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China’s hardline stance hurting Ma
By Emerson Chang 張子揚
Sunday, Jun 13, 2010, Page 8
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently stated that it
opposes any of its diplomatic allies developing any form of official relations
with Taiwan. With some commentators interpreting this as meaning that China is
against Taiwan signing free-trade agreements (FTA) with other countries, the
government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) finds itself under attack from both
front and back. Since Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) took office, Beijing has
taken the view that having the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in government in
Taiwan provides a valuable historical opportunity for building peaceful
relations between the two sides. Setting this view against the current signs of
tension, one may ask why China’s attitude appears to have shifted.
In reality, signs of rising tension appeared quite some time ago. During his
televised debate with Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen
(蔡英文) in April, Ma made some statements that made China unhappy and provoked
calls from within the Chinese Communist Party establishment for continued crisis
management even during the current window of opportunity. Therein lies the cause
of the current difficulties.
The first point is that Ma, in his debate with Tsai, said two things that made
the Chinese authorities unhappy. One was that the 10-year period envisaged for
deregulating bilateral trade in more than 8,000 agricultural and industrial
products not included in the “early harvest” list is not set in stone. The
second was Ma’s open call for the Chinese authorities not to hamper Taiwan’s
efforts to sign free-trade agreements with its trade partners. China’s
displeasure with Ma’s remarks has manifested itself in two areas. One is
sticking points that have come up in the course of trade negotiations with
Beijing, notably China’s demand that a timetable for deregulating trade in the
8,000 products should be included among the articles of the proposed
cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
The second point is that China’s foreign ministry stated during a routine press
briefing that it is opposed “in principle” to Taiwan signing agreements of an
official nature with other countries. The ministry later changed the wording in
its written record of the briefing to saying that China is firmly opposed to its
diplomatic allies developing any form of official relations with Taiwan. This
revision implies that the statement was directed at China’s diplomatic allies,
rather than at Taiwan, thus avoiding the appearance that the foreign ministry
was interfering in the domain of the Taiwan Affairs Office, which is the bureau
normally responsible for making statements about Taiwan. The change of wording
also took the heat off the KMT to some extent, but without altering China’s
basic stance.
One may also ask what is meant by “agreements of an official nature.” In China’s
view, those include FTAs, as expressed by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in
mid-April when it said that for Taiwan to sign FTAs with other countries is a
sovereign act, and therefore can only be done with Beijing’s consent. As to
whether agreements under different names would be considered of an official
nature, China reserved the right to decide. This leaves China and Taiwan room
for negotiation on the issue.
In addition, between these two events, the Chinese side said something else that
gave the Ma administration a headache. Chao Chun-shan (趙春山), spokesman for one
of the Ma government’s key think tanks, proposed “five principles for peaceful
coexistence across the Taiwan Strait in a post-ECFA framework.” The foundation
suggested that the two sides, while setting aside disputes over sovereignty,
could respect one another’s existing form of government and undertake not to
resort to military force to resolve disputes. Two days later, Hu, in his opening
address at the second round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue between China
and the US, made two points that could be interpreted as a response to Chao’s
proposal.
Hu said: “To the Chinese people, nothing is more important than safeguarding
national sovereignty and territorial integrity. I trust it is not difficult for
the American people, who went through the American Civil War in their history,
to understand how important and valuable unity is to a nation.”
He went on to say: “China will remain committed to the path of peaceful
development and pursue friendly cooperation with all countries on the basis of
the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. We will not interfere in other
countries’ internal affairs or impose our own will on others.”
Hu’s words make clear China’s determination to break with the cross-strait
“status quo” and work toward unification.
It is clear that China’s attitude to the opportunity offered by the Ma
administration is not one of unlimited compromise and concessions. This trend,
which has become all the more obvious following the Ma-Tsai debate, shows that
China, while grasping at the available opportunity, has started paying attention
to the possibility that the pan-blue camp may seek to use opposition voices from
the pan-green camp as a pretext for making statements that run counter to
Beijing’s wishes.
China’s responses, outlined above, are intended to send the Ma administration a
message that, even under pressure from the pan-green camp, it should not
overstep the mark with regard to China’s basic position.
Following the Chinese foreign ministry’s statement opposing agreements of an
official nature with Taiwan, the Ma administration has repeatedly restated what
Ma said when concluding his debate with Tsai, calling on Beijing not to hamper
Taipei’s efforts to sign FTAs with its trade partners. In doing so, the
government is expressing its determination to press ahead with FTA negotiations.
Although this does nothing to improve cross-strait relations, it can strengthen
the tough-guy image Ma has been seeking to build for himself and prevent the
pan-green camp from making any further political gains at his expense.
Emerson Chang is director of the Department of International
Studies at Nanhua University.
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