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Taiwan needs fair
trade relations: DPP
NEW ERA: The party’s China Affairs Committee
said its basic position has not changed, but the nation should stay competitive
by establishing fair trade relations with China
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Trade relations between Taiwan and China entered a new era that requires
comprehensive and complicated management, when the Economic Cooperation
Framework Agreement (ECFA) was signed three years ago, the Democratic
Progressive Party’s (DPP) China Affairs Committee (CAC) said yesterday.
“We reached a two-point consensus that Taiwan should maintain its competitive
advantage and establish fair trade relations with China, rather than hope that
Beijing will yield benefits [to Taiwan],” committee spokesperson Cheng Wen-tsang
(鄭文燦) said at a press briefing after the second committee meeting.
“The DPP’s basic position remains unchanged: Taiwan’s economy needs
globalization, not Sinicization,” he said.
Eight of nine committee members, including DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌),
former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and former premiers Frank Hsieh (謝長廷)
and Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃), attended the two-hour closed-door meeting, which focused
on Taiwan’s economic strategy toward China.
In a keynote speech, former Financial Supervisory Commission chairperson Shih
Chun-chi (施俊吉) was quoted as saying that Taiwan only needed to manage Taiwanese
investments in China before President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office in 2008.
However, with the signing of the ECFA and closer integration of the cross-strait
economy, the flow of personnel, goods and services also have to be taken into
consideration.
Relations between Taiwan and China have become more like those between
competitors rather than partners, because the era of vertical integration across
the strait is over, Cheng quoted Shih as saying.
Political factors cannot be overlooked, because China’s central and local
governments have been trying to influence Taiwan’s media, free speech and
markets with their political-economic connections, Shih was quoted as saying.
Politically or economically, Taiwan needs to establish a mechanism to safeguard
national security in the pattern of the Santiago Principles — a set of
guidelines for the operations of global sovereign wealth funds — as well as
using current mechanisms, such as the Investment Commission under the Ministry
of Economic Affairs, to monitor Chinese investments, Shih was quoted as saying.
Yu proposed that Taiwan engage in industry upgrades and “break through” its
over-dependence on China by seeking to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as
well as revive the southward policy of the former DPP administration by
promoting closer trade ties with ASEAN countries and India.
According to Cheng, participants had a brief discussion about the “Free Economic
Pilot Zones” that Ma intended to establish across the country, but they did not
elaborate, because the government has not given details about the project.
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