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.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
RSS