Building Bridges to China

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Strait ahead: Ma hasn't wavered in his mission to make it easier for China and Taiwan to do business

Jameson Wu / Eyepress News / Eyepress

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To an extent, Ma is simply taking the next logical steps toward normalizing relations between two governments that technically don't recognize the other's right to exist, but which have inevitably been drawn together economically. Taiwan is a global center of IT manufacturing, and in recent years, the island's companies have for competitive reasons been compelled to open factories on the mainland, taking advantage of a liberalization of Taipei's restrictions on such investments. More than a million people from Taiwan now live in China in industrial centers near Shanghai in the east and in Guangdong province in the south. Direct transport links greatly enhance efficiency and lower costs of doing business across the strait, which could help a Taiwan economy that has struggled in recent years to find new sources of growth. In addition, a warmer China-Taiwan relationship alleviates a thorny diplomatic and security problem for the U.S. Its historic support of Taipei is a point of contention between Beijing and Washington. Now, "the likelihood of war has decreased," says Li Jiaquan, a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Institute of Taiwan Studies in Beijing. "This is good not just for Taiwan and China, but for the U.S."

The easing of tensions has come about in part because Ma, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Taipei mayor, is a far more palatable politician to Beijing than his more confrontational predecessor, Chen Shui-bian. China's leaders ultimately want the island and the mainland to reunite. During his eight years as President, Chen irked Beijing by flirting with ways of making Taiwan more formally independent, such as scheduling a referendum on applying for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan. Ma, on the other hand, has promised not to declare Taiwan an independent state, a position that has made it easier for Beijing to cooperate with Taipei. During China's National People's Congress in March, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao dangled an olive branch, saying that Beijing stands ready to "create conditions for ending the state of hostility and concluding a peace agreement between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait." (Read "Taiwan's Leader Keeps Low Profile Abroad.")

Strides toward détente carry a political price for Ma. Many in Taiwan don't consider the island to be part of China, and they fear closer ties will eventually lead to a loss of identity, even sovereignty. Last October, hundreds of thousands protested against Ma's China policy in a Taipei rally organized by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Another large protest is planned for May 17. Ma "sees the closer ties [with China] as an opportunity," says Cheng Wen-tsang, the DPP's spokesman. "But we see them as a threat."

Ma counters that everything he has done is in Taiwan's best interests, especially concerning the economy. The global financial crisis hit trade-dependent Taiwan especially hard. Exports in April plunged a staggering 34% from the same month in 2008 — the sixth consecutive monthly double-digit decline — as demand for the island's computer and electronic equipment shriveled in the U.S. and Europe. The government expects GDP to contract 3% in 2009; some private estimates predict worse. The severity of the crisis brought new urgency to the effort to improve ties with China in order to capitalize on one of the world's few remaining sources of growth. "If we had not opened up to the mainland, we would suffer more," Ma says.

Read "The World According To Ma.

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