Taiwan Today

After years of engaging in a high-stakes and costly game of “dollar diplomacy” with mainland China, Taiwan has toned down its rhetoric, concedes Taipei's top diplomat in Washington, Jason Yuan. In an interview last month, Yuan noted that President Ma Ying-jeou calls himself a "peacemaker, not a troublemaker." Since his inauguration a year ago, he has cast aside the belligerent stance of his pro-independence predecessor, Chen Shui-bian, lifting the prospect of cross-strait reconciliation to the most promising in decades. As a result of intense negotiations between both sides, more than 100 direct flights per week now link Taipei with Beijing, Shanghai and other mainland cities—up from zero only a year ago. And the government is looking to expand that to around 350 flights a week. Before, it would take eight and a half hours to fly from Taipei to Shanghai via Hong Kong. Now it takes only 85 minutes,” said Yuan, whose official title is representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Washington, Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the United States. Yuan, Taiwan's former ambassador to Panama, said that for the past 60 years, there was no constructive dialogue between Taiwan and the mainland. Under President Ma, our policy is very clear and easy to understand: no unification, no independence, no use of force," he said. "This will create a healthy U.S.-Taiwan-mainland China relationship. It’s a win-win-win situation for all of us." Despite the worldwide recession and deepening unemployment at home, Taiwan enjoys an annual per-capita gross domestic product of around US$17,000 and boasts foreign-exchange reserves of just over US$300 billion—the world’s fourth largest after mainland China, Japan and Russia. In 2007, Taiwan ranked as the world’s 24th-largest economy among the 181 economies surveyed by the International Monetary Fund in its 2008 World Economic Outlook Database. Meanwhile, World Trade Organization statistics indicate that, in the same year, it was the world’s 16th-largest merchandise importer and 17th-largest merchandise exporter, with a trade surplus of $27.4 billion. But economic prosperity has not put Taiwan ahead in the race for global diplomatic recognition with mainland China, and as such, Yuan believes the days of "dollar diplomacy" are definitely over. No more, vowed the TECRO chief, will Taiwan try to buy small countries' friendship with promises of millions of dollars in economic assistance. “We have 'flexible diplomacy' now," he said. "This has been made clear to the other side. We told them, 'You enjoy diplomatic ties with 171 countries and we have 23. Is there any need for the both of us to use taxpayers’ money to steal countries back and forth? It’s nonsense. One more country on your list doesn’t mean much. So why should we fight about it?'" This new attitude was very much on display last year in Paraguay—the only South American nation that still recognizes Taiwan instead of mainland China. Immediately following his April 2008 election victory, Paraguay’s President-elect Fernando Lugo vowed that upon taking office, he would immediately break relations with Taiwan and recognize mainland China. Even so, Ma insisted on attending Lugo's inauguration in Asuncion as planned. “A lot of advisers told him not to go,” Yuan recalled. “They said if he went and Paraguay broke ties with us, it would be a big embarrassment, and that it would look very bad. But our president went anyway.” “Nicaragua’s [President Daniel] Ortega is another example, but they still maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan,” said Yuan. On June 1, Mauricio Funes replaced El Salvador’s pro-American, pro-Taiwan president, Tony Saca. Among other things, Funes has promised to establish diplomatic ties with both Cuba and mainland China—following in the footsteps of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 2007, and recently negotiated Central America’s first free trade agreement with mainland China. In March, ROC Foreign Minister Francisco Ou said his country would not object if El Salvador forged formal ties with mainland China. The remarks sparked widespread speculation that Taiwan might accept dual recognition in line with Ma’s call for a “diplomatic truce” with Beijing. Yuan, who suggests that Costa Rica already regrets its decision to embrace Beijing, insists his country no longer tries to tell other nations what to do. He claims that with relations improving day by day, China would gain little at this point by having Nicaragua, El Salvador or any other small state come over to its side while abandoning Taiwan. “I don’t resent Panama doing business with mainland China, nor do we resent mainland Chinese ships going through the Panama Canal,” said Yuan, who left Panama the year before the United States gave up sovereignty over the famous waterway. “We do business with the mainland, so how can we stop others from doing the same?” Two years ago, you would be hard-pressed to find an ROC diplomat who would say that. But it is clearly not business as usual when it comes to cross-strait relations. Though many supporters of former President Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party are still leery of mainland Chinese engagement, the Kuomintang-led government has done a complete 180 on its approach toward the mainland. Almost immediately after taking office, Ma dispatched Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation to mainland China in order to negotiate with its cross-strait counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. In October 1992, the two groups held talks in Hong Kong—the first time authorized representatives from the two sides had done so since 1949. The so-called “1992 consensus” reached was that both sides recognize there is only one China, but agree to differ on that definition. Using that consensus with a view toward ending cross-strait hostilities, the two sides agreed last year to resume talks. The new approach resulted in two agreements calling for charter flights between Taiwan and the mainland, and opening up Taiwan to mainland Chinese tourists. “Then last November, the chairman of ARATS led a delegation to Taiwan to conduct a second round of negotiations. That round, concluded in Taipei, led to four more accords: direct air links on a daily basis, direct shipping on a daily basis, direct postal services and cooperation in food safety,” explained Yuan. “Our president said we should set sovereignty issues aside and start with easy things: trade, tourism and the economy. So this is how we started negotiating shipping and air links. Since then, the mainland Chinese have opened up 64 ports to Taiwan’s shipping. We only have 11 ports, and we’ve opened up all 11 for them.” Predictably, tensions between both sides have declined significantly since Ma’s election, making the threat of a military confrontation these days seem extremely unlikely. “In last year’s presidential debates, the Taiwan-mainland China issue wasn’t raised even once,” Yuan said. “There was no need for them to raise that, because they don’t see the Taiwan Straits as a flashpoint anymore. And at the G-20 meeting in London, Obama and Hu Jintao didn’t even mention Taiwan.” Yuan, 67, was appointed to his current job in Washington last summer, taking over from predecessor Joseph Wu. Despite the change of government in Taiwan, Taiwan’s representative to the United States is not exactly a regular visitor to the sprawling new mainland Chinese embassy on International Drive, located just east of Taiwan’s de facto embassy on Wisconsin Avenue. “As consul-general in Los Angeles, I met with my mainland Chinese counterpart. I’ve only been in this job a few months, so I haven’t had a chance to meet the mainland Chinese ambassador,” Yuan said. “I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity, but there is no reason for me to pursue that right now.” In keeping with State Department protocol, Taiwan’s flag does not flutter from the roof of TECRO's four-story mission because it is not technically an embassy— even though TECRO’s Web site is listed as http://www.taiwanembassy.org. Taiwan has not had a real embassy in Washington since 1979, when U.S. President Carter broke diplomatic relations with Taipei and recognized mainland China instead. As such, Yuan is not really an ambassador, although he is frequently addressed as such because from 1996 to 1998 he was Taiwan’s ambassador to Panama. “My status is somewhere between that of the World Bank and the diplomatic corps. In other words, I do enjoy privileges like diplomatic immunity, but not the official title of ambassador,” he explained. “With that status, I cannot officially call on the president of the United States or the U.S. secretary of state. Other departments like Commerce, Defense and the U.S. Trade Representative Office are a lot more relaxed about the policy, he said, “but the two places I cannot go are the White House and the State Department.” On the other hand, Yuan can meet any lawmaker he wants — and often does. “Recently, I went to see Harry Reid,” said Yuan, referring to the Senate Democratic leader. He also confers regularly with congressional leaders such as Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Sen. Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We had a big reception March 26, with 18 senators and 200 staffers coming to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act,” he said. “In very practical terms, we enjoy close ties with U.S. Congress, and friends in and out of government," he said. "We are the beacon of democracy in Asia and the world, and the U.S. treasures this kind of friendship. But because of this lack of diplomatic relations, sometimes it’s not so enjoyable.” —Larry Luxner is a Washington-based journalist and photographer. Copyright © 2009 by Larry Luxner