Taiwanese Representative to Japan John Feng (馮寄台) in a published letter to a Japanese daily rebutted criticisms that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy had made the nation overly reliant on China.
In his letter, published on Wednesday in the Japanese business daily the Sankei Shimbun, Feng denied that the Ma administration had made Taiwan economically reliant on China.
He said such criticism also existed in Japan, but the negative view was not true. He said the reliance on China occurred before Ma took office, as local businesspeople started massive investment in China before 2000 while then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was in power.
To back up his statement, he then gave a series of figures, which showed Taiwan’s trade with China continuously growing.
Although Lee proposed limited ties with China, Feng said Taiwan’s trade with China reached 23.79 percent of Taiwan’s total foreign trade value in 2000. The percentage grew to 40.7 percent in 2007 under former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) administration, even though Chen rejected ties with China.
It slightly increased to 41.8 percent last year.
He also denied that the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in June last year has made Taiwan more dependent on China.
He said Taiwan has been largely economically dependent on China for the past two decades as millions of people visit the other side of the Strait and invest there each year.
However, Feng added that Ma has partially “corrected” the over-reliant local economy and improved trade relations with other regions.
He said trade with Japan increased 37.9 percent last year, while trade grew 36.3 percent with the US and 31.5 percent with the EU.
Meanwhile, Feng accused the former Democratic Progressive Party government of failing to protect Taiwanese businesspeople in China when they were treated unfairly.
A dispute resolution mechanism and investment protection pact between the two sides was not negotiated.
Meanwhile, a group of businesspeople who have fallen victim to the Chinese government have formed a lobby group called the Victims of Investment in China Association to urge the Ma administration to help them retrieve assets illegally seized in China before Taiwan signs an investment agreement.
Even with the trade agreement, the group said earlier this month that it received about 2,000 complaints each year from Taiwanese investors that their assets were illegally seized by Chinese companies and governments.
Taiwan’s negotiators are working to resolve differences on how trade and investment disputes will be arbitrated with their Chinese counterparts and hope to sign the protection pact by the end of this month.
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