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Ma urges PRC not to block FTAs
SLAP IN THE FACE?: A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that Beijing
would not allow Taiwan to sign trade deals with other countries, even after an
ECFA is signed
By Mo Yan-chih, Vincent Y. Chao and Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTERS
Thursday, Jun 03, 2010, Page 1
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday urged China not to
block Taiwan from signing free-trade agreements (FTA) and other pacts with other
countries.
The remarks came a day after a Chinese foreign ministry official said Beijing
“firmly objects” to Taiwan signing official agreements with China’s diplomatic
allies.
The statement was seen a major embarrassment for Ma, who has repeatedly said
that his administration’s plan to sign an economic cooperation framework
agreement (ECFA) with China would give Taiwan a better chance of reaching
similar deals with other major trading partners, including the US and Japan.
Ma yesterday defended Taiwan’s right to sign FTAs as a member of the WTO and
said his administration would intensify efforts to seek closer economic ties
with other countries.
“It is our right as a WTO member to sign FTAs with other countries and we should
not see interference when we exercise our right,” Ma, in his capacity as Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, said at the party’s Central Standing Committee
meeting.
Ma also defended the legitimacy of agreements the country signed with other
countries and said economic, cultural and technical agreements signed with
non-allies were all effective.
“The Republic of China is a sovereign country and has signed many agreements
with many countries. The agreements are official as they are signed by the
government,” he said.
At a separate setting yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the government
would move toward signing FTAs with other countries regardless of what China
says.
“Under the directive of President Ma Ying-jeou, the government will do its very
best to ensure the welfare and benefits of Taiwanese through globalization, by
first making Taiwan a strong economic power and reaching out to other Asian
countries,” Wu said. “Trade and commerce are the lifeline of Taiwan and this
country, as a WTO member, is eligible to sign trade deals, pacts or agreements
of any kind with other countries to strengthen its trade development and
ameliorate the welfare and benefits of its people, regardless of any outside
influence.”
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) of the legislature’s Finance Committee said
Taiwan could still sign FTA-like agreements with other countries, while KMT
Legislator Alex Tsai (蔡正元), another committee member, said Taiwan should seek to
enter into FTAs with other countries as an economic entity while putting the
sovereignty issue aside.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, meanwhile, said yesterday that
the statement from Beijing came as a “slap in the face” for Ma, who has been
arguing that “the pressure and obstruction to our efforts to sign FTAs with
other countries will be reduced” if a trade agreement with China is signed.
“China’s comments are further proof that President Ma has been lying to the
public,” DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said. “Taiwan should not rely on
China as a window to the world.”
The DPP has instead called for cross-strait economic negotiations to be
conducted under the WTO framework and said negotiations should be done on a
country-to-country basis.
The comments from the Chinese foreign ministry were likely to provide additional
ammunition to opposition parties, which claim that an ECFA should first be
subject to a public referendum before becoming valid.
The Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee is expected to deliver a
verdict today on a referendum question initiated by the Taiwan Solidarity Union
and supported by the DPP asking voters whether they support the proposed ECFA.
The incident could also boost popular support for the opposition in the year-end
elections, said Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明), a political scientist at Soochow
University.
“Ma faces pressure from the opposition and from citizens, so the opposition’s
voice will get louder,” Hsu said.
“The question is whether this will become an election issue,” he said, referring
to the Nov. 27 special municipality elections, which many consider a barometer
for the 2012 presidential election.
At a separate setting, European Commission Directorate General of Trade Director
Mauro Petriccione said in Taipei: “Our member states will not give the
commission permission to negotiate [trade deals with Taiwan] unless they have
some reasonable assurance that this will not damage our economic interests in
China.”
He said China remains the “answer” to whether the EU and Taiwan would be able to
sign trade-enhancement measures (TEM). He did not elaborate.
While addressing the European Chamber of Commerce during a luncheon in Taipei
later in the day, Petriccione said signing a Taiwan-EU TEM could “take a little
while.”
“I am not saying that one should be pessimistic about FTAs between Taiwan and
[the] EU, but at the moment it is very unclear,” he said, adding that the EU
would continue to negotiate the matter with Taiwan “whenever it is possible and
appropriate.”
Meanwhile, in Washington, Alan Romberg, distinguished fellow and director of the
East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center, told Central News Agency that
despite Beijing’s opposition to any form of “official” engagement between Taiwan
and other countries, it would remain possible for Taiwan to sign free-trade
deals that were not “government-to-government” agreements.
“One presumes that other countries would realize that a ‘government to
government’ agreement would not pass muster with the People’s Republic of China,
so they would plan to fashion any agreement to avoid that problem,” said
Romberg, a former spokesman for the US Department of State.
Romberg said Chinese Ministry of Foriegn Affairs spokesman Ma Zhaoxu’s (馬朝旭)
statement did not make it clear whether Beijing would oppose an agreement that
“substantively is the equivalent of an FTA but does not take the form of a
‘government to government’ agreement.”
If China were to disappoint Taiwan’s expectations by opposing such “FTA-like”
agreements altogether, it would destroy much of the goodwill that has been built
between the two sides over the past two years, Romberg said.
As an ECFA has yet to be signed, he said, it is premature to try to pin down
Beijing’s position regarding a future situation.
“But it is hard to believe that Beijing would not understand the importance of
this issue and would not be cooperative, as long as any such agreements take
into account the need to finesse the issue of ‘one China, one Taiwan’ or ‘two
Chinas,’” he said.
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