On the morning of March 25, President Ma Ying-jeou met with a delegation led by Vice-President Sonja Becq of the Chamber of Representatives of the Kingdom of Belgium. Commenting on the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, President Ma offered the victims and their family members the deepest sympathy and condolences of the government and people of the Republic of China (ROC). He also briefed his visitors on measures taken by the ROC to act as a regional peacemaker in the Taiwan Strait as well as the East and South China Seas.
President Ma opened his remarks by addressing the March 22 bombings in Belgian capital Brussels, which caused heavy casualties. Speaking on behalf of the government and people of the ROC, the president condemned the violence and offered sympathy and condolences to the victims and their family members.
Commenting on bilateral relations between Taiwan and Belgium, President Ma pointed out that high-level interaction between the two countries has grown increasingly close in recent years. Last year, for example, 16 members of Belgium's Senate and Chamber of Representatives visited Taiwan, the highest number in about a decade. The current group of visitors, he added, was the seventh Belgian delegation with which he has met during his time in office. The president also noted that the delegation members represented Belgium's major political parties, and he expressed confidence that, by conducting in-depth discussions with people in the ROC government, the delegation would certainly contribute to deeper bilateral cooperation in such areas as political and economic ties, development of transportation infrastructure, and social services.
Remarking that Belgium is an important European partner of Taiwan, President Ma stated that bilateral ties have progressed significantly in many areas. When Belgium held the rotating presidency of the European Union's Council of Ministers in 2010, Belgium's strong support played a significant role when, on January 11, 2011, ROC passport holders were granted visa-free entry to nations in the Schengen area. This, in turn, was a big factor when ROC passport holders were subsequently granted visa-free courtesies by numerous other countries. Today, said the president, 161 nations and areas throughout the world provide visa-free courtesies or landing visas to ROC nationals, up from 54 when he took office in 2008, an increase of 107 or nearly three-fold. These breakthroughs have made the ROC passport one of the most useful passports in the world, he stated.
The president also pointed out that since 2002 the Belgian parliament has passed five resolutions to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). In February of 2012, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution supporting the negotiation and signing of an economic cooperation agreement between Taiwan and the European Union (EU), thus becoming the first parliamentary body in any EU member state to do so. And last November, he added, the Chamber passed a resolution that supported the ROC government's East and South China Sea Peace Initiatives, praised the easing of tensions in the cross-strait relationship, expressed support for the negotiation and signing of a bilateral investment agreement between Taiwan and the EU, and supported Taiwan's participation in various international bodies. Belgium's Chamber of Representatives has thus taken concrete action in 2012 and again in 2015 in support of stronger economic and trade ties between Taiwan and the EU, which is quite significant.
In recent years, said the president, the ROC and Belgium have signed many agreements covering such matters as youth working holidays, avoidance of double taxation, air freight services, scientific and technical cooperation, food safety, and higher education. The youth working holiday program launched by the two countries in March of 2013, for example, is the first such program that Belgium has set up with an Asian nation, and it will do much to deepen youth exchanges between Taiwan and Belgium.
Commenting on bilateral economic and trade ties, President Ma stated that Belgium was Taiwan's seventh-largest trading partner last year, and two-way trade amounted to roughly US$1.7 billion. In May of 2014 the two sides broke a 14-year hiatus by holding the 16th Taiwan-Belgium Joint Business Council Meeting, and last November held the 17th Taiwan-Belgium Joint Business Council Meeting in Taipei. These facts all show that bilateral economic and trade ties continue to grow stronger, said the president.
President Ma also pointed out that since coming to office in 2008 he has sought cross-strait peace and worked to elicit a friendlier international attitude toward Taiwan, and that this approach has established a virtuous cycle in Taiwan's relations with mainland China and the international community. The peace dividends yielded by improved cross-strait relations, he said, have fed into stronger international relations, thus creating a win-win-win situation for all parties concerned.
Further commenting on cross-strait relations, President Ma explained that over the past seven years his administration has worked within the framework of the ROC Constitution to maintain the status quo of "no unification, no independence, and no use of force," and has acted on the basis of the 1992 Consensus—whereby each side acknowledges the existence of "one China" but maintains its own interpretation of what that means—to seek peace in the Taiwan Strait.
The president also stated that mutual trust between Taiwan and mainland China has built up to the point that he was able to meet on November 7 last year, predicated on equality and dignity, with mainland Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore. By meeting to exchange views about consolidating peace in the Taiwan Strait and maintaining the status quo in cross-strait relations, he said, they had laid down a more stable model for a political foundation shared by both sides of the strait. The meeting met with high praise within the international community, and has brought cross-strait relations to their best state in the past eight years.
President Ma also expressed thanks to Peter Luykx, Vincent Van Quickenborne, Georges Dallemagne, and Alain Destexhe, co-presidents of the Belgium-Taiwan Friendship Group in the Belgian parliament, for issuing a joint statement affirming the positive results of the Ma-Xi meeting.
Turning to the topic of international relations, President Ma stated that since he took office the ROC has actively sought to act as a peacemaker and a provider of humanitarian aid in the international community. In August of 2012, for example, he proposed the East China Sea Peace Initiative to call upon all countries to resolve disputes in the East China Sea peacefully in accordance with international law. In April of 2013, Taiwan signed a fisheries agreement with Japan that put an end to a 40-year fisheries dispute. Then in May 2015 he applied the principles of the East China Sea Peace Initiative to the South China Sea by putting forward the South China Sea Peace Initiative, again urging all parties to resolve disputes peacefully through talks and dialogue.
The president also pointed out that in September of 2012 the European Parliament-Taiwan Friendship Group passed a resolution welcoming Taiwan's ongoing efforts to create peace and stability in East Asia, and last December the European Parliament passed another resolution that took note of the South China Sea Peace Initiative. Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Didier Reynders also once responded to a written query from Co-President Luykx of the Belgium-Taiwan Friendship Group by directly praising the substantive contributions of the East China Sea Peace Initiative and expressing hope that the South China Sea Peace Initiative will help stabilize that region.
President Ma mentioned that on January 28 of this year he visited Taiping Island (also known as Itu Aba), a part of the Spratly Islands, to thank the personnel stationed there for their hard work and sacrifices, and also to issue the South China Sea Peace Initiative Roadmap calling for "cooperation, not conflict," "sharing, not monopolization," "pragmatism, not intransigence," and "shelving of disputes, comprehensive planning, and zonal development" as a feasible path toward peace in the South China Sea. The goal, he said, is to build up Taiping Island as a base for "peace and rescue operations, as well as an ecologically friendly and low-carbon island," and to make the South China Sea "a sea of peace and cooperation."
President Ma stressed that the ROC intends to create Peace in the Three Seas by taking what's been accomplished in the Taiwan Strait and applying it to the East and South China Seas. With this approach at the core of its policies on cross-strait ties and foreign relations, he said, Taiwan intends to act as a true regional peacemaker.
Commenting on Belgium's nuclear energy policy, the president stated that Taiwan could learn a lot by examining what Belgium has done to strike a balance between domestic energy needs, the costs of extending the operating life of nuclear power plants, and nuclear safety. In 2003, the Belgian parliament passed a law providing for the gradual phasing out of nuclear power. The law required that all nuclear plants be decommissioned after 40 years in operation, which effectively meant the shutdown of three reactor units last year and all the remaining reactor units by 2025. However, it later became clear, in light of the nation's energy needs and a shortfall in alternative power sources, that closing the reactor units on the original schedule would have put Belgium at risk of power shortages. In December of 2014, the parliament therefore decided that the service life of the two oldest reactor units, scheduled for decommissioning in 2015 would be extended by ten years, and measures were also taken in the legislative process to allow for policy flexibility.
President Ma further explained that after Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident five years ago, many nations—including Japan, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland—decided to phase out nuclear power completely. Today, however, Germany alone among these nations is sticking to its plan to phase out nuclear power, while nuclear policy in the other countries is changing. This shows that most countries are using a diverse energy mix to address their energy needs, and are not abandoning any one type of energy resource altogether. Taiwan would do well to bear this in mind, he said.
Included among those in the delegation were House members Werner Janssen, Vice-President of the Committee of Naturalisation, and Benoit Piedboeuf, a member of the Committee of Finance and Budget.