Following the revelation that some Taiwanese food manufacturers have unwittingly been using contaminated raw materials from China, the public should question the wisdom of signing a Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with China. There should be no doubt after the past year’s chain of scandals that toxic products are a chronic problem in China. The public wants guarantees that what Chinese-language media have labeled “black-hearted” foods will not enter the country.
The CEPA would be a free-trade pact to enhance trade exchanges with China. Earlier this month, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) cited the CEPA between China and Hong Kong as a model that could be used as a starting point in negotiations. The goal, Chiang said, would be to promote and protect Taiwanese businesses in China.
Hong Kong signed a CEPA with China in June 2003, the goal of which was to boost trade and introduce measures such as allowing Hong Kong companies to sell products tariff-free in China. On Jan. 1 the following year, Macau signed a CEPA with China to receive similar trade benefits.
What Chiang failed to mention, however, is that the pact is modeled not as an agreement between two countries, but as a deal between a country and its territories.
Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce Jiang Zengwei (姜增偉) recently suggested that Taiwan and China ink a partnership based on the CEPA model “to allow Taiwanese compatriots to enjoy more preferential treatment and opportunities.”
It is hardly surprising that Beijing is eager to sign a CEPA with Taiwan. But by doing so, Taiwan would bolster China’s scheme to link Taiwan with Hong Kong and Macau as part of a Greater China economic zone, with ultimately political intentions.
Signing a CEPA with Beijing is, in other words, no light matter. It is not simply an issue of helping Taiwanese companies, because the arrangement could deal a blow to national sovereignty and bolster Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is little more than a local economic entity. Sadly, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is not interested in a public debate on the matter.
The KMT administration seems so focused on reaping the benefits of China’s growing economy that it is blind to the fact that Beijing would use the CEPA to further its political goals. For China, there’s no such thing as “non-political.”
China made its agenda perfectly clear when Vice Minister of Commerce Liao Xiaoqi (廖曉淇) said: “The CEPA is a successful implementation of ‘one country, two systems.’”
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has long proclaimed that his goal is “ultimate unification” with China. In an interview with the Mexican daily El Sol de Mexico, he clearly stated that relations between Taiwan and China were not state-to-state. Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), meanwhile, is well-known for his “cross-strait common market” proposal, something that fits all too well with Beijing’s hopes for a CEPA with Taiwan.
Regardless of all the fantasies of Chinese riches, the sobering reality is that a CEPA based on Hong Kong and Macau’s trade with China could have an impact on Taiwan that all would come to regret.
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