President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of June 27 with a delegation of scholars and experts from the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a foreign policy think tank based in Washington, DC. The president welcomed the delegation to Taiwan and exchanged opinions with them on the state of Taiwan-US relations, interaction between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and issues in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
In remarks, the president stated that he first met Michael J. Green, Senior Vice President for Asia and Japan Chair at the CSIS and the head of this delegation, when he was mayor of Taipei City, and has met with him many more times since then. The president thanked Mr. Green for his longstanding interest in and support for Taiwan.
With respect to advances in relations between the United States and Taiwan, President Ma noted that last July the ROC government amended laws to resolve the issue of US beef imports to Taiwan. Two months later, in September, the two sides reached an agreement to resume negotiations under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), he said. The first round of TIFA talks was held in March of this year, and the president expressed hope that the talks would enhance bilateral trade and economic relations through the use of a "building block" approach. Furthermore, the president commented, Taiwan was formally included in the US Visa Waiver Program on November 1 last year, which provides greater convenience for the roughly 400,000 ROC nationals visiting the United States each year. This move also fosters interaction between the people of the two nations and marks an important milestone in relations between the two countries, he said.
President Ma further explained that a number of high-ranking US government officials and influential members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have visited Taiwan over the past two years, including Administrator Rajiv Shah of the US Agency for International Development, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman, Under Secretary Francisco Sanchez for International Trade at the US Department of Commerce, and Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs Jose W. Fernandez. The level of official contact between the two sides has risen considerably, the president added.
As for cross-strait relations, President Ma told the visitors that Taiwan and mainland China signed the Cross-Strait Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement last August, which is very important to the more than 80,000 Taiwanese companies operating in mainland China. In addition, the two sides recently signed the Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement , he said, explaining that Taiwan has opened its doors to 64 service industries from mainland China, while mainland China has done the same for 80 service industries from Taiwan. This latest agreement is an extension of the Cross-Straits Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement that was signed three years ago, and it covers a wider range of areas, he remarked, adding that the agreement will enable service industries in which Taiwan is particularly competitive to develop in mainland China.
In discussing the East China Sea issues, President Ma noted that when Japan announced last year that it was nationalizing the Diaoyutai Islets, it triggered intense concern in mainland China and Taiwan. The president added that he unveiled the East China Sea Peace Initiative last August to urge all parties involved to shelve the sovereignty dispute and jointly develop the natural resources of the area. President Ma said that Taiwan and Japan subsequently held fishing negotiations last November, which led to the signing of a fisheries agreement in April of this year, thereby resolving a dispute that had plagued the two sides for 40 years. This agreement accords with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, for it enables both sides to jointly maintain and manage the waters in question, and it also provides an area double the size of Taiwan for Taiwan's fishermen to operate in without being subject to the domestic law of Japan, he said. Taiwanese fishermen, the president stated, can now operate in traditional fishing waters without interference.
The president then turned to the Guang Da Xing No. 28 shooting incident of May 9 this year, in which a Philippine government vessel sprayed a Taiwanese fishing boat with automatic fire in economic waters south of Taiwan, resulting in serious damage to the boat and the death of a Taiwanese fisherman. President Ma stated that the ROC has from the start maintained a resolute position, making four demands of the Philippines, namely: to offer a formal apology, to provide compensation for the losses; to promptly and thoroughly investigate the incident and severely punish those responsible for the killing; and to initiate fishery negotiations between the two countries as soon as possible. President Ma said the ROC is waiting for the Philippines to respond positively to the demands, which would enable relations between the two sides to return to normal. President Ma stressed that the ROC is a peace-loving nation and will continue to seek the peaceful resolution of disputes.
The president mentioned that the ROC has continued to move forward on many fronts, and in the process has encountered a number of obstacles. Nonetheless, the government will do all it can to resolve problems as quickly as possible. He expressed hope that the scholars and experts attending the meeting will provide their valuable suggestions in this regard.
The delegation include Robert Joseph (former Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs and Senior Scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy), Christopher K. Johnson (Senior Adviser and Freeman Chair in China Studies at the CSIS), Victor Cha (Senior Adviser and Korea Chair at the CSIS), Scott Miller (Senior Adviser and William M. Scholl Chair in International Business at the CSIS), Vance F. Serchuk (International Affairs Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations and Washington Post columnist), Kristen E. Looney, Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and Nicole White (Program Coordinator and Research Assistant for the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies). The group was accompanied to the Presidential Office by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Ting Joseph Shih (石定) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting were Secretary-General to the President Timothy Chin-Tien Yang (楊進添) and National Security Council Secretary-General Jason C. Yuan (袁健生).