Taiwan’s Leader Outlines His Policy Toward China - The issue is especially delicate for Mr. Ma, who has long argued that the islands legally belong to the Chinese people.

Taiwan’s Leader Outlines His Policy Toward China

By KEITH BRADSHER and EDWARD WONG
Published: June 19, 2008
TAIPEI, Taiwan — President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan called on Wednesday
for a rapid expansion of economic relations between Taiwan and
mainland China over the next year or two that would go far beyond the
weekend charter flights and increased tourism announced last Friday.

Part Two of an Interview With Taiwan’s President Mr. Ma said he wanted
broad access to the mainland market for Taiwanese financial services
businesses, an end to double taxation by government agencies in Taipei
and Beijing and the removal of investment restrictions.

He also called for direct sea and air cargo links across the Taiwan
Strait, regularly scheduled passenger flights, the drafting of common
technical standards and the creation of a system to resolve commercial
disagreements.

“I think if we could continue the current talks with them to achieve
economic normalization, I’m sure the feeling of a peaceful environment
will continue to grow, and this is exactly what we have in mind,” Mr.
Ma said in his first interview with an American news organization
since taking office on May 20. He spoke for an hour at the
presidential palace on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr. Ma led his Nationalist Party to a decisive victory in the March
elections, prevailing over a candidate warier of closer ties with
mainland China. Mr. Ma had promised to strengthen the Taiwanese
economy through reconciliation.

Two other broad sets of issues will wait until his economic agenda is
resolved, Mr. Ma said. These are Taiwan’s limited “international
space,” in the sense that most of the outside world now recognizes
Beijing instead of Taipei as the legitimate government of China, and
security issues across the Taiwan Strait.

“I think that’s the order — first is economic normalization, and then
international space and then the peace accord,” he said.

Economic agreements should also be easier to reach because officials
in Beijing seem to have reached a consensus that they want such pacts,
Mr. Ma said. No such consensus exists on the mainland regarding
Taiwan’s international space or security issues, he added.

China has worked to block Taiwan from joining certain international
bodies, like the World Health Organization, something Mr. Ma said he
would like to reverse. In addition, only 23 countries still have
diplomatic relations with Taiwan, while 171 recognize Beijing. The two
sides have vied for friends with lavish offers of financial aid.

President Hu Jintao of China told a Taiwanese negotiator on Friday
that he was certain that a way could be found to address this
competition, Mr. Ma said, warning that he did not want to see any more
allies lured away.

“The marginal utility of adding one country to that 171 list is
getting less and less,” he said. “On the other hand, the 23 countries
are very important to us as a source of dignity.”

Mr. Ma also repeated his demand that China remove the more than 1,000
short- and medium-range missiles that it has aimed at Taiwan. Their
removal is needed before any peace talks can begin to end the legal
state of hostility that has persisted since the end of the Chinese
civil war in 1949, he said. China has threatened the use of force to
achieve political reunification.

“The idea is quite simple: we don’t want to negotiate a peace
agreement while our security is under the threat of missile attack,”
Mr. Ma said.

Mr. Ma conducted the interview in flawless English, as befits a man
who returned from his doctoral program in legal studies at Harvard in
the early 1980s to become a translator and assistant for Chiang Ching-
kuo, then the president. Mr. Chiang, the son of Chiang Kai-shek,
helped Mr. Ma start his meteoric rise.

A senior legislator with the Democratic Progressive Party, now in
opposition, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday night that Mr.
Ma’s proposed economic initiatives would make Taiwan too dependent on
China for economic growth.

“We’re very worried and concerned about the future,” said the
legislator, Lai Ching-teh. “Ma Ying-jeou’s government is placing
Taiwan’s economic future entirely upon China and is also willing to
give up on Taiwan’s sovereignty.”

Mr. Lai said that in the years his party held power before Mr. Ma took
office, Taiwanese leaders held discussions with China over similar
economic proposals. But the talks stalled, he said, because Chinese
officials were unwilling to accept the Democratic Progressive Party’s
broader vision of Taiwanese sovereignty.

Given the global economic downturn, Mr. Ma was more cautious on
Wednesday than he had been during his campaign about Taiwan’s economy
even with closer ties to the mainland. He had promised 6 percent
annual economic growth while campaigning but said in the interview
that this probably would not be possible in 2008 because he had just
taken office.

Lately Mr. Ma’s energies have been focused on smoothing out a
diplomatic conflict that caught him by surprise — a surge in tensions
with Japan over a June 10 incident in the group of disputed islands
that the Taiwanese call the Diaoyutai Islands, where a Japanese coast
guard vessel sank a Taiwanese sport-fishing boat. Although Japan
administers the islands, which it calls the Senkaku Islands, China and
Taiwan argue that they belong to the Chinese people.

Protesters in both mainland China and Taiwan have demanded a formal
apology from Japan.

The issue is especially delicate for Mr. Ma, who has long argued that
the islands legally belong to the Chinese people. Since then, some
Japanese officials have regarded him with suspicion.

Asked about the June 10 incident, Mr. Ma said that discussions between
Taiwan and Japan were continuing and that tensions were lessening.

“We don’t want to have this incident hurt our relations with Japan,”
he said.

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