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2010-07-12

The new economic agreement between China and Taiwan

Comments on Stuart Harris “Taiwan and its new economic agreement with China”, 9/07/2010, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/07/09/taiwan-and-its-new-economic-agreement-with-china/
The majority of Taiwanese are likely to weigh up the agreement with alternatives and see whether the agreement is in their interests.

As the shift of world economic weight towards Asia continues and China’s economic size becomes bigger and bigger and further integrated with regional economies, such agreement is likely to be more and more important for Taiwan.

As Harris mentioned, this agreement can not only diminish the potential disadvantage to Taiwan in an expanding Asian market by the regional economic integration underway through the expansion of preferential trade arrangements from which Taiwan would be excluded, but also bring further significant economic benefits to Taiwan to the tune of 4.5% of GDP.

A cooperative economic relationship will be better for both sides.

From political point of view, I think China is likely to adopt a very generous attitude toward Taiwan as long as the two sides maintain a reasonable relationship and no serious separation is contemplated.

China has enough internal ethnic issues, problems and tensions to attend and the resolutions to those internal ethnic issues are likely to contribute to a better relation with Taiwan.

Given that some options to allow Taiwan have its own troops and system were floated by high level Chinese leaders in the past, it is likely that some sort of federation might be possible.

Maybe a first step is to have a peace agreement between the two sides. Then they could discuss a new constitution for a new federation.

1 comment:

  1. Hello. Being based in Taiwan at the moment, I can say that most people adopt a dual attitude: while at a cultural and political level they insist on being separated from China, most businesses - especially small manufacturers - shift their focus on China. I think the problem, culturewise, is that both Taiwan and China have deep identity issues - Taiwan is, in most respects, deep Chinese, yet rejects this label; at the same time, China insists on homogenizing and amalgam of ethnicities and cultures into one Communist identity (a dying one anyways).
    This is what most Taiwanese fear - being "swallowed" by the Great Red Dragon; I think that a movement towards becoming a SAR, which as HK or Macau, would benefit Taiwan more. It would have actually more economic and political freedom than now, while maintaining a separate position (although partially only) from China. And would pretty much escape the continuing threat that planes over it since the Civil War. The Communist Party will die at one point - it is inevitable, with more exposure to capitalism and increased freedom. What Taiwan must do is to ensure that it does not fall victim to the dying spasms of this regime - which have already begun, with the 2009 autumn grand military parade.

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