China reached out a hand to Taiwan yesterday, offering Taiwanese investors in China US$19 billion in financing over the next three years, the latest in a flurry of economic diplomacy by Beijing.
Ties between China and Taiwan have warmed since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in May.
Last Monday the two sides opened direct daily passenger flights, new shipping routes and postal links for the first time in six decades.
Taiwanese investors have poured billions into China since a detente began some three decades ago, lured by a common culture and language and cheap Chinese labor.
DOWNTURN
But many Taiwanese companies in China have been feeling the pinch from the global economic slowdown, dependent as they are on customers in Europe and the US and their orders for everything from artificial Christmas trees to computers.
Taiwan Affairs Office Director Wang Yi (王毅) told a meeting with Taiwanese politicians in Shanghai that three banks would provide 130 billion yuan (US$18.99 billion) in financing.
“Compatriots on both sides are part of the same family. We feel the same pain at this current time of economic difficulties in Taiwan,” Wang said.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (中國工商銀行) and Bank of China (中國銀行) would provide 50 billion yuan each, he said.
China Development Bank (國家開發銀行) would provide 30 billion yuan, in addition to another 30 billion yuan pledged previously, Wang said.
He provided no other details of the financing.
PURCHASES
China would also buy US$2 billion in flat screen monitors from Taiwanese companies, Wang said.
China would back its firms to invest in Taiwan.
“The mainland [sic] will continue looking at ways to increase cooperation across the strait and take measures hand in hand to cope with the global economic crisis,” Wang said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Deputy Chairman Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) told reporters in Shanghai he welcomed China’s moves.
“At the time of this global financial tsunami and when both economies are facing a downturn, I feel that these are very strong measures, and this is especially so for the financing available for Taiwanese business in China,” Tseng said.
China also agreed to enhance cross-strait agricultural and fishing cooperation, and initiate negotiations to protect China-bound investments made by Taiwanese businesses while encouraging mutual participation on infrastructure projects in both countries and facilitating the normalization of trade ties with Taiwan and China, among many other consensuses reached at yesterday’s forum, where 400 representatives from both sides attended, Wang said.
China has so far suffered less from the global economic crisis than its neighbors and is presenting itself as a stabilizing force in the region.
Earlier this month Chinese leaders announced a nearly US$30 billion currency swap facility to help stabilize the South Korean won and took part in a trilateral summit to discuss the crisis with South Korea and Japan.
On Friday, Hong Kong said Beijing had agreed to a package of 14 measures to aid the Special Administrative Region, including a currency swap facility, an easing of travel restrictions and the opening of more of China’s services sector to Hong Kong.
In recent years China has used economic assistance to Hong Kong to boost support for pro-Beijing politicians in the territory. Aid to Taiwan could help sway public opinion there toward Beijing’s goal of eventual unification.
The ruling parties also proposed broadening financial links including permitting Taiwanese banks to upgrade their status in China, which would allow them to provide financial services.
A consensus was reached that the two sides should establish a financial supervisory mechanism and provide a currency clearance system, Tseng said at the conclusion of a weekend forum. The meeting will offer a blueprint for further government-level talks after a nine-year suspension.
KMT officials and their Chinese counterparts concluded the meeting, which was held to expand direct financial ties as their economies face a worsening global recession. Taiwanese businesspeople have already invested an estimated US$150 billion in China and have been clamoring for Taiwanese financial companies to be permitted to offer services to ease access to financing and capital.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats