P.K. Chiang Meets with PRC Counterpart

Throughout his five-day stay in Taiwan, however, Chen's presence sparked demonstrations that led to bloody scuffles between protesters and police on a scale not seen here in more than a decade. After Chen left Taiwan, over 1,000 university professors and students launched the so-called "Wild Strawberries" student movement to stage sit-in protests across the island against the government's handling of the demonstrations. The tumult has prompted observers to ask: Will the thaw in cross-strait relations be affected by the political standoff between Taiwan's ruling and opposition camps? What can the Ma administration do to assuage the misgivings of opposition supporters?

ARATS chairman Chen, a former head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of mainland China's State Council, is the highest-ranking mainland negotiator to visit Taiwan since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The "second Chiang-Chen meeting" at Taipei's Grand Hotel (preceded by a meeting between the two in Beijing in June), marked a historic resumption in Taiwan of negotiations that had last taken place between Koo Chen-fu and Wang Daohan in Singapore back in 1993.

The agreement on food safety took effect seven days after its signing, while the agreements on direct air and sea transport and postal links will take effect after 40 days. Chen Yunlin also invited Chiang to visit mainland China in the first half of 2009 for talks on cooperation in the areas of law enforcement, financial services, and investor protection. The two sides plan to sign a memorandum of understanding on financial supervisory cooperation, thus opening the door for Taiwanese financial institutions to set up branches in mainland China, which they have been urgently wanting to do for a long time.

The talks have brought an agreement to relax restrictions on direct cross-strait travel, an issue of pressing importance to Taiwanese businesses operating in China. Cross-strait air travel, currently limited to 36 weekend charter flights, will be expanded to 108 flights per week, including weekdays. And China has added Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Dalian, and 12 other cities to the list of airports that will be allowed to offer direct service to and from Taiwan.

In addition, flights to and from central and northern China will be shortened. Up to now, planes have been required to take a southerly approach to Chinese airspace before doubling back up north, but a new flight path-route B576-has been introduced that will allow pilots to take a much more direct path to their destination. The Taipei-Shanghai route is expected to become an 82-minute trip, 70 minutes faster than before, while Taipei-Beijing will be shortened by 75 minutes to a 166-minute trip. Airlines expect the new flight route will enable them to cut fuel costs by 40% and reduce ticket prices by as much as 20%

As for cross-strait sea transport, the two sides agreed to allow direct shipments, reciprocal duty-free privileges, and establishment of offices on either side of the Taiwan Strait, and Taiwan will open five ports to Chinese ships while China opens 63 ports and harbor districts on its side.

According to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, ships bound from Taiwan to China have thus far had to travel via an intermediate location such as Ishigaki, in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture. In addition to the extra fuel expense, Ishigaki has been charging US$20,000 per port call. Direct shipping is expected to shorten the trip by six to nine hours and lower costs by up to 30%. This will facilitate the transshipment of intermediate goods by cross-strait manufacturing operations and open up shorter paths to port for Taiwanese fruits and vegetables, which will arrive in China that much fresher and be that much more competitive on the market there.

Under the postal services agreement, letters currently routed via Hong Kong and other intermediate locations will be delivered directly, greatly reducing the time required for delivery of cross-strait mail. The agreement on direct postal services will also allow for cross-strait postal remittances even before an official decision has been made to allow direct cross-strait funds transfers between financial institutions. The change will make it much easier for the general public to send funds back and forth between Taiwan and China, and constitutes very good news for the roughly 250,000 women from China who are married to local citizens in Taiwan.

All four agreements reached in the Chiang-Chen talks address administrative matters that have no connection to politics, and the agreements were in fact already in the works during the previous Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration. Nevertheless, the talks sparked concerns among DPP supporters that in seeking rapprochement with China, the Ma administration was going "too far, too fast." Tensions between the ruling and opposition camps have in fact been building for some time now.

Matters took an ugly turn two weeks before Chen's arrival when ARATS vice-chairman Zhang Mingqing attended an academic conference in Tainan. Protesters there, led by an opposition camp city councilman, jostled Zhang and knocked him to the ground, prompting Chen Yunlin to leave central and southern Taiwan off his itinerary. The Ma administration reacted by adopting significantly heightened security measures for Chen's visit. Even so, protesters fought with police everywhere Chen went, diverting attention away from the meetings themselves. The historic significance of the visit gained little notice, which was unfortunate.

Street battles between protesters and police erupted on the evening of November 5 when Chen showed up at the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei on Chungshan North Road to attend a banquet hosted by Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the Kuomintang party. Supporters of the opposition camp surrounded the hotel, preventing Chen from leaving. He remained holed up inside the hotel for eight hours before a police contingent with superior force finally cleared a path for him to depart at 2 a.m.

Concerned that the situation might spiral out of control, President Ma on the following day (November 6) moved up the time of his meeting with Chen from 4 p.m. to 11 a.m. Unfortunately, Chen addressed Ma as "you" during the ten-minute meeting, which did nothing to allay the indignation of opposition supporters who felt that "China was being imperious and insulting toward the people of Taiwan." Over 10,000 demonstrators who had been gathered at the Chingfu Gate in the traffic circle a couple blocks from the entrance to the Presidential Palace then proceeded to the Grand Hotel where Chen was staying. Some in the crowd hurled feces, stones, firecrackers, and Molotov cocktails at the police, who swung batons, advanced on the crowds from behind barricades, and arrested demonstrators. About 100 demonstrators and police were hospitalized with injuries, making this the bloodiest demonstration in Taiwan in over a decade.

The police came in for criticism afterwards in the media, where it was noted that in addition to closing off roads to ensure Chen's safety in Taiwan, they also set up a huge number of roadblocks along the route from Taoyuan International Airport to the Grand Hotel, and would not allow people to carry the national flag or hang protest banners having anything to do with Tibet or Taiwan independence. They even asked Sunrise Records, located near the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel, to shutter its doors temporarily, and forbade anyone from playing The Song of Taiwan or other songs with a nativist theme. In this respect, the police would indeed seem open to charges of improperly enforcing the law and exacerbating the fears and anti-mainland sentiment of the opposition camp supporters.

On the other hand, as President Ma has stated, violence is not to be condoned under any circumstances, and the DPP should take full responsibility since it had pledged beforehand to demonstrate peaceably. However, newly elected DPP chair Tsai Ing-wen has come to her post after a career in the civil service, and is not so familiar with the workings of street protests. There was a serious breakdown in the chain of command at the demonstrations: leaders and party workers at the front of the protest lines declared the demonstration over and departed the site, leaving behind a leaderless crowd that erupted into violence. Tsai later declared that those who had attacked the police were "underworld thugs taking advantage of the situation to make trouble." Her attempt to wash her hands of the matter triggered an uproar.

After Chen Yunlin left Taiwan, over 1,000 university professors and students as well as social activist groups conducted an online campaign to launch the "Wild Strawberries" student movement, the name being a conscious nod to the "Wild Lilies" student movement of 1990. Movement leaders sought apologies from the president and the premier, demanded dismissal of the heads of the National Security Bureau and National Police Administration, and called for an amendment to the Assembly and Parade Act that would eliminate the current requirement for express prior approval of street marches, and in its place institute a filing procedure whereby approval is automatic unless the authorities specifically reject the filing within a prescribed period. Mainstream public opinion has not sided with the movement on the first two demands, while the switch to a simple filing system for street marches was part of President Ma's campaign platform in the first place, and the Legislative Yuan is already working on an amendment, so this demand should be met with no major difficulty.

On the morning of November 7, as he was preparing to leave Taiwan, Chen Yunlin made a deep bow while thanking his security detail for their hard work. To see the special emissary from a powerful nation display this kind of diplomatic dexterity was impressive, but addressing President Ma only as "you" was a downgrade from the 1998 meeting in Beijing between then-SEF chairman Koo Chen-fu and then-PRC president Jiang Zemin, who addressed each other as "Mr. Koo" and "Mr. Jiang." This rollback in etiquette was indeed a disappointment to the people of Taiwan. However, perhaps the "shock therapy" administered during Chen's visit will help Chen and other PRC leaders to better understand Taiwan's diverse democracy and guide future cross-strait dealings toward a more pragmatic path.

Following close on the heels of the meeting between Chiang and Chen was the 16th APEC Economic Leaders Meeting (ELM) in Peru on November 23, to which Taiwan sent its highest ranking representative ever-former vice president Lien Chan. Moreover, a new precedent was set in Peru when Ma was referred to in official ELM documents as the "leader of Chinese Taipei, President Ma Ying-jeou." This breakthrough shows that China is gradually easing up on its perennial diplomatic hounding of Taiwan. It also shows that cross-strait detente is indeed a feasible way for Taiwan to regain its rightful place on the international stage.

In just a half year under the Ma administration, cross-strait relations have tipped away from the confrontation of the last decade or more, and toward "co-opetition." Neither side recognizes the other at this point, and much remains to be done before such recognition might become a reality, but the two sides have taken a big step forward.

Galloping ahead with cross-strait relations, however, is not the most pressing task at hand: it is even more important that the Ma administration establish a dialog between the ruling and opposition camps. The two camps must cast aside ideology and intrigue, and think seriously about where Taiwan needs to be heading, for only a cohesive and strong Taiwan will be able to put forward a united front and achieve long-lasting peace and prosperity.