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Intellectual laziness is damaging the
nation
By Michael Danielsen
The recent US-China Joint Statement suffers from intellectual laziness when it
applauds the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and
China. Why applaud an unsustainable policy that undermines the current
international trade status and sovereignty of Taiwan and supports a government
that appears to consider democratic Taiwan a part of China and thus goes against
the wishes of the vast majority of Taiwanese?
No matter if the backing of ECFA is a result of intellectual laziness or not, it
supports China’s political engineering with the ultimate goal of annexing
Taiwan. This runs against Taiwanese wishes and is not sustainable.
On the surface, the ECFA seems like a great breakthrough in a troubled
relationship, providing hope for a peaceful development in the near future. The
assumption appears to be that trade and dialogue will lead to peace and
prosperity. The intellectually lazy politicians will be satisfied with such
fantasies and thus refrain from asking critical questions about the optimistic
buzzwords that are easy to sell to the international community.
Why not jump on this bandwagon with positive thinking and openly support the
ECFA? Because the ECFA undermines Taiwan’s hard-won international trade status
in the WTO as well as its sovereignty. The ECFA was signed between two NGOs from
Taiwan and China, the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for
Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) respectively, and not between two
legal members of the WTO. The trade status appears to be further undermined by
the fact that the ECFA has not yet been submitted to the WTO as expected,
despite the pact going into force on Jan. 1.
The political symbolism is hard to misunderstand. China appears in the
international press as the responsible nation entering dialogue with Taiwan,
even though Beijing has not altered its position one inch. It continues to
consider Taiwan a part of China. Recently, ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林)
stated that the negotiations were based on the so-called “1992 consensus,” even
though its existence is widely disputed, and opposition to Taiwanese
independence.
The whole package of agreements between Taiwan and China is increasingly leaving
the international community with the impression that Taiwan is a part of China,
which Taiwan’s government applauds. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) even considers
himself the president of China.
The vast majority of Taiwanese want Taiwan to be independent and surveys from
the Mainland Affairs Council reveal that more than 80 percent of the public
rejects any formulation of a “one China” system. Moreover, identification with
Taiwan has been increasing over the past 20 years in spite of Taiwan having a
China-leaning government since 2008. By applauding the ECFA, the US-China Joint
Statement is increasing the gap between the wishes of Taiwanese and the imagined
goal of both Ma’s administration and international policymakers. This will only
lead to trouble and increasing tensions in Taiwan. It is time to respect the
wishes of Taiwanese rather than follow the fantasies of intellectually lazy
politicians.
Michael Danielsen is the chairman of Taiwan Corner.
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