Thu, Dec 23, 1999 page4

• More talk needed across Strait

  EDITORIAL The LA Times says doing away with all the rhetoric, WTO entry and direct links would go a long way in easing tensions between Taiwan and China

  • STAFF WRITER
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  In the midst of a new battle over reunification between Taiwan and China following the return of Macau to Beijing's rule, a major US daily has called for less rhetoric and more cooperation in the hopes of reaching an eventual end to the cross-strait conflict.

  China should renounce the use of force against Taiwan and use the expected membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) for both sides to forge closer economic ties with the island, a Los Angeles Times editorial stated on Tuesday.

  "Establishing direct air, shipping and communication links would go a long way toward building a bridge across the Taiwan Strait," it said.

  The comments resemble those of Richard Bush, the chairman and managing director of the American Institute in Taiwan, who said during a visit here last week that the expected entry of China and Taiwan into the WTO next year would likely move "both sides toward the resumption of cross-strait dialogue."

  Officials in the US and in Taiwan have said that the island is likely to join the WTO in either May or June of next year. No exact date has yet been set for China's entry.

  Cross-strait dialogue with China has been frozen since President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) declared in July that relations with China were defined as being "state-to-state."

  Chinese officials have also said that any discussion on the resumption of talks would have to wait until after Taiwan's presidential election in March.

  US policymakers and scholars have increasingly expressed the need for direct links across the Strait.

  Stephan Yates, a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation -- a conservative Washington think tank -- has warned of possible pressure from pro-business Republicans who are critical of Taiwan's WTO entry.

  "They are going to make direct links a precondition. What they would say is: open direct links or you are not ready for prime time in the WTO," Yates told the Taipei Times previously.

  Yates said Taiwan's current policy of "go slow, be patient" (戒急用忍), based on what President Lee has said are concerns over national security, would no longer hold water with Washington.

  "If the DPP's candidate, Chen Shui-bian (3?糮?/CHINESE>), appears more accommodating towards the mainland, it just reinforces the idea in Washington that the current government is not serious about moving forward on relations with Beijing," he said.

  Chen has advocated opening direct flights with China, beginning first with one-way flights from Taiwan to China and a profit-sharing arrangement for such flights.

  Other DPP lawmakers have suggested a joint venture airline to facilitate flights across the Strait.

  The Times editorial, meanwhile, dismissed Beijing's idea that it is two-thirds of the way to returning Taiwan to the "embrace of the motherland."

  Echoing the rhetoric voiced on this side of the Strait that the "one country, two systems" model is inapplicable to Taiwan, the editorial said "China's potential reunification with Taiwan poses a much more complex problem than striking a deal with a European colonial power thousands of miles away."

  Taiwan is not a colony but a functioning democracy growing wary of the Communist rulers in Beijing, it said.

  The editorial urged Beijing to renounce the use of force against the island and said it is Beijing who needs to advocate change.

  "Clearly, its (Taiwan's) people will not agree to a reunification with a Communist-run China unless Beijing itself changes."
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