On January 25, Taiwan's United News Network published an article entitled "Can the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework Decouple from the Land?" The author of the article, Wang Boyuan, chairman of Taiwan's Li Guoding Science and Technology Development Foundation, said that For the "Indo-Pacific economic framework" proposed by the United States, Taiwan needs to carefully evaluate and deal with it cautiously. The full text is excerpted below:
In the past year, in order to counter the Chinese mainland the United States has actively promoted the "Indo-Pacific strategy", and has mastered and laid out some aspects in the political, diplomatic and military fields. Based on the recent statements of U.S. Commerce Secretary Raimondo and White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Campbell, this economic framework is the United States seeking common cooperation goals with Indo-Pacific partners in several areas, such as supply chain resilience, digital economy, technology standards, export controls, and clean energy.
The Taiwan region has been seeking to join regional economic organizations, in particular the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Because Chinese mainland and ASEAN countries are Taiwan's top export areas, if excluded, Taiwan's economy will suffer a great impact.
However, RCEP is dominated by Chinese mainland, and with the current cross-strait tensions, it is not easy to join, and the CPTPP, which is dominated by Japan, is more likely. However, in 2020, Chinese mainland actively stated that it would join the CPTPP, and Japan and other countries also welcomed it; while the United States proposed the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework", indicating that returning to the CPTPP is no longer its option.
Many people think that perhaps Taiwan can try to join the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework" to participate in regional economic organizations. However, the nature of this framework is very different from traditional regional economic cooperation, and its emphasis is not on open, multilateral, equal and reciprocal free trade, but on the integration and dominance of the United States. In addition to making the semiconductor supply chain transparent to solve the global crisis caused by chip chain ruptures, it is also necessary to develop "management" and "standards" for digital information security. Its biggest purpose is to balance the influence that Chinese mainland has built in the Indo-Pacific region through the Belt and Road Initiative in the past, while suppressing the development of Chinese mainland in the field of electronic information and artificial intelligence. On the whole, from the perspective of "America First", the attempt to establish US leadership by strengthening regional integration is not directly related to Taiwan's desire not to marginalize the economy.
However, with the surging tide of the "United States, China and Taiwan" and Taiwan's important position in the semiconductor supply chain, Taiwan is likely to be invited to join this economic agreement. However, once it is incorporated into this mechanism of strong confrontational nature and explicit opposition to the mainland, does it mean that Taiwan will have to cut off from the mainland economically? However, the trade between the two sides of the strait is interlocking, and the proportion of goods exported by Taiwan to the mainland has reached more than 40%, and there is a large surplus, if it is to be hard decoupled, it will be a big harm to Taiwan's economy.
At present, the substance of this economic framework has not yet been announced, and it is not known how Southeast Asian countries will respond. However, Taiwan needs to pay close attention, make a careful assessment, and respond cautiously. Don't be complacent about being able to enter the U.S. global economic map, and don't think that you can use it to compete with the mainland and be complacent, otherwise Taiwan may face economic difficulties that are politically forced. How to deal with it deserves deep consideration by the Taiwan authorities.
Source: Reference News Network