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WIKILEAKS: AIT doubts
ECFA impact: cable says
ARE YOU SURE? Former AIT head Stephen Young told
Ma that US intelligence indicated that inking the ECFA may not lead Beijing to
end its opposition to other FTAs for Taiwan
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff Reporter
Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Stephen Young was skeptical
of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) position that signing the Economic Cooperation
Framework Agreement (ECFA) would open the door for Taiwan to pursue free-trade
agreements (FTA) with other partners, a US cable recently released by WikiLeaks
showed.
In the lead-up to the signing of the ECFA, the Ma administration said the deal
would pave the way for Taiwan to gradually become more involved in global
economic integration and avoid being marginalized by China’s opposition.
As his administration prepared to negotiate the ECFA with China, Ma met with
Young and predicted that after the agreement was signed, Beijing would only
offer pro forma objections to Taipei signing FTAs with other countries, the
cable dated June 26, 2009, showed.
Ma told Young that if China and Taiwan conclude the ECFA, it would be a signal
that China would not object to Taiwan signing FTAs with other partners, the
cable showed.
The cable showed that Young suggested otherwise based on the information the AIT
had obtained.
Young told Ma that “in meetings with US officials, Chinese officials have hinted
that this might not be the case,” the cable said.
Ma dismissed the concern, it added.
According to another cable issued by the US embassy in Beijing on Sept. 8, 2009,
Taiwanese business and academic contacts said they believed Chinese leaders were
eager to conclude the ECFA as a gesture of goodwill and were unlikely to press
Taiwan for major concessions, choosing instead to focus on consensus to reap
political benefits.
However, they emphasized that even with the ECFA in place, Beijing might not
remove its opposition to Taipei entering into FTAs with its other trading
partners, the cable said.
The cable showed that both Wang Jianmin (王建民), a senior fellow at the Chinese
Academy of Social Science’s Institute of Taiwan Studies, and Chen Guoyuan, the
Taiwan-born head of the Beijing Association for Taiwan Enterprises, told US
officials that Taipei’s leaders were wrong if they thought the ECFA would lead
to the possibility of more FTAs.
Wang said the only way to get China to change its position would be to make FTAs
a priority in talks between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its
Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS),
using observer status at the World Health Assembly as a model, the cable said.
The cable said Wang suggested that the government follow a three-part strategy
to increase the possibility of additional FTAs: to first consult with China
through the SEF-ARATS channel; to refer to itself as “the Separate Customs
Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei),” as per the WTO;
and to ensure that an FTA does not lead to “Two Chinas” or “One China, One
Taiwan.”
Another cable on April 23, 2009, issued by the US embassy in Beijing, detailed
Daniel Rosen’s, a research fellow at US-baseed think tank Peterson Institute for
International Economics who then met with top officials from both sides on the
ECFA issue, knowledge of the deal.
“Rosen’s mainland interlocutors told him China and Taiwan have very different
motivations for completing an economic agreement,” the cable reads.
“Beijing’s motive is subjective, they claimed, arising from a ‘love of country.’
They said Beijing wants Taiwan’s commitment to the principle of ‘normalization’
of the economic relationship, but will not demand any specific concessions from
Taipei in the short-term. Taiwan, however, fears being marginalized in its
economic relations with both the mainland and the region, they claimed,” the
cable showed.
The cable said Rosen’s overall impression was that the Taipei authorities want
to move quickly toward an ambitious deal and that China welcomed the opportunity
to advance cross-strait economic integration.
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