The current stalemate over the cross-strait service trade agreement can be divided into at least three levels or aspects, as can the protesters’ aims and the authorities’ possible responses.
The first point of contention is the protesters’ opposition to what they call the “black-box” or closed-door procedure involved in drawing up, signing and scrutinizing the agreement.
One accusation is that the signing process was not subject to sufficient oversight, and another that the appropriate procedure for deliberating the agreement in the legislature has not been followed. Possible solutions include a review or subjecting the agreement to clause-by-clause legislative scrutiny.
The second level has to do with weighing up the agreement’s likely advantages and disadvantages for Taiwan.
One of the points raised here is that even if the agreement delivers a bigger cake, it will still be shared out unequally between the rich and the poor, and it will only benefit certain businesses.
Deeper consideration touches on the question of whether free trade suits Taiwan’s economy, in which small and medium-scale enterprises play the main role.
Possible solutions include sending the agreement back for renegotiation or scrapping it altogether.
The third level of the controversy is also the most fundamental. It is the bottom card that is sure to come to the top as the protests draw on.
Although it has been overshadowed by the protesters’ over-ambitious attempt to occupy the Executive Yuan, once this card is laid on the table it will help toward clarifying the vague and confusing definitions of Taiwan and/or the Republic of China, and cementing the strategic aims of the protest movement.
The common core of agreement among the protesters is the doubts they harbor about the current administration’s orientation in cross-strait relations based on constitutional definitions, and about all agreements signed with China on this basis.
The “minimum program” of the protests is, therefore, the adoption of a law on oversight over cross-strait relations, while its “maximum program” is the resignation of government leaders and a transformation of the prevailing constitutional order, which actually means the prevailing order in cross-strait relations.
The current struggle helps to place this most fundamental of questions on the table, reconfirming to the US and China what Taiwan’s strategic intentions are and reducing uncertainty in future regional interactions.
A lot of what is being said in the Sunflower student movement indicates that “procedure” and “trade liberalization” are not the crucial issues.
The most fundamental question is that of Taiwan’s relations with China.
If the matter at stake had been Taiwan’s relations with New Zealand, Singapore or other free-trade partners, the first two aspects of contention would not have generated widespread doubts and even fears.
The public’s sense of fear is not just connected with reality; it is still more closely related to each person’s understanding of “China” and “cross-strait relations,” and their own self-identity.
If we were dealing with a situation such as US beef flooding into Taiwan — which might have an impact on food safety or certain kinds of business or disadvantaged groups — they would be less likely to induce fear and might indeed be welcomed.
If, on the other hand, the situation is one of Chinese investment and Chinese managers coming to Taiwan, bringing in its wake things like Chinese bosses, Chinese banks, Chinese publications and hospitals with joint Taiwanese-Chinese investment, it is seen as an “invasion.”
Some people have also expressed concern that the managers of Chinese companies may also be members of the Chinese Communist Party or government officials.
Chinese companies are wealthy and are mostly state-run, and this leads people to ask whether Taiwan would suffer sanctions if the opposition parties was voted back into government.
Some ask how Taiwan’s economy and even personal freedom could be safeguarded if Chinese banks or the Chinese partners in joint-venture hospitals were to store the personal data of Taiwanese in their company headquarters in Beijing.
The government has tried to assure people that the pact is accompanied by a set of complementary measures for managing national security risks.
However, China long ago professed its desire for “peaceful unification” with Taiwan and feels no need to hide its intentions.
Only for the time being is China willing to make “fair and reasonable arrangements” concerning the two sides’ political statuses and economic cooperation, and it is inviting people from all spheres in Taiwan to venture out into “deep water,” meaning to engage in dialog with their Chinese counterparts on some of the more sensitive issues.
It is precisely under the prevailing difficult economic conditions that people have simultaneously become more fearful about the status of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait as things stand under the existing constitutional order, and about China’s aim of unification.
Many people have little faith in the President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration’s “complementary controls” and Beijing’s “dialog arrangements.”
These factors make it likely that the controversy over the agreement will in the end get back to the fundamental question of Taiwan’s relations with China.
Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) Democratic Progressive Party administration espoused a policy of “strategic clarity,” but it was not successful.
The current government wishes to gain the confidence of Taiwanese through its policy of “no unification, no independence and no use of force.” For more than a year, the opposition parties have been coming up with a variety of new propositions, but it is unavoidable that some activists suspect these ideas could put the opposition on the road to compromise.
These clouds of ambiguity were bound to lead to a deadlock over the service trade agreement at a time when the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are venturing into political and economic “deep waters,” and that deadlock is sure to make the US and China more doubtful about Taiwan’s strategic objectives. These are the most fundamental challenges to Taiwan as it seeks a way forward.
Additionally, the global situation is changing rapidly.
The US and China are competing with one another by means of the regional free-trade mechanism projects in which they respectively play leading roles, namely the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
Meanwhile, recent events in Eastern Europe will for a time scatter the US’ deployment of its “pivot to Asia,” and Washington will have to emphasize the need for its allies to behave in a more strategically responsible way.
Similarly, we should be grateful to the Sunflower movement for helping Taiwan, at this historic juncture, to focus its attention on the heart of the issue and face the challenge as early as possible.
If the crisis over the cross-strait service trade agreement helps the ruling and opposition parties and the general public to break out of ambiguity, confirm the nation’s status and cement its strategic resolve, the price that we are currently paying may not be too high after all.
Chang Teng-chi is an associate professor of political science at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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