As soon as the projected measures are approved by the Executive Yuan, the MOEA will put them in place as quickly as possible, and ensuing structural changes in cross-strait economic relations will occur within a year, Yiin said.
2008/07/09 11:15 AM

People across the world tuned in on May 20 to hear Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou deliver his inaugural speech, and not just the portion of the electorate that voted for him in the March presidential election. Everyone with a stake in the stability of the Straits got a piece of the pie¡Xand the United States and China walked away with the biggest pieces. In his speech, Ma offered Chinese President Hu Jintao a grand bargain for the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to co-manage cross-Strait relations between the two parties on both sides of the Strait, in a speech full of giving that only stopped short of letting China eat the cake too¡XMa unilaterally offered to set aside the issue of Taiwan ¡¥s sovereignty, proclaiming that ¡§sovereignty¡¨ will be a non-issue in cross-Strait relations under his administration and ¡§what matters is ¡K core values and way of life.¡¨ What Ma meant by core values could perhaps be interpreted as ¡§Taiwan consciousness¡¨ and the way of life meaning Taiwan¡¦s de facto independence, and if this were true, it may seem like a win-win-win-win situation. Beijing, at least while Ma is in office, does not have to worry about the island moving closer to de jure independence and Hu can avoid having his legacy be branded as the ¡§one who lost Taiwan,¡¨ Washington gets to take a breather, the Taiwanese economy will likely get a needed jolt, and the international community (namely the EU) can deal with both sides of the Strait without stepping into the line of fire, and a cursory look at the odds of this scenario seems like a sure bet for all sides. Yet there may be more challenges in store for the future of Taiwan's foreign policy and particularly Sino-U.S. relations.   [More]

2008/06/04 10:01 AM