American Institute in Taiwan Director Douglas Paal said that free trade agreements must benefit the parties involved economically, not just politically, in order to be successful.
"Open markets and free trade are the engines of economic growth and security ... But to succeed, free-trade agreements must make sense and benefit all the parties concerned and not be simply political window dressing," he said.
Paal made the remark in his keynote speech yesterday morning to an international seminar on changes to the US government and its policy in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks. The two-day seminar is being held at the Academia Sinica.
"A free-trade agreement is to accomplish the objective of expanding free trade," Paal said after his speech when asked by the Taipei Times to elaborate.
"All free trade agreements set some political motivation, because we try to expand the community of free and democratic nations, certainly to support the prosperity the trade brings," he said.
"But at the same time, we've got a long agenda. Free-trade agreements are now being negotiated with Singapore, Australia and elsewhere. And each one of those, we will measure not by their political context first, but by their economic achievement," he said.
When asked to comment on the US reading of Taiwan's motivation for seeking free-trade pacts with major trading powers in the Asia-Pacific region, including the US, Paal sidestepped the question.
"In the case of Taiwan, we focus primarily on resolving the left-over issues from the introduction to the World Trade Organization. If we don't get those resolved, there is no point going out to talk about a free-trade agreement," he said.
US officials have reiterated that Taiwan's ability to fulfill commitments made during its WTO entry, instead of talks on forging a free trade pact, have been the primary US concern as far as bilateral trade ties are concerned.
In his speech, Paal said that US foreign policy has changed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, with a rekindled "case-specific approach to multilateralism" developed to cope with Washington's relations with the outside world.
He said the US has the willingness and determination "to build and lead the formation of coalitions of like-minded peoples" to combat transnational threats ranging from terrorism to nuclear proliferation.
"This means consulting and co-operating with former rivals such as Russia and China," he said.
"America's interests and those of the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are well served by a candid, constructive and cooperative relationship" between the US and China, Paal said.
Paal said the US commitment to sell defensive weapons to Tai-wan as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act reflects Washington's belief that "a secure and self-confident Taiwan is a Taiwan more capable of engaging in political interaction and dialogue" with China.
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