It is no doubt that one of the focuses which drawn a large attention was the meeting between Vice President-elect Wu Den-Yih and Mainland Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang on April 2nd. It is the second time that both top rand leaders of Taiwan and Mainland China met again at the Boao Forum.It is clearly showed that the connect channel across the Taiwan Strait still works well.In fact, Vice President-elect Vincent Siew had firstly met CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao four years ago in the Boao Forum and by then they had founded a good channel for top leaders across the Taiwan Strait to meet officially.
During the meeting this time, Mr. Wu brought out a sixteen-character suggestion, as Mr. Siew had done four years ago, in that “looking for the similarity, existing difference; peaceful development: trust and friendship; economic first.” Though Mr. Li didn’t response the sixteen-character suggestion by another sixteen characters as Mr. Hu did last time, Mr Li did answer that “Oh, there are sixteen characters again.”
In fact, after the Boao meeting between Mr Shiew and Mr. Hu four years ago, the direction of the relationship across the Strait had been confirmed by “economic first, political later; easy things first, difficulties later.”Now, since it has been four years from the last Boao Forum and Mr. Hu is scheduled to step down late of this year, Mainland China lately is pushing Taiwan to start to talk in political issues across the Strait, especially after Taiwan’s presidential election in January this year. In fact, when the KMT Honorary Chairman Wu Bo-Hsiung met the CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao in March 22th this year, Mr. Wu mentioned that the relationship across the Strait is “one country, two areas”.There is no doubt that it is a political response from Taiwan side to Mainland side. However, during the presidential campaign late last year, it seemed that Taiwanese people is not ready for political talk with Mainland side yet.Therefore, the KMT government will be very careful to talk with Mainland government in political issues.
Now, in Mr. Wu’s sixteen characters this time, one could see that he is address on two major issues: the first one is that peaceful development is very important while mutual trust is crucial.The second one is that economic relation is still the first preference for Taiwan.The message is very clear in that Taiwan side may start a kind of political talk, but it will be a minor one, but not thing major.
At the same time, during the Boao meeting, Mr. Wu took this opportunity to meet with some leaders from different countries, including Bob Hawke, former Prime Minister of Australia, Fidel V. Ramos, former President of the Philippines, and former Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. It is shows that Taiwan would like to look for more international space with other countries, especially on economic issues such as FTAs and other economic cooperation activities.
Though Taiwan is hastate in deep talk in political issues with Mainland China, the main implication of the Boao meeting between Mr. Wu and Mr. Li is that both sides have a strong confidence in that now they have a good official channel, in addition to other channels, to exchange idea directly by the highest government officials, and so that they could build a mutual trust in the long run both in economic issues and in political issues. This result is especially important for Mainland side since everything has to be politically correct first, before they could go on for the next.Now, Mr. Li could build a political confidence for Taiwan and then Mr Li could let go the economic issue for Taiwan later of this year when he becomes the Premier of Mainland China.
Back to the economic issue across the Taiwan Strait, it is known that there are lots of issues which need to be negotiated in the near future, after ECFA had been signed in June 2010, including commodity agreement, service commodity agreement, investment agreement, dispute settlement agreement, and economic cooperation agreement.
Among others, there are three major issues which should be accomplished as soon as possible: The first thing that needs to be accomplished is the Investment Protection Agreement which had been failed in the seventh Chiang-Chen Talk in October last year. Since the Investment Protection Agreement is eager by most Taiwanese businessmen in Mainland China, for sure that Taiwan government will put this issue in the agenda on the eighth Chiang-Chen Talk mid of this year and hopefully the Agreement will be reached this time.In fact, Mr. Wang Yi from the Central Taiwan Office has mentioned several times that he hopes that the Investment Protection Agreement could be signed mid of this year.
The second thing which needs to be done is the economic cooperation with investment from Mainland China to Taiwan. In the beginning of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) of Taiwan announced that Taiwan will sharply reduce the investment restriction and will largely allow FDI inflow from Mainland China, in which 95% of manufacturing items will be opened to FDI from Mainland China, 50% in service items, and 50% for government purchase. MOEA hopes that investment enhancement could induce more economic cooperation between Taiwan businessmen and Mainland businessmen, such as the panel producers from Taiwan, for example Chimei and AUO, could find their strategic partners from Mainland China, for instance, some TV makers, so that both Taiwan firms and Mainland firms could increase their competitiveness after forming a strategic alliance.
The third one is to develop more cooperation in service industry, for example to open more cities to allow Chinese people to visit Taiwan as an individual tourist.In fact, Taiwan government and Mainland government have reached an agreement that Mainland China will open ten more cities to allow their citizens to visit Taiwan as an individual tourist started on April 28 this year, while Taiwan will raise the daily amount of individual tourists from Mainland China from 500 persons to 1000 persons.
After the Boao meeting, one thing sure is that both economic and political relationship across the Taiwan Strait arebetter since the top rank government officers across the Strait are seeing each other by person. It is especially important for Mainland side since they have to make sure everything is politically correct first, then the other thing could just follow suit. For Taiwan, economic issues are more important, and some political contact will be alright as long as the political issue is not that crucial.Since the mutual trust is founded this time, it is sure that the economic agreements across the Taiwan Strait could be reached soon and more in the near future.
（本文刊載於2012年6月遠景基金會Newsletter）
（本文謹供參考，不代表本會立場）