The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) received as much attention as would be expected at this year’s APEC summit in Hawaii, turning it into big global news. Differing from APEC, which is a loose economic forum, the TPP is a proposed system of cooperation for the trans-Pacific region that could be defined as a large-scale free-trade agreement (FTA). Since Taiwan is already a member of APEC, membership in the TPP should be smooth and free from the political interference Taiwan has experienced in the past.
Incomprehensibly, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in a public announcement on Nov. 14 that the government would use the next decade to prepare to join the TPP so Taiwan could avoid being left out of regional economic integration.
Not only did the president fail to express a willingness to aggressively pursue TPP membership, but the timeline he set out was also a roundabout way of rejecting TPP membership.
If the government desires to be a part of the TPP, why wait 10 years? Do we really need a decade to establish the conditions needed to join the TPP?
Even if agriculture is a thorny issue and tariffs are needed as protection, Vietnam — already negotiating to become a TPP member — and Japan, which will be joining negotiations soon, have the same problem. South Korea, which has signed FTAs with the US and the EU, also faces the problem of liberalizing agricultural products. Why is it then that South Korea and Vietnam can do it, but Taiwan can’t?
Taiwan’s agricultural and fisheries industries underwent transformation long ago; they are currently producing refined and sophisticated products. These industries no longer need a single market or a market with cheap prices for consumers. They need markets with higher prices spread across the globe. The TPP can provide this; it is suitable for the direction in which Taiwan’s agricultural industry is headed.
Furthermore, Taiwan can negotiate with Japan and Vietnam to gain benefits and much-needed time buffers. For Taiwan, a nation that has encountered numerous hardships in the regional economic integration process, the fact that the TPP has become a topic discussed at the APEC summit is a great opportunity falling into its lap.
Why is the Ma administration treating this issue like a hot potato? There are two reasons.
First, joining the TPP runs counter to Ma’s strategy of keeping Taiwan bound to China. Gradually turning Taiwanese independence into unification with China has always been at the center of his political outlook and the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement is his greatest achievement. If Taiwan joins the TPP, it would delay and impede the ultimate fulfillment of Ma’s goal of unifying Taiwan with China.
Second, China has not agreed to join the TPP because Beijing sees it as the US’ return to Asia and its first step toward reclaiming dominance in the Asia-Pacific region in an attempt to fight the ASEAN Plus One (China) economic grouping directed by Beijing.
This is the reason China’s response to the TPP has been circumspect and cautious. If Beijing doesn’t give the go-ahead, then of course the Ma administration won’t dare act rashly.
Huang Tien-lin is a former presidential advisor.
Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat
Criticisms of corruption, a poorly managed bureaucracy and uninformed, unprincipled or unaccomplished policy in China are often met with harsh punishments. Many protesters in the “blank paper movement,” for example, have been disappeared by the authorities. Meanwhile, the WHO has asked China to provide data on its COVID-19 situation, with the Chinese government choosing to disseminate propaganda instead. The first amendment of the US Constitution, written in 1791, prohibits the US government from abridging the freedom of speech, press, assembly, petition, or religion. More than 200 years later, China, the world’s second-largest economy, still lacks the freedoms of speech and the press,
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the pride of the nation, has recently become a villain to residents of Tainan’s Annan District (安南). In 2017, TSMC announced plans to build the world’s first 3-nanometer fab in Anding District (安定). While the project was once welcomed by residents of Tainan, it has since become a source of controversy. The new fab requires a huge amount of electricity to operate. To meet TSMC’s surging electricity demand, plans are under way to construct a 1.2 gigawatt gas power station near a residential area in Annan District. More than 10,000 Annan residents have signed a petition
As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constantly strives to rewrite the Taiwan narrative, it is important to regularly update and correct the stereotypes that the PRC tries to foist on Taiwan and the world. A primary stereotype is that Taiwan has always been a part of China and its corollary that Taiwan has been a part of China since time immemorial. Both are false. Taiwan has always been a part of the vast Austronesian empire, which stretched from Madagascar in the west to Easter Island in the east and from Taiwan in the north to New Zealand in the south. That
I first visited Taiwan in 1985, when I was deputed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to start a dialogue with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). I spent three days talking to officials, the end result being the signing of an agreement where the Republic of China (ROC) recognized the right to self-determination of Tibetans. According to official KMT records in Nanking, Tibet never paid taxes to the ROC government. In 1997, the Dalai Lama made his first ever visit to Taiwan on the invitation of then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). Lee took the bold step of opening Taiwan’s doors to
RSS