Wed, Jun 28, 2023 page8

• The Liberty Times Editorial: Ko banking on decade-old deal

  • • 
    • 
    • 

  A decade ago, and without regard for public opinion, the government of then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) signed a cross-strait service trade agreement with China.

  However, after the agreement ran into opposition from the public, the legislature declined to ratify it, and it has remained on the shelf ever since.

  At the time, political outsider Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who was gearing up to run as an independent candidate for mayor of Taipei, voiced his opposition to the agreement, which had been negotiated and signed behind closed doors. He backed a campaign, which became known as the Sunflower movement, that opposed the agreement.

  Now that Ko is the Taiwan People’s Party’s (TPP) chairman and presidential candidate after serving two terms as mayor, he has said that he would include restarting talks about ratifying the agreement in his national policy white paper, sparking controversy over his inconsistency.

  The TPP has said that Ko was always opposed to the closed-door nature of the negotiation rather than to trade in services.

  This is a strange justification.

  The terms of the agreement were so bad that they made people suspect that the Ma government intended to allow all kinds of Chinese businesses to enter Taiwan. If not, why did it trigger such a massive student and social movement that reversed the erroneous China-friendly course that Ma’s government had been pursuing for the previous few years?

  Ko’s proposal to restart the service trade agreement is clearly intended to pander to Beijing.

  In response to Ko’s proposal, the Taiwan Economic Democracy Union think tank said that the agreement, which was signed by Taiwan and China in 2013, would open Taiwan to 64 major business categories from China. That would expose more than 1,000 types of business in Taiwan, whose annual output totals about NT$10.2256 trillion (US$329.5 billion) and which employ more than 4.23 million people.

  Chinese who would be permitted to set up companies or stores in Taiwan could apply to have two to 15 other Chinese work in Taiwan, all of whom would be allowed to bring their families. This would affect Taiwan’s economy and society. Wages and unemployment rates would become aligned with those in China.

  With China’s youth unemployment rate at more than 20 percent, which side’s young people would cross-strait economic integration help — Taiwan or China?

  The China of 10 years ago was still a relative fledgling, so it maintained a low profile in its dealings with the US and other countries. Today’s China sees the external situation as being one of “rising in the East and falling in the West,” and it no longer hides its expansionist ambitions. Hand in hand with authoritarian states such as Russia, China is trying to subvert democratic values and distort the rules-based international order.

  The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) poses the greatest challenge to the world’s democracies, and some even see it as their common enemy. Last week, US President Joe Biden publicly implied that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was a “dictator.” The US is also joining forces with major democracies to restrain and block the advance of authoritarian forces at the strategic, economic, technological and educational levels.

  For Ko to call for restarting the service trade agreement at this time is tantamount to embracing China. New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, has echoed the call.

  Notably, with the CCP becoming an ever-greater threat to the region, restarting the service trade agreement would throw the door wide open for authoritarian forces to establish points of influence in Taiwan. Such a deal would muddle the public’s ability to distinguish between their nation and the enemy, and it would make democratic countries that support Taiwan wonder whether it is still a staunch democratic ally.

  China last week announced that it would resume importing some Taiwanese atemoyas, a tropical fruit, but only those grown in Taitung County. This amounts to pressuring other regions that wish to sell the fruit in China to first approach and surrender to the Chinese side. China is using imports of Taiwanese agricultural and fishery products as a tool for coercion, first inflicting pain and then relieving it.

  This is a “united front” tactic that involves no cost to China. The service trade agreement, which involves thousands of business categories, would certainly help Beijing by using commerce to force the government’s hand.

  As severe as China’s infiltration of Taiwanese society already is, the trade agreement would make it easy for the CCP to cultivate proxies in Taiwan.

  Ko let the cat out of the bag when he said: “It is China that has always wanted me to stand for election as president.”

  He has also said that “the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family.”

  His inconsistency and lack of credibility are hardly news, but his proposal to restart the agreement a decade after the movement to block it reached its peak mirrors Beijing’s interests, so it should not be regarded as mere “crazy talk.”

  One of the CCP’s habitual strategies is that even if it retreats temporarily, it waits for the chance to strike again. Hong Kongers opposed implementation of Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law because they wanted to prevent Beijing from restricting the territory’s freedom under the guise of “national security” concerns.

  In 2003, about 500,000 Hong Kongers took to the streets to force the Hong Kong government to halt legislation required by Article 23. Only a few years later, the CCP used the momentum of the suppression of Hong Kong’s anti-extradition protest movement to implement China’s draconian National Security Law in the territory, and it is still pressuring Hong Kong to enact its own version of the law, which would make Hong Kong even more repressive.

  China has the same attitude toward Taiwan. The Sunflower movement generated a strong civic consciousness and blocked the CCP-planned service trade agreement. The Ma government, which was at the time China’s biggest collaborator, was ridiculed as “leaving the door open and the house unguarded,” while the so-called “1992 consensus,” which Ma’s government claimed to be the political basis for cross-strait relations, was rejected by the majority.

  For the CCP, the trade deal is “unfinished business.”

  Next year’s presidential election looks like a three-way race, with the two opposition candidates vying for second place. The question of which opposition candidate is preferred by the biggest external meddler in Taiwan’s elections — the CCP — is sure to influence the outcome.

  Ko is pandering to Beijing by reviving the China-friendly trade proposition as he is unwilling to allow the longstanding platform of consultations between the KMT and the CCP to monopolize cross-strait relations. He wants to take advantage of the unfamiliarity of Taiwan’s new generation with this decade-old issue. His move is meant as a gesture of goodwill to the CCP, while deceiving young people and attracting opposition forces to work against the ruling party in the hope of gaining China’s endorsement as a legitimate political force.

  With global geopolitical changes moving toward economic and commercial decoupling from China, Taiwan has been forging closer political and economic ties with the US and other countries. Restarting the service trade agreement might satisfy the selfish interests of some politicians, but it would go against the international trend.

  Above all, it would harm Taiwan’s interests.

  Translated by Julian Clegg
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Taiwan mulls stricter citizenship rules

  • 2

    Taiwan to keep advanced chip tech

  • 3

    Taiwan’s fall would be a ‘disaster’: Colby

  • 4

    Actor Darren Wang questioned over attack of cab driver

  • 5

    TSMC won’t produce 2nm chips in US next year: Kuo