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Beijing woos Taiwan's
farmers
By Feng Liang
HONG KONG - The farmers of southern Taiwan
are a major constituency for the "pan-green"
government of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
President Chen Shui-bian, who is seen as favoring
Taiwan independence. In a bid to appeal to these
diehard supporters of Chen, Beijing is now taking
measures to facilitate the export of Taiwan's farm
produce to the Chinese mainland and to promote
cross-straits agricultural exchanges.
In
January, on the tenth anniversary of the
eight-point Taiwan policy advocated by former
President Jiang Zemin, Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) Central Politburo member Jia Qinglin
proclaimed that redoubled efforts would be made to
tackle problems of concern to Taiwanese people,
such as the sale of Taiwan's farm produce on the
mainland. At a February 25 press conference, Tang
Yi, the deputy director of the economy department
of the PRC's State Council Taiwan Affairs Office,
openly called for greater agricultural investment
from Taiwan. Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin
echoed the same message when he recently said his
ministry would boost cross-straits cooperation in
farming ventures, smooth the path for importing
farm products from Taiwan, and consult with
delegates of Taiwan's agricultural industries in
order to better achieve these goals.
The
pan-blue political alliance in Taiwan, unlike the
DPP administration, prefers a benign
Taipei-Beijing relationship; as demonstrated by
the recent historic visit of Kuomintang (KMT)
chairman Lien Chan to the mainland, the
highest-level contact between the KMT and CCP
since the former lost the Chinese civil war and
retreated to Taiwan. A key result of the KMT-CCP
dialogue in recent months was a 10-point consensus
agreement reached before the Lien Chan visit; one
key point was improved procedures for
cross-straits agricultural exchanges.
Concealed behind all the fuss over
agriculture is an evident political motive. In
Taiwan, southern voters who make most of their
income from farming have historically been diehard
pan-green supporters. Therefore, farmers have
become a crucial chip in the cross-straits
dispute.
In an essay addressing Beijing's
new unification strategy targeted at the farming
population, DPP China Affairs advisor Lin
Zhongsheng pointed out that Taipei could respond
with any of three countermeasures: tightening the
government's control of cross-straits agricultural
liaisons; a diversification of markets for farm
produce exports in order to reduce the reliance on
the mainland; and finally, an effort to develop
and maintain control of advanced agricultural
technology. In an atmosphere of irreversible
globalization, aligning Taiwan-based enterprises
with the international community may be a way to
resist Beijing's unification strategy, Lin wrote.
The latest statistics released by the
Agriculture Council in Taiwan show that a quarter
of Taiwan's farm products, valued at $300 million,
are sold to the Chinese mainland every year. Lin
conceded that produce exports were increasingly
relying on the mainland market. According to Lin,
the previous 20-odd years have witnessed a
powerful economic takeoff on the mainland that
increasingly menaces Taiwan's political and
economic autonomy.
There are many
precedents in human history for the huge impact
that economic levers can have on politics. For
instance, France made colossal private and state
loans to Poland and several other countries in
East Europe after World War I in order to increase
its influence in those countries. In 1931, Austria
opted out of a scheme to forge a tariff union with
Germany under pressure from France. Prior to World
War II, Germany managed to prevent other states
from exporting produce to East Europe by means of
its large direct investments in the area, which
discouraged those states from pursuing economic
policies contrary to German interests.
Two
of the most common economic levers to maintain
political influence are "capital input" and
"market monopoly". In the "capital input" case,
one state's control of most capital investment in
another gives it an influence over that state's
policies. In the "market monopoly" strategy, the
status of one state as the sole or predominant
market destination of another state's producers
gives it influence. In the case of Taiwan and
mainland China, both cases apply, but in opposite
directions: Taiwan's huge capital inputs into the
mainland give it some leverage over Beijing. But
at the same time, Beijing's status as the biggest
market for Taiwan's products gives it a great deal
of influence over Taiwan. It is commonly perceived
that the long-term trend favors Beijing, because
of its vastly larger size. But Taiwan still has a
chance to resist Beijing's economic leverage and
safeguard its self-government.
First,
Taiwan ranks as the fourth biggest overseas
investor in the Chinese mainland and sustains a
large part of its high-tech industry. (In fact,
Taiwan's rank would be even higher if
Taiwan-originated investment from offshore banking
havens such as the Cayman and Virgin Islands was
taken into account.) Second, the mainland's
imports of sophisticated technology and high-tech
products are mostly dominated by foreign
multinationals, and the imported techniques have
not been as effectively assimilated or popularized
as is commonly believed. Therefore, Taiwan still
has the upper hand in the scientific-technological
sense.
Also, China generated a nominal
gross domestic product (GDP) of over $1.4 trillion
last year, accounting for only 4.2% of a global
GDP estimated at $33 trillion; whereas the US, EU
and Japan collectively contributed a total of $27
trillion to the world GDP (around 82%). Lin used
this statistic to argue that the rest of the
world, not mainland China, should be the ultimate
target market for Taiwan-grown farm products. He
also urged Taiwanese businessmen to look further
and wider, saying that the mainland was only an
indispensable factory for Western markets with
much stronger purchasing power - not for Taiwan.
Previous PRC governments have invited
investment from Taiwanese businesses as a way of
winning over business tycoons, investors and
politicians on the island, with some success.
However, the consequent capital flight and
industrial hollowing-out took a heavy toll on
industrial and agricultural employment on Taiwan;
and this turned many grassroots Taiwanese,
especially farmers, against Beijing. But now China
has seen the problem and is handing out carrots to
all.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online
Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for
information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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