With both China and Taiwan about to enter the WTO, it will become harder to maintain economic and perhaps even political barriers between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, analysts said yesterday.
Membership in the world trade body for both nations, now expected before the end of the year, could bring them in closer and more regular contact and help improve the atmosphere of bilateral dealings.
"The two sides' entry into the WTO could create an opportunity for both to stop seeing each other as enemies," said X.L. Ding, an expert of politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Taiwan confirmed late Tuesday it had reached an agreement on entry into the 142-member organization, a day after China said it too had been able to remove the last remaining hurdle to membership.
While hailing the agreement, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (
"To some extent there will be an impact on bilateral ties," he said.
Lin's lukewarm attitude was emblematic of the country's uneasy relations with China, even at a time when Taiwanese investors may have poured as much as US$70 billion into China.
US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick was more upbeat, saying that "Taiwan is an economic powerhouse whose membership in the WTO will benefit the United States, Taiwan and other members of the multilateral trading system."
Although some economists have said joining the WTO could spell doom for many of the nation's farmers, who will face fierce competition from cheap imported produce such as fish, tea and rice from China and the US, officials say they're ready.
Many farmers began planning for the changes years ago, said Chen Yun-chao, an agricultural official in Miaoli.
"You win some and you lose some. Farmers face the new flow of imported produce, but on the other hand they are able to buy cheaper consumer goods," Chen said.
In what is seen as an effort to embrace the inevitable after the entry into the WTO, Taiwan has adopted or pledged to adopt a more relaxed stance on business and trade with China.
Notably, Taiwan has removed the ban on China-bound single investment projects worth more than US$50 million.
"WTO membership will go some way toward promoting direct links," said Zhang Guanhua, a Taiwan researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China's top think tank. "But the real obstacle to direct links is in the political arena."
Beijing has refused to sit down and talk about any proposal unless Taipei acknowledges its "one China" policy -- a condition President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has rejected.
The deadlock has existed for years, and even Chinese observers are pessimistic about the prospects of early changes.
Once both sides are inside the WTO, subtle and incremental improvements in the relationship could result, observers think.
"Both sides have tried to reduce distrust by political means with very limited results so far, but on the economic front, there could be more progress," Ding said.
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