Cross-strait peace will be affected if China suspends ECFA: Ex-MAC head

Brussels, May 31 (CNA) A former Taiwan government official once in charge of cross-strait policy said on Friday that China should consider the consequences before it suspends the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) as doing so would impact peace across the Taiwan Strait.

In a forum held by the Centre For European Policy Studies in Brussels, Chiu Tai-san (邱太三), who was the head of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) during the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) administration, said the ECFA should work to ease tensions between Taiwan and China and bring benefits to people on both sides of the strait.

Chiu said any move by China to suspend the free trade agreement, which was signed in 2010 when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Kuomintang (KMT) was in charge, would result in deteriorating relations between Taiwan and China.

"China should consider its actions carefully, because if it suspends the ECFA, economic cooperation and the peaceful development of bilateral ties will be impacted," Chiu said.

After a move to suspend tariff concessions on 12 Taiwanese products at the end of last year, China's Ministry of Finance announced Friday it would suspend the concessions on an additional 134 Taiwanese products, effective June 15.

The 134 items include base oils for lubricants, racing bicycles, and textile products.

China's decision to suspend the tariff concessions came shortly after Lai Ching-te (賴清德) of the DPP was sworn in as Taiwan's president on May 20.

Before Friday's announcement, China launched two-day large-scale military drills around Taiwan on May 23.

Political observers said the military exercises and the further ECFA tariff concession suspensions were to demonstrate China's displeasure over Lai's inauguration speech.

In his speech, Lai cited the constitution of the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name) and said "the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are not subordinate to each other."

Chiu noted that Taiwan and China had been conducting exchanges since 1991, but that he felt the progress made had now been canceled out by Beijing's actions.

He said in the past three decades, Taiwan, like other countries, anticipated it would be able to trade with China but that such hopes evaporated as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) expanded military aggression.

"If Taiwan and China suspend economic exchanges, only social exchanges would remain," Chiu said.

Also at the forum, Alicia García-Herrero, a researcher at Bruegel, an economic think tank in Brussels, said some claimed the ECFA's tariff concessions covered more than 400 Taiwanese products and the suspension could be a "killer" to Taiwan's economy, but that she thought otherwise.

The scholar said she thinks the agreement has become "less important" now as Taiwan's economic structure has changed.

"But if you look at the flow of trade ... Taiwan exports more to the United States than to the (Chinese) mainland," the scholar said, adding that it was the same for South Korea and Japan.

She said such a trend came partly after the artificial intelligence development revolution.

In addition, she said, high-tech product export controls imposed by the U.S. on China were "less relevant" to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

At a time when the global supply chain is changing, the scholar said, Taiwan has placed more emphasis on the U.S. market than the China market.

The European market is also expected to see more opportunities to attract Taiwanese investment, she said.

In response, Chiu said that Tsai's government, which came into power in 2016, had boosted efforts to reduce its economic dependence on China.

Chiu said exports to China accounted for less than 30 percent of Taiwan's total now, down from a peak of 45 percent, while only 70,000 to 80,000 Taiwanese investors were still in China, down from a peak of 111,000 to 120,000.