The two-day Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum (國共經貿論壇) held between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ended on Dec. 21 in Shanghai.
As expected, during the closing ceremony, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Chairman Wang Yi (王毅) announced a series of measures to help Taiwan. These measures included extra financing of up to 130 billion yuan (US$19 billion) for Taiwanese businesspeople investing in China from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國工商銀行) and other banks, and plans to purchase US$2 billion worth of Taiwanese manufactured flat screen panels.
He also called for Taiwanese businesses to take an active part in construction projects aimed at increasing domestic demand in China, assisting Taiwanese-invested businesses in China to transform and upgrade, encouraging and supporting Taiwanese-invested businesses to carry out innovation, establish farms in China for Taiwanese farmers, increasing the amount of Taiwanese fresh produce sold in China and allowing Taiwanese citizens who meet certain criteria to practice law in China.
On the surface, these measures may seem extremely useful for getting Taiwan out of its current economic woes. However, when viewed rationally, it is easy to see that these measures are nothing but sugar-coated poison pills aimed at gradually and systematically ruining Taiwan, both politically and economically.
Firstly, during the cross-strait forum, China has tried to put itself across as the motherland coming to the rescue of struggling Taiwan. By doing so, it is trying to turn Taiwan into a new Hong Kong or Macau, with the aim of colonizing it economically and politically. Before their respective handovers, both Hong Kong and Macau had flourishing economies and their people enjoyed political freedom, especially in Hong Kong, a primary financial center in Asia. However, after the return of Hong Kong and Macau to China, both their economies fell to a point where they were forced to rely on China’s help.
During the 1997 Asian economic crisis, Hong Kong relied on help from China to escape economic collapse. This, however, also made it impossible for Hong Kong to escape from China’s control. After the handover, Hong Kong’s economy took a turn for the worse and hit rock bottom in 2003 when the territory was gripped by the SARS epidemic. At this time, China managed to create a false sense of prosperity in Hong Kong by measures to boost the economy that included allowing Chinese tourists to travel freely within Hong Kong and ratifying economic agreements that brought the territory closer to China, such as the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement.
The false sense of prosperity created in Hong Kong by China means that although the economy may prosper, that prosperity is inextricably linked to China and the decisions its leaders make. In the event that China does not want to help Hong Kong, the territory’s economy would be finished.
Macau’s situation is exactly the same. Now, faced with the financial crisis, although China is having a tough time helping itself, it still is not too much trouble for Beijing to give some assistance to Hong Kong and Macau, since they are relatively small places. In addition, this “assistance” once again confirms China’s ruling status over Hong Kong and Macau.
By saying that they will give assistance to Taiwan, China is basically viewing Taiwan in the same way as Hong Kong and Macau, which means that China wants to use these methods to turn Taiwan into another Hong Kong or Macau, for which Beijing views the KMT-CCP forum as the best platform.
Secondly, the Ma administration sent five government officials to China to take part in the forum, which was against the Act Governing Entry Permission to Mainland China for Government Employees and Persons with Special Status in the Taiwan Area (台灣地區公務員及特定身分人員進入大陸地區許可辦法), which states that political officials can only go to China to attend international conferences.
In essence, this was the same as Ma taking back what he previously said about the KMT-CCP forum being a secondary channel for handling cross-strait issues and recognizing that the forum Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is trying so hard to promote is in fact the primary channel for deciding cross-strait policy. In other words, in the future, the government’s China policies will no longer be controlled by the Presidential Office, the Cabinet and the legislature. Decisions will first be made by the KMT-CCP forum and then handed over to the Ma administration for implementation.
This will mean that it is the KMT and the CCP, or to be more precise, the CCP alone that will decide the future of Taiwan and its people. In this scenario, all the Presidential Office, Cabinet and legislature can do is wait for orders from above.
In the future, the Ma administration is going to loosen restrictions and allow even more of Taiwan’s political officials to go to China. By that time, in addition to Taiwan’s economy being totally controlled by China, we will also have no way of protecting the confidentiality of Taiwan’s national defense, military and diplomatic information, and this will put Taiwan’s national security in severe danger.
We should take a good look at Hong Kong. At least Hong Kong was able to gain some economic benefit from its return to China. However, all the government’s kowtowing has gained nothing for Taiwan. A mere 10 percent of the originally promised 3,000 Chinese tourists that were supposed to visit Taiwan each day via the direct charter flights have come to Taiwan and the majority of passengers on weekend charter flights are Taiwanese businesspeople.
An inordinate proportion of the passengers on cross-strait flights are Taiwanese people going to China rather than Chinese tourists coming here. After the official three-links are opened and Taiwan becomes more closely linked with China’s coastal regions, industry will be further undermined and more talent and funds will flow out of Taiwan.
The Taiwanese public must make efforts at self-recovery for the economy to bounce back. We need to improve Taiwan’s domestic investment environment, offer discounts to local businesses on rent, water and electricity and start to improve the fundamentals of Taiwan’s economy. The investment environment in China is worsening by the day and this can be used to start attracting Taiwanese businesspeople back to Taiwan. These are fundamental ways to reinstill life into Taiwan’s economy.
Unfortunately, the government is taking an extreme pro-China stance on issues like national identity, ideology, economics, politics and diplomacy.
China is the Ma administration’s only savior and worshiping China is all the Ma government knows. China has used the Cross-Strait Economic, Trade and Cultural Forum to issue orders to the Ma administration. In doing so, it has effectively trampled on Ma and his government, the legislature and the Taiwanese public.
This is all the result of Ma’s own wrongdoing.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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