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Street protests expected as Taiwan, China meet
High-level talks between Taiwan and China on the island this week are likely to be met with protesting crowds wary of Beijing's embrace, analysts said.
High-level talks between Taiwan and China on the island this week are likely to be met with protesting crowds wary of Beijing's embrace, analysts said.
Senior envoys from the two sides, still not formally at peace after a civil war 60 years ago, will meet in the central Taiwan city of Taichung to discuss deceptively mundane issues like double taxation and agricultural quarantine.
But what could cause tempers to flare in the streets outside is the much larger issue of President Ma Ying-jeou's move towards closer engagement with China, a policy viewed with suspicion by many in Taiwan.
"Some senior opposition politicians argue the street confrontations must be big enough to deter Ma," said Chang Hsien-chao, a political scientist at National Sun Yat-sen University in south Taiwan's Kaohsiung city.
The China relationship overshadows any other political issue in Taiwan, as Beijing insists reunification is just a question of time, even though the island has governed itself since 1949 and become a democracy in the meantime.
This inevitably affects any bilateral encounter, including this week's talks between China's Chen Yunlin and Taiwan's Chiang Pin-kung, the respective heads of quasi-official agencies handling ties in the absence of formal relations.
The most controversial item on President Ma's immediate agenda is a bid to enter into a trade deal with China, known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), some time next year.
"We'll not talk about signing ECFA," said China's envoy Chen, whose last visit in late 2008 triggered violent clashes between protesters and police in Taipei.
"We'll have a principled exchange of views on ECFA, mainly to hear more about Taiwan's opinions and perspectives regarding this issue," he told the mainland's state-controlled Xinhua news agency on Friday.
Ma's government, representing the pro-Beijing Kuomintang party, has argued the ECFA will boost exchanges with rapidly growing China and create more jobs on the recession-hit island.
By contrast, the opposition centred around the Democratic Progressive Party warns the agreement will actually make hundreds of thousands redundant, while also increasing the reliance on an ever more powerful mainland.
Given the lack of enthusiasm in Taiwan towards rapid rapprochement, Taipei actually faces a simple task this week in Taichung, observers argued.
"To the Ma administration, keeping the talks moving forward is more important than the actual substance," said Hsu Yung-ming, an expert on Taiwan's relations with China at Taipei's Soochow University.
"What Ma needs to do is to ensure the talks are held safely and smoothly so as to pave the way for the next round of talks. That's all."
Ma was voted to power in May last year, promising to bring about a thaw in ties with China, but his mandate has gradually eroded, most recently with a Kuomintang setback in local elections in early December, analysts said.
"Ma is likely to slow down the island's exchanges with China after finding that warming ties with China did not result in victory in the local elections," said Hsu.
"Instead, he will focus more attention on handling domestic affairs and reforming his own party."
The question is if China appreciates the intricacies of democratic politics and is willing to wait for Ma to get his own house in order. Observers on the mainland think it does.
"If Ma wants to make adjustments in response to the situation on Taiwan, I believe China will understand this, as long as the overall trend in relations doesn't change," said Zhang Wensheng, a Taiwan expert at Xiamen University in southeast China's Fujian province.
Chen will arrive on Monday and meet with Chiang Tuesday. On Wednesday he will attend an investment seminar, while on Thursday he will visit various scenic spots in central Taiwan before returning to the mainland on Friday.
