On the afternoon of April 12, President Ma Ying-jeou met with Joseph R. Donovan, Jr., Managing Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). In addition to briefing his visitor on how the ROC's admission to the US Global Entry program will enhance Taiwan-US economic, trade, and cultural ties, the president also reiterated the government's firm intention to promote regional peace.
In remarks, President Ma pointed out that Taiwan just elected a new president and national legislature this past January 16. The elections marked the third peaceful handover of ruling power between political parties in Taiwan, and achieved a historic milestone by producing the first female president in the history of the ROC. The transition period has now entered into its third month, and both the president and Premier Chang San-cheng (張善政) have met separately with their respective counterparts, President-elect and Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and Premier-designate Lin Chuan (林全). "The transition has gone quite smoothly," he said. To ensure a thorough handover, all sitting Cabinet members will brief their incoming successors on work completed, work in progress, and difficulties being faced. During this transition period, he added, the government will continue to actively and energetically move ahead with its appointed tasks so that the incoming government can take over smoothly.
Commenting on Taiwan-US relations, President Ma pointed out that bilateral ties have been better over the past eight years than at any other period since the severing of diplomatic relations. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry have both emphasized publicly that Taiwan is an important security and economic partner of the US, and the number of bilateral agreements signed between Taiwan and the US has increased from 90 when he took office in 2008 to 154 today.
Noting that on his trip to visit a pair of the ROC's diplomatic allies in Central America in mid-March he made an outbound stopover in Houston and a return leg stopover in Los Angeles, the president thanked the US for the high-level treatment he received. The comfort, security, convenience, and dignity of the stopovers were greatly appreciated, he said. During the stopovers a number of high-level US figures, including former President Bill Clinton, held phone conversations with him to exchange greetings and views. Over the past eight years he has made 19 stopovers in eight different US cities, during which he has interacted 185 times with members of the US House and Senate, including a total of 665 minutes of face time and 1,684 minutes on the phone, reflecting the considerable importance of such stopovers, he said.
Regarding US assistance over the past several years for Taiwan in its efforts to take part in the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), as well as passage by both the US House and Senate on March 14 of a bill supporting observer status for Taiwan in the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the president extended his sincerest gratitude.
Turning to the subject of tourism, President Ma pointed out that Taiwan has been a member of the US Visa Waiver Program (VWP) since October of 2012, and the only one of the 38 VWP members that has no official diplomatic ties with the US, so admission to the program was an especially significant step forward in bilateral relations. On April 4, ROC Representative to the US Lyushun Shen (沈呂巡) and Managing Director Donovan also issued a joint statement to announce that Taiwan had been admitted to the US Global Entry program as the seventh member worldwide and the second in Asia. Taiwan's admission to the Global Entry program will allow ROC nationals to enter the US using electronic customs clearance equipment, greatly reducing the time travelers have to spend waiting in lines, he said.
The president then addressed the recent use of "Taiwan passport stickers" on the covers of ROC passports. He acknowledged that an amendment to the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act removing the provision in Article 3 that prohibited the addition of unauthorized stamps on the front cover of a passport has already been passed out of committee in the Legislative Yuan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior's National Immigration Agency, however, have reached a consensus that if an ROC citizen leaves the country with a passport bearing a Taiwan passport sticker that constitutes an “alteration,” as defined by law, the proper government agencies will take appropriate steps to disallow such alterations to avoid the risk that the citizen might not be able to enter another country.
Turning to the topic of Taiwan-US security cooperation, the president pointed out that the US has long faithfully upheld its security commitments made to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances by providing needed defensive weaponry. Since he took office, the US has sold Taiwan US$20.1 billion worth of arms, which is more than what the US sold to either of the previous two ROC administrations, and the highest figure over any comparable period in the last 20 years. In fact, it is double what the US sold during the presidency of his immediate predecessor. In November of 2014 the US Congress passed the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 authorizing the sale of four Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates to Taiwan, which will help to significantly strengthen the ROC's naval defense capabilities.
President Ma further pointed out that Taiwan's four submarines have been in service for many years, and the US agreed in 2001 to help Taiwan acquire eight diesel-electric submarines. The US, however, no longer builds this type of submarine. The ROC government has therefore taken a two-pronged approach, launching domestic production of submarines while at the same time seeking to acquire needed technology from other countries, including the US.
On the subject of cross-strait relations, the president stated that the government has consistently sought under the framework of the ROC Constitution to maintain the status quo of "no unification, no independence, and no use of force" in the Taiwan Strait, and to promote peaceful cross-strait relations in line with the 1992 Consensus—whereby each side acknowledges the existence of "one China" but maintains its own interpretation of what that means. The two sides have signed 23 agreements, and the ministers in charge of cross-strait affairs from each side have met seven times, addressing each other using their official titles during the meetings. Over the past seven-plus years, the number of regularly scheduled, direct cross-strait flights has risen from zero to 890 per week, and the cumulative number of tourist arrivals from the mainland has topped 18 million. Meanwhile, there are now over 42,000 mainland students studying in Taiwan, a 50-fold increase over the number studying here before he took office. Developments such as these have brought peace and prosperity to the Taiwan Strait, and transformed the strait from a flashpoint of conflict into an avenue of peace.
President Ma further explained that sufficient cross-strait trust had been built up to enable a meeting in Singapore on November 7 of last year between himself and mainland Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) in an atmosphere of equality and dignity. The two sides affirmed during the meeting that they share the common objective of "consolidating cross-strait peace and maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait." Afterward, the US White House issued a statement to welcome the results of the Ma-Xi meeting, stating that "The United States welcomes the meeting between leaders on both sides of the Taiwan Strait…, and we encourage further progress by both sides toward building ties, reducing tensions, and promoting stability on the basis of dignity and respect."
President Ma then pointed out that the US, Taiwan, and mainland China can each interact well with either of the other two parties without causing the third party to feel concerned or nervous. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Susan Thornton delivered a speech in May of 2015, emphasizing that "the US-Taiwan 'unofficial relationship' has never been better.… And it must be said that an important ingredient of the close cooperation in recent years has been the stable management of cross-Strait ties." Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Rudy deLeon also praised the 1992 Consensus in an article published this past February 26, saying that it allows leaders on both sides of the Strait to engage and resolve topical issues through practical dialogue, and that Taiwan's approach of "no surprises" has "allowed both Beijing and Washington to engage separately with Taiwan." In addition, Daniel Kritenbrink, Senior Director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, recently stated publicly that the US "welcomed the historic progress in Cross-Strait relations over the last eight years" and would "like to see that progress, that peace and that stability to continue."
President Ma stressed that in addition to improving cross-strait relations and restoring high-level trust with the US, the ROC has also actively played the role of peacemaker in the international community. In August of 2012, for example, he proposed the East China Sea Peace Initiative, and then in April of 2013 saw the signing of the Taiwan-Japan Fisheries Agreement, which put an end to a 40-year fisheries dispute. Meanwhile, in an August of 2014 foreign policy speech, US Secretary of State John Kerry described the Taiwan-Japan Fisheries Agreement as a model for promoting regional stability, and said that the principles behind the East China Sea Peace Initiative could also be applied to maritime areas in other parts of Asia. And when the president visited Pengjia Islet to unveil a monument to "Peace in the East China Sea and our national territory secure forever" on April 9, the day before the third anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan-Japan Fisheries Agreement, he reiterated in a speech the ROC government's firm resolve to promote regional peace.
The president further remarked that in May of 2015 he took the concepts behind his East China Sea Peace Initiative and extended them to the South China Sea by putting forward the South China Sea Peace Initiative, and then in November of the same year Taiwan and the Philippines signed the Agreement Concerning the Facilitation of Cooperation on Law Enforcement in Fisheries Matters. This agreement will help diminish the fisheries disputes that have plagued the two countries for decades, making that agreement a concrete example of putting the South China Sea Peace Initiative into practice.