevitably have to be approved by the government before they can be put into effect, which brings us back to the issue of government approval.
Even worse than all of the above methods is the idea of appointing individual negotiators. This will put the negotiators -- no matter who they are -- in an extremely difficult position. Pressure from the entire country will come to bear on a handful of individuals. We can expect endless accusations of "selling out Taiwan and fattening one's own business interests." Such negotiations will also create distrust and conflict between the government and the people, which will be of no help in establishing the three direct links. As for those businesspeople named by Beijing, the best thing to do would be to forget about them. Let the two sides negotiate within the WTO framework.
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