Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is to be Taiwan’s next representative to the US.
Hsiao is well versed in international affairs and Taiwan-US relations. In her days as a student in the US, she was a member of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) and served as chief executive of the Democratic Progressive Party’s US mission. She is familiar with a broad spectrum of Taiwanese affairs in the US.
FAPA hopes that Hsiao, after taking up her new post, would continue to deepen and normalize relations between Taiwan and the US, and that she would try to get a free-trade agreement (FTA) signed during her time in the position.
A Taiwan-US FTA is in the best interest of both nations.
Taiwan would benefit in at least three ways: An agreement would boost Taiwan-US trade and investment, raise Taiwan’s strategic position in the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy and boost international recognition of Taiwan.
US-China relations are deteriorating because of the trade dispute and the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s worsening investment environment is expected to incentivize investors from the US and other countries to accelerate their exodus from China, causing global supply chains to be restructured.
A Taiwan-US FTA would not only upgrade trade partnerships and attract foreign investment to Taiwan, but also help the nation to join regional economic integration initiatives, such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
China’s expansion of its economic and military influence has badly upset regional stability and led the US to view China as a strategic competitor.
To prevent China from stealing advanced US technology and keep Chinese-made 5G communications products from threatening US national security, the US has increased its cooperation with Taiwan’s technological and military industries.
The US has persuaded Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to construct a factory in the US. There is also a plan to set up a service center for US F-16 warplanes in Taiwan. An FTA would bolster bilateral cooperation in sensitive technological and military industries, and promote Taiwan’s trade and strategic status in the Indo-Pacific region.
An FTA could also boost US recognition of Taiwan as a nation. Ever since the US broke up diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, the US and Taiwan have only maintained unofficial relations, with all bilateral agreements being signed by the American Institute in Taiwan.
However, negotiating an FTA would be the responsibility of the Office of the US Trade Representative.
An FTA would only come into effect after being approved by both houses of the US Congress and signed into law by the US president. It would be an official nation-to-nation agreement concluded by the US and Taiwan governments, giving it the force of a treaty under international law.
FAPA and Taiwan-friendly members of the US Congress have long called for the US and Taiwan to sign an FTA. As US-China trade tensions escalate and the Taiwan-US partnership grows ever closer, now is the perfect opportunity to negotiate and sign an FTA.
Taiwan — which has just been declared free of foot-and-mouth disease, so that it can start exporting pork again — should approach the issues of US pork and beef pragmatically, and based on international food safety standards.
At the same time as safeguarding public health, the government should strive to reach a Taiwan-US FTA that would serve both nations’ economic and strategic interests, and upgrade Taiwan’s international status.
Minze Chien is president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS