Many analysts believe Taiwan’s admission to the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an observer to be a reflection of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) hidden agenda on Taiwan. The question is if the CCP will show Taiwan goodwill in talks over an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
Based on the fact that the ECFA was not on the agenda for the third and fourth meetings between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), many wonder if China will frustrate the Taiwanese government’s goals.
The current stagnant status of the ECFA is in fact a result of requests by the government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). The CCP is merely playing along.
This means that there could be some huge breakthroughs at the fifth meeting between Chiang and Chen that is scheduled for next year. There are several reasons for backing this theory.
First, in January 2002, the CCP proposed a mechanism for cross-strait economic cooperation. However, this suggestion never came to fruition because Taiwan insisted that talks be conducted under the framework of the WTO.
Last July, Ma proposed a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and five months later, the chairman of China’s People’s Political Consultative Conference, Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), formally responded to the Ma administration on the matter.
Jia suggested that a CECA be established as soon as possible. Jia’s suggestion was later included in Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) “six points” speech.
In this speech, Hu brought together the differences in opinion between Ma and Jia. Ma emphasized words like “comprehensive” and “agreement,” while Jia emphasized words such as “cross-strait” and “mechanism.”
Hu said the two sides could sign a CECA and set up a collaboration mechanism with special “cross-strait characteristics.”
This shows that the CCP at the time was willing and had plans to promote cross-strait economic cooperation.
In early February this year, the Ma administration was prepared to include the topic of a CECA on the agenda of the third meeting between Chiang and Chen and it was even sure of completing its ratification before the end of this year. Later that month, the Ministry of Economic Affairs completed the draft for the agreement and submitted it to the Cabinet for approval so it could be discussed at the next Chiang-Chen meeting.
These developments seem to contradict the fact that the ECFA has not been included on the agenda for the latest two meetings between Chiang and Chen. Why have things come to a standstill? This is the work of the Ma administration rather than the CCP.
In the past, the CCP was suspicious of the underlying motives behind the Ma administration’s eagerness to sign an ECFA and its attempts to sign free trade agreements (FTA) with other nations as this could give Taiwan the opportunity to declare independence.
However, there are some indications that the CCP is trying to eradicate these suspicions.
First, the Ma administration has adopted a strategy of lying low. The government has lowered its sights — instead of an FTA, they were willing to sign a CECA with China, which is similar to the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangements (CEPA) that China signed with Hong Kong and Macau.
The Ma administration has low demands — it changed its rhetoric from wanting to “discuss related regulations with ASEAN” to saying that the promotion of an ECFA could enable other countries to “be more proactive in discussing FTAs with Taiwan.”
Finally, the government is also taking a low profile in its dealings with China — it wants agreements to be based on the WTO “spirit” rather than the WTO “framework.”
Secondly, the CCP is confident that its opinions will be considered by other nations when discussing trade agreements with Taiwan and that agreement titles that China finds offensive will be avoided.
The CCP’s position on promoting a mechanism for cross-strait economic cooperation has not changed, the signing of an ECFA is only a matter of time and the only question left now is how much Taiwan will benefit from an ECFA.
On the other hand, the government places importance on public opinion and worries that signing an ECFA will give the pan-green camp ammunition in its opposition, which would not be beneficial in the year-end mayor and county commissioner elections.
The government is even more worried that the local elections will reflect a lack of confidence, or turn into a vote of no confidence. To avoid these dangers, the government has put the ECFA issue aside for the time being.
Pressure from the pan-green camp has resulted in government hesitation, but it is not enough pressure to change the direction of government policy. Now that the three links have been established with China, interdependence between Taiwan and China will increase and even if Taiwan is more reliant on China than China on Taiwan, the Ma administration remains confident that the CCP will not allow Taiwan to lose everything because this could force a declaration of independence or the creation of two Chinas.
In addition, the government also hopes to achieve progress of historic proportions by ending Taiwan’s economic marginalization.
Therefore, the ECFA has probably come to a standstill because China is playing along with the requests of the Ma administration.
Regardless of who wins in the year-end elections, everything will be rosy for the Ma government. In addition, the ECFA draft will probably also be finished by then. The most probable time for signing an ECFA will be the fifth meeting between Chiang and Chen next year.
Emerson Chang is director of the Department of International Studies at Nan Hua University.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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