President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of December 18 with academics who were in Taiwan to attend the 2012 ROC (Taiwan)-US-Japan Trilateral Dialogue: An Economic Security Perspective, sponsored by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) and the US Heritage Foundation. In addition to welcoming the visitors to Taiwan, the president exchanged opinions with them on a broad range of topics revolving around Taiwan-US and Taiwan-Japan relations.
In remarks, the president stated that since taking office over four years ago he has worked proactively to improve relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. During this period, he said, Taiwan has re-established mutual trust at the highest levels with the United States and Japan, which has helped to promote peace in the Taiwan Strait and East Asia. Consequently, he noted, this security dialogue seminar held by the CIER and the Heritage Foundation is extremely meaningful.
President Ma explained to the visitors that the ROC government desires to maintain a peaceful relationship with mainland China. It also wants to continue its friendly relationship with Japan, along with its close security and economic relationship with the United States. The president stated that the ROC government donated US$1.3 million in assistance to the United States to aid in rescue and relief after the US East Coast suffered serious damage due to Hurricane Sandy at the end of October this year. He also pointed out that the government and people of Taiwan donated a total of over US$200 million to Japan after that nation was devastated by the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami last year. The president remarked that both the United States and Japan extended a helping hand to Taiwan after the September 21, 1999 earthquake and the devastating flooding and landslides triggered by Typhoon Morakot in August 2009. All of this demonstrates the close bonds between the three sides, he said.
With respect to relations between the ROC and the United States, the president stated, the two sides have maintained a close bilateral relationship on the basis of the Taiwan Relations Act since diplomatic ties were severed in 1979. President Ma said that since becoming president, his top priority in relations with the United States has been to re-establish mutual trust between the two countries. In November of last year, he said, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly proclaimed that Taiwan is an "important security and economic partner" of the United States. In fact, over the past four years, the United States has announced arms sales to Taiwan with an aggregate value of US$18.3 billion, the highest amount in recent decades, the president commented. Furthermore, these sales have won bipartisan support from both the Republican and Democratic parties, he said. The United States also formally included Taiwan in its Visa Waiver Program as of November 1 of this year, making Taiwan the 37th country included in this program and the only one with which the United States does not maintain formal diplomatic relations. President Ma said that this not only constitutes a major convenience to those travelling to the United States, but also is conducive to narrowing the trade deficit of the United States with Taiwan.
President Ma mentioned that bilateral trade between Taiwan and the United States last year reached about US$67.2 billion, and that the United States is Taiwan's third largest trading partner. Meanwhile, Taiwan is the sixth largest destination for US agricultural products, and on a per capita basis Taiwan is the second largest consumer of US agricultural products. In addition, our Legislative Yuan in July of this year approved amendments to legislation that paved the way for re-opening Taiwan's doors to imports of US beef. He expressed his hopes that the two countries will be able to resume negotiations under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement at an early date, which he said would help advance the economic and trade relationship between the two.
In discussing the relationship between Taiwan and Japan, President Ma pointed out that last year Japan was Taiwan's second largest trading partner, while Taiwan was Japan's fourth largest. In addition, besides mainland China, Japan is one of the favorite tourist destinations for ROC nationals, he said. The president cited data showing that ROC nationals make about 1.2 million tourist visits to Japan each year, which is similar to the number of trips made to Taiwan by Japanese tourists.
Meanwhile, President Ma explained, Japanese investment in Taiwan has increased considerably since the signing of the Taiwan-Japan Bilateral Investment Arrangement. Also, in the wake of the signing of an open skies agreement, the number of destinations served in the two countries has increased by 90%, while the number of flights between the two has risen by 45%. Under the accord, restrictions on routes and destinations have been virtually eliminated, he stated, making this agreement unprecedented in the history of aviation between the two countries.
In the area of cultural ties, President Ma emphasized that the Japanese parliament (Diet) last year approved the Law Concerning Promotion of Exhibitions of Art Objects from Overseas. This eliminates obstacles to Taiwan's National Palace Museum holding an exhibition of its works in Japan, he stated, further pointing out that it is expected that the museum will hold a show of selected works in 2014 in Japan. The president expressed his confidence that this will be conducive to increased interaction in the cultural and arts arena between the two countries.
When discussing the situation in the Taiwan Strait, President Ma remarked that the ROC government has consistently sought, under the framework of the ROC Constitution, to maintain the status quo of "no unification, no independence, no use of force" in the Taiwan Strait, and to promote peaceful cross-strait ties under the "1992 Consensus," whereby each side acknowledges the existence of "one China" but maintains its own interpretation of what that means. This approach has yielded historic breakthroughs in cross-strait relations over the past four years.
President Ma also reiterated that at the same time Taiwan is developing trade and economic relations with the United States and Japan, it also hopes to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership in order to further participate in regional economic integration. With respect to the controversy surrounding the Diaoyutai Islets, President Ma urged all parties to give serious consideration to the ROC's East China Sea Peace Initiative, which calls on the parties to resolve the dispute in a peaceful manner, shelve differences, and jointly develop resources in the region. This, he said, will help to prevent the situation from further deteriorating.
The visiting delegation, including The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center Director Walter Lohman, former consultant to the office of the U.S. Trade Representative Claude Barfield, Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Associate Joseph A. Bosco, Forbes.com and World Affairs Journal blogger Gordon Chang (章家敦), and Japan's Research Institute of Economy, Trade & Industry Consulting Fellow Kenichi Kawasaki, was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Shen-Yeaw Ko (柯森耀) and CIER's Regional Development Study Center Research Fellow Liu Da-Nien (劉大年) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Secretary-General Jason C. Yuan (袁健生).