China’s President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) have made statements about protecting the interests of Taiwanese farmers, which have been echoed by a hopeful President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義).
China’s economic rise has strengthened various Chinese interest groups. In particular, in China’s abnormal system where government and industry are one big family, the interests of businesspeople coincide with the interests of the government and its ministries and agencies. The heads of ministries and agencies have many and complex interests in the industries they are managing, and so they are very careful in how they control these industries.
The economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) talks have been deadlocked because of diverging opinions over the “early harvest” list. China’s talk of compromises to promote the interests of Taiwanese farmers seemed like a godsend, but these statements were made during unofficial talks and were not mentioned at the National People’s Congress. It’s clear then that these statements will not become a universal principle that will apply directly to the ECFA talks. Instead, they will remain a political bargaining chip in the hands of the top leadership.
Ma has said that the ECFA talks are similar to other economic talks based on WTO principles. But the fact is Taiwan and China entered WTO under different conditions — Taiwan as a developed nation and China as a developing nation, giving China many more bargaining chips and room to maneuver. Taiwan’s import restrictions on Chinese industrial and agricultural products, for example, violate the WTO’s most favored nation principle. Similar Chinese restrictions on Taiwanese products, however, would be fully compatible with WTO regulations. That is the reason Hu and Wen are talking about offering compromises to promote the interests of Taiwanese farmers and small and medium enterprises.
As for the financial industry, Taiwan must open its doors to Chinese investors, while China can slap unilateral restrictions on Taiwanese investors. Taiwanese financial institutions are hopeful that Beijing will display the same generosity it has said it would give Taiwanese farmers. The reality is Beijing is not going to give Taiwanese banks reciprocal rights in China for fear that other countries will demand the same treatment.
Based on WTO principles, China not only has a lot of room to maneuver, but is also able to play good cop, bad cop by having its negotiators raise high demands and then having the top leadership offer concessions to score political points in Taiwan.
Instead of tackling these issues one by one, the Ma administration chose to lump everything under the ECFA talks, thereby allowing China to control the process. This shows not only a lack of understanding of Taiwan’s situation, but also the same inability to conduct negotiations as the US beef debacle has demonstrated.
Ker Chien-ming is a Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS