A new era or a 'made in China' affair?
By Ting-I Tsai
TAIPEI - It may have been somewhat of a coincidence that Taiwan's vice
president-elect, Vincent Siew, of the Kuomintang party (KMT) met with Chinese
President Hu Jintao on Saturday, just three weeks after he was elected, on the
sidelines of the Boao Forum for Asia in China's island province of Hainan.
But their brief encounter had all the trappings of a major political summit
because of the frosty relationship that has existed between the two archrivals
across the Taiwan Strait over past decade.
Some believe the meeting marked the beginning of a new era in
cross-strait relations but critics branded it as nothing more than a staged
show that was not in Taiwan's interests.
Siew, who will be sworn in along with president-elect Ma Ying-jeou on May 20
after the two won the island's presidential election on March 22 with a pledge
for closer ties with mainland China, described his trip as "ice melting" in
cross-strait relations and an occasion to reach out to the international
community.
For China, the meeting afforded an opportunity to demonstrate its peaceful side
amid escalating tensions in Tibet and Xinjiang and major disturbances of the
2008 Summer Olympic Games torch relay as it passes around the world. Some
analysts in Taiwan contended the Hu-Siew meeting on the Boao Forum was more
like a staged show directed by Beijing.
They expected the cross-strait economic relationship to improve, but saw little
chance that Beijing would allow greater room for Taipei to maneuver in
international affairs; nor were military tensions between the two sides
expected to ease remarkably.
In the 20-minute meeting, Siew proposed that both sides "acknowledge reality,
invest in the future, put aside controversies, and pursue a win-win situation",
and he called for the opening of regular direct cross-strait charter flights on
weekends. He said Taiwan would open its tourism to mainland Chinese and urged
that semi-official cross-strait dialogue be resumed and that trade ties between
the two sides be normalized.
In return, Hu said Taiwan and China faced a "historical opportunity" for
economic and trade exchanges and indicated China would positively push forward
negotiations on opening weekend direct charter flights and on arrangements for
mainland Chinese tourists to travel to Taiwan.
Washington, which has consistently urged Beijing to hold dialogue with Taiwan's
elected government, welcomed the Hu-Siew meeting. Former US secretary of state
Colin Powell, who was attending the Boao conference, said the meeting was "very
good news for the region".
Intending to downplay the political significance of the encounter, China's
state-run media carefully referred to Siew as the chairman of the Cross-Strait
Common Market Foundation, which Siew founded to promote economic cooperation
between China and Taiwan in 2001.
Siew, who emphasized prior to the forum that he was attending in his capacity
as the foundation's chairman, entered China using his "Taiwan compatriot entry
permit" issued by Beijing, a move the incumbent ruling Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) criticized as belittling Taiwan's dignity.
In the days prior to the meeting, Taiwan's Chinese-language media speculated
that Hu might offer to withdraw half of the more than 1,000 missiles aimed at
Taiwan, a factor that pushed Taiwan's stock market more than 100 points higher
last Thursday. But those reports proved false at the weekend conference.
For analysts in Taiwan, the media and some politicians might have been too
optimistic or expected too much from the meeting.
"It was a 'made in China' artificial stage," said a former senior cross-strait
affairs official under both the DPP and KMT government. "This was just a stage
for acting rather than a battleground for fighting."
The incoming KMT government will quickly come under heavy pressure to realize
its promise to implement the weekend direct charter flights, which Ma promised
by July 1.
Analysts familiar with the Chinese Communist Party's style, however, have
already predicated that the likely date will be one or two days before or after
July 1 to demonstrate its dominance, should Beijing decide to go ahead with the
proposal.
Wu Yu-san, research fellow and director of the Institute of Political Science
at Academia Sinica, asserted that Ma's deadline for the charter flights gave
Beijing the power to undermine the realization of one of his campaign
platforms, which hurt Taiwan's negotiating position. Under the pressure of
fulfilling the promise, the KMT might end up being forced into
behind-the-scenes compromises, he said.
In the interviews with Taiwanese media, Su Chi, national security adviser to
both Ma and Siew, said confidently that the weekend direct charter flights
would definitely take off and Chinese tourists would be able to visit Taiwan
beginning in July. Furthermore, he said that cross-strait dialogue between
Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation and China's Association for Relations
Across the Taiwan Straits - two semi-official organizations that have had
little communication since being set up as the main channels for official
communications between the two sides - would resume shortly.
Negotiations on Chinese tourists' visits to Taiwan and weekend charter flights
were close to conclusion in the summer of 2007. Beijing, however, chose to halt
the negotiations prior to Taiwan's legislative elections on January 12, but
officials from Taiwan's cross-strait affairs related departments believe both
issues could be finalized with one to two more rounds of negotiations.
Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Beijing's People
University, suggested that as Ma has explicitly vowed no intention to declare
independence, Beijing would demonstrate a totally different attitude toward
Taiwan than it has the past eight years, even on issues of Taiwan's military
procurements and its international space.
"It might occur faster than we can imagine," he said.
Despite the optimistic talk, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said China
initiated a drive in March soliciting members of the World Health Organization
to obstruct Taiwan's membership bid and has promoted a memorandum in the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to block Taiwan's bids
for membership.
That behavior has left some analysts skeptical that China will ever soften its
stance on the sovereignty issue and convinced that Siew's attendance at the
Boao forum may not have been in Taiwan's best interests.
"The forum is for economic affairs, not political ones," the former
cross-strait affairs official said. "Without any restriction [over political
issues], it might end up as a blunder [for Taiwan]."
Ting-I Tsai is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
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