Last Tuesday, four agreements were signed between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS). Taiwan will pay a heavy price for this theatrical show of cross-strait detente.
Let us leave aside for the moment the measures reminiscent of martial law taken by the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to protect ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) and stifle any kind of protest, and consider instead the content and consequences of the SEF-ARATS meeting. Regrettably, Ma and his government have made heavy concessions to China with respect to Taiwan’s sovereignty, but got precious little in return. In fact, Taiwan may now face new threats to its national security and social cohesion.
Since he was sworn in as president on May 20, Ma has taken a whole series of steps backward in his stance on Taiwan’s sovereignty. He accepted the existence of a “1992 consensus” in which the Chinese and Taiwanese governments of the time are said to have agreed that there is only one China, to which both China and Taiwan belong, while agreeing to differ on the definition of that one China. He accepted the notion that the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one Chinese nation. He gave up on applying for Taiwan to join the UN and is willing to have Taiwan apply for membership of international organizations as “Chinese Taipei.”
He agreed to consult with China about how Taiwan can take part in the international community. He said it was acceptable for Chen Yunlin to address him as “Mr Ma” rather than “president.” He has adopted concessionary positions, such as that the relationship between China and Taiwan is not one between two countries, that Taiwan is an “area” and that people living in Taiwan and China only have different household registrations, not different nationalities.
After conceding so much, how can Taiwan refute Chinese officials when they claim that Taiwan is only an area and therefore not qualified for membership of the UN, when they call Taiwan’s president “the leader of the Taiwanese area” or when they say that the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are “flesh and blood compatriots.”
All Ma has received from China in return for this string of concessions is a few economic tidbits — far short of what everyone was hoping to get from cross-strait negotiations.
The agreement on aviation sets the number of direct cross-strait flights at just 108 per week, a mere one tenth of the 1,001 flights per week on the Taiwan-Hong Kong and Taiwan-Macau routes. There will be just 60 cargo flights a month, or two flights a day. Considering that four airports in Taiwan and China will handle these flights, there will not be even one flight per day for each airport, and the number of flights is only half what the aviation industry was hoping for. Besides, China did not agree to let passenger planes on direct flights carry freight in their holds, which would defray operating costs for airlines flying these routes and make it easier for Taiwanese high-tech companies with factories in China to maintain and develop a base in Taiwan.
According to the agreement on shipping, Taiwan is to open up 13 international and domestic sea ports for direct cross-strait shipping, including even Tainan’s tiny Anping Port (安平港) and a couple of wharfs in Taipei, while China will open 63. This means that almost every port in Taiwan will be open to China. It will make it easy for China to declare that these shipping routes are domestic ones and create an illusion abroad that the whole Taiwan Strait comes under China’s maritime sovereignty.
A greater danger still is that every door to Taiwan will be wide open. When Taiwan’s small domestic harbors are open to shipping from 63 Chinese ports, the tasks of preventing smuggling of drugs, plants, livestock and illegal immigrants may be more than they can handle.
Since the day Ma took office, the Chinese government has been manipulating his government by dangling the bait of cross-strait deregulation and talks between the two sides. Ma’s government has walked straight into the traps set by China and has no bargaining chips left to take to the table. If China really thinks that allowing Chinese to visit Taiwan is good for Taiwanese, why are they only letting 200 people visit per day — far short of the daily target of 3,000 tourists agreed upon by the SEF and ARATS some time ago? Even Ma himself admits that the problem is a lack of cooperation from the Chinese side. Could China be trying to get Ma’s government to make still further concessions before it will cooperate? Ma and his Cabinet had better be on guard lest they bite the hook along with the bait.
Tung Chen-yuan is an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at National Chengchi University.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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