While meeting with the scholars attending the US-Japan-Taiwan
Trilateral Strategic Dialogue in Taipei on August 21, Taiwan
"president" Chen Shui-bian again put forward his proposal of
setting up a Free Trade Area (FTA) with the United States and
Japan. He stressed that the United States, Japan and Taiwan should
adjust their investment and economic policies towards the Chinese
mainland.
Chen came up with the FTA proposal in April when meeting with a
senior official from the Department of Commerce of the United
States. Chen stressed that economic security is the key factor in
national security as well as regional security.
This proposal, like the "south-bound policy" which is aimed at
reducing Taiwan's economic dependence on the Chinese mainland,
focuses on political considerations rather than economic
interests.
The Beijing-based Association for Shipping across the Taiwan
Straits revealed that last year cross-Straits trade reached US$32.3
billion, of which Taiwan's exports to the mainland accounted for 85
percent. Obviously, Taiwan's trade surplus with the mainland is to
the island's advantage.
The trade between the mainland and Taiwan is much more than that
between Taiwan and the United States, and between Taiwan and
Japan.
Taiwan's agriculture, and its financial industry and other parts of
the service sector would be exposed to competition from the United
States and Japan if the FTA agreement were signed.
In
the eyes of the separatists in Taiwan, the increasing economic
interdependence between the island and the mainland would undermine
their separatist ambitions. What Chen wants to get from the FTA has
nothing to do with the economic interests of the Taiwanese people;
it is a bid to get indirect international support for his political
ambitions. Through setting up closer economic relations with the
United States and Japan, Chen hopes to more easily get their
acquiescence to or even support for his pursuit of Taiwan
independence.
Enhancing economic and trade relations with foreign countries, in
particular the United States, would hinder or even cut economic
links with the mainland, slowing down the process of economic
integration across the Taiwan Straits, which has been gaining
momentum over the last decade -- that is Chen's deliberate
intention.
Chen Shui-bian's FTA proposal is a new political plot to try to
separate the island from the motherland and "integrate" it into the
international community at the expense of the Taiwan people's well
being and the island's economic development.
(China
Daily September 2, 2002)