Richard Allen, a former top foreign policy adviser to Republican administrations, has published an article in the Wall Street Journal calling for a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan.
Allen, now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said: “While [US] President Barack Obama was highly critical of free-trade agreements during his campaign, he has signaled a different attitude since taking office, and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk has noted that deepening trade ties with Asia is a new priority for the administration.”
“At a time when there is a pressing need for markets for US exports, a free-trade agreement with Taiwan would serve US interests in the short and long-term,” Allen said.
Allen served as chief foreign policy adviser to former US president Richard Nixon and as National Security Adviser to former US president Ronald Reagan.
Earlier this month, the Economist magazine published an article saying that a plethora of free-trade deals was driving Taiwan closer to China.
“Mr Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] is willing to take the political risk of tying the self-ruled democratic island economically to its giant authoritarian neighbor because of the rest of the world’s craze for free-trade deals. Most nations recognize China and fear to sign FTAs with Taiwan lest they incur China’s wrath,” it said.
A number of Washington-based trade analysts dealing with Taiwan have told the Taipei Times over the last few weeks that they believe a US-Taiwan free-trade agreement is highly unlikely under Obama.
But in a paper published last year, Claude Barfield, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, argued that China’s assertion that bilateral FTAs with Taiwan violate Beijing’s “one China” policy is fundamentally flawed because the international community — and Beijing — have accepted Taiwan’s membership in the WTO and in the APEC as a “customs territory.”
In his op-ed article, Allen said there had been an “extraordinary shift” in Taiwan’s policies under Ma, including consideration of a cross-strait FTA.
“There is no more talk of Taiwanese independence and no campaign for UN membership,” Allen said.
“The Obama administration is presented with significant opportunities to improve security in a region vital to US interests. The US can take the important twin steps of engaging Taiwan to create a free-trade agreement and proceeding with the next phase of defensive weapons sales to Taiwan,” he said.
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