Before the Sunflower movement ended in April, the ruling and the opposition parties agreed to pass a bill on the oversight of cross-strait agreements before deliberating the cross-strait service trade agreement.
However, eight months have passed and the legislature has still not passed an oversight bill. Worse, even if the Cabinet’s version of the bill were passed, it would still be difficult to resolve a disagreement between political camps over national security tied to the trade pact.
There are two major controversies over the service trade agreement: economic benefits and national security.
Economic benefits are easier to assess, and disputes over the distribution of benefits across different sectors can be addressed through subsidies. For instance, sectors that might experience a negative impact could either be excluded from the agreement or receive subsidies from the government, as could workers in these sectors. That is precisely why the government allocated NT$98.2 billion (US$3 billion) to the industrial adjustment fund in response to trade liberalization.
However, there is still no solution to the dispute over national security.
According to an opinion poll published by Taiwan Indicator Survey Research in March last year, 32.7 percent of the public believed that the service trade agreement was more economically advantageous than disadvantageous, while 35.8 percent believed the contrary was true. The difference between the two views was minor.
However, when it comes to national security and sovereignty, 21.2 percent of respondents considered trade to be more beneficial than harmful, while 50 percent were of the opposite view. In other words, the national security factor is a big reason for the public rejecting the service trade agreement.
The national security concerns are based in uncertainty and fear. At this point, cross-strait relations are more complicated than ever — contributing to the uncertainty — and the nation has no experience to fall back on to assess what risk this poses to security. Moreover, fear is difficult to gauge and to resolve.
An ever-stronger and autocratic China fills Taiwanese with concern over the influence that the service trade agreement might have on Taiwan’s autonomy and sovereignty.
People worry that China will use economic interests to influence the nation’s economy and politics, and go so far as to annex Taiwan.
For example, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party governments prior to 2008 were of the opinion that direct cross-strait flights would be a threat to national security. However, there are now 828 direct cross-strait flights on a weekly basis.
Is Taiwan’s national security currently under serious threat, or could it be that the assessments of previous governments were wrong, affecting millions of travelers and even Taiwan’s economic advantages?
Further, many Taiwanese worry that the economy is too dependent on China and believe that Taiwan should diversify its markets. However, how much must Taiwan depend on Chinese markets before that reliance could be considered to border on the dangerous?
Taiwan’s export dependence on China stood at 16.9 percent in 2000 and climbed to 28 percent in 2006, almost twice as much as in 2000. It remains near that level. Is Taiwan safe now?
The Cabinet’s version of the oversight bill stipulates the establishment of a national security review mechanism which would demand a security assessment from the entity seeking a cross-strait deal before presenting it to the Executive Yuan for cross-departmental review.
Then, the review would be submitted to the National Security Council for re-examination to ensure that national security would not be harmed.
Only after this procedure is complete can follow-up negotiations occur and the agreement be signed.
Although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) does not believe that the service trade agreement will pose any threat to national security, it is clear that the public believes otherwise.
When Ma establishes a national security mechanism to review the service trade agreement, will that mechanism find that there is a threat to Taiwan’s national security?
When the cross-strait trade in goods agreement is run through this mechanism, will that put an end to the disputes between the ruling and opposition parties? Will it make Taiwanese feel safe? Will younger people like those who took part in the Sunflower movement agree?
Presumably, the answer to all these questions is no.
To address public doubts over national security, the government should attempt a trial opening of the trade agreement in parts of both nations to gain experience in evaluating national security risks.
Also, the government should commission think tanks from different political parties to produce a national security assessment report and publish it, along with the government’s findings, for the whole nation to review.
Further, during cross-strait negotiations, the government should maintain an ongoing dialogue with opposition parties and the public. In addition, the government should create a supervisory and management mechanism to monitor agreements after their implementation.
The president should establish a council for Taiwan’s economic security and political democracy that includes members from across party lines, representatives of industry, government agencies and academia, as well as innovators and community leaders. This council should monitor and manage the consequences of trade liberalization that might have a negative impact on the nation’s political autonomy.
Tung Chen-yuan is a professor at the National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of Development Studies.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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