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32 Asia The Economist January 2nd 2010
Taiwan and China
Strait talking
Taichung, Taiwan
Progress in talks with China is a mixed
blessing for Ma Ying-jeou
RELATIONS between Taiwan and China
may be better than at any time since
Nationalist forces routed in China’s civil
war ed for Taiwan in 1949. But not everyone
is cheering. Chen Yunlin, China’s most
senior Taiwan negotiator, visited Taichung
in central Taiwan in December to sign
three technical accords (covering co-operation
on shing, industrial standards and
the quarantine of agricultural products).
But public support in Taiwan for President
Ma Ying-jeou’s China-friendly policies
seems to be eroding.
The opposition Democratic Progressive
Party (dpp) claimed 100,000 people had
joined its protest rally on December 20th.
(The police estimated 30,000.) They condemned
the pact the government wants to
sign with China, formally known as the
Economic Co-operation Framework
Agreement, or ECFA, saying it would cause
thousands of job losses and lead to an in-
ux of cheap Chinese goods. Mr Chen was
dogged by protesters, albeit in far smaller
numbers than on his rst visit in November
2008. In the worst scue, a policeman
was badly hurt and six people detained.
Mr Chen and his Taiwanese counterpart,
Chiang Pin-kun, agreed they would
negotiate ECFA at a summit in China in the
rst half of 2010. Mr Ma hopes it will be
signed then, but Chinese negotiators
would not promise this.
ECFA is the cornerstone of Mr Ma’s
cross-strait policies but he has provided
scant details. It is born out of his fear that
Taiwan, already ravaged by the nancial
crisis, will be marginalised as a free-trade
pact between China and the Association
of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) takes
eect this January. China puts pressure on
other countries not to sign free-trade agree-
Trade winds
China’s trade with Taiwan, $bn
25
+
0
–
25
Exports
Imports
75
100
125
1990 95 2000 05 09*
50
Source: CEIC *January-November
ments with Taiwan. Mr Ma hopes that will
change once Taiwan and China have their
agreement, although there are no guarantees.
Singapore is expected to be rst.
Even disregarding other markets, however,
China’s are attractive enough. Taiwan’s
exports face taris ranging from 5%
to 15% in China. ECFA is expected to call for
immediate liberalisation of some goods.
Ocials say they are likely to include products
most vulnerable to ASEAN competition,
such as textiles, automotive parts and
petrochemicals, along with some services.
China’s long-term goal is political unication.
It does not entirely trust Mr Ma,
who says this will not happen during his
presidency, but much prefers him to the
pro-independence DPP. It hopes that help-
Laotian Hmong refugees in Thailand
Shown the door
ARELATIVELY peaceful haven in a bad
neighbourhood, Thailand has taken
in hordes of South-East Asians eeing
war, persecution and poverty. But the
welcome is wearing thin. This week the
Thai army loaded 4,351ethnic Hmong
onto lorries and drove them to the border
with Laos, whence they had ed. None
was allowed access to United Nations
ocials, who might have classied them
as refugees deserving protection and
eventual resettlement. Yet Thai ocials
called their eviction voluntary.
Recruited by the CIA to ght in the
1960s, the Hmong were among the losers
in the Vietnam war. Hundreds of thousands
ed Laos after the Communist
victory in 1975 and eventually moved to
America. In 2004 America agreed to take
in another 14,000 or so Hmong who had
been staying at a Thai temple. Those
bundled back to Laos this week had
drifted to another makeshift camp in
Phetchabun province, hoping to claim
international asylum. A separate group
of 158 refugees were deported from a
detention centre on the border.
A barrage of American, EU and UN
criticism failed to stop the expulsion.
António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees, said the repatriation
would set a very grave international
example. Human-rights groups say the
Hmong may face persecution in Laos and
that their forced return violates international
law. Those linked to ragtag Hmong
rebels in remote mountain areas are
deemed particularly vulnerable.
Laos has insisted that all who return
will be resettled peacefully. It denies
discriminating against the Hmong, one
of dozens of minorities in a poor, land-
ing Mr Ma in the economic talks will both
generate public goodwill towards China,
and boost his chances of re-election. But
Mr Ma himself faces a dilemma. He is in a
rush to sign ECFA. But the public is not yet
feeling the benets of the nine past agreements
signed with China. The few thousand
Chinese tourists who come every
day are making little economic impact.
Moreover, the DPP fared well in local
elections in early December, when it won
45.5% of votes compared with 47.9% for Mr
Ma’s ruling Kuomintang, the KMT, a far cry
from the 58.5% Mr Ma achieved in the presidential
election in May 2008. That means
Mr Ma may feel electoral pressure to go
slow on ECFA. He will certainly have to do
a better job of selling it at home. 7
Bangkok
Its hospitality exhausted, Thailand sends refugees back to an uncertain future
locked country. But Thailand’s refusal to
grant the UNHCR access to the camp
makes it unknowable how many had
genuine fears of persecution and how
many were merely economic migrants.
Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit
Vejjajiva, came to power a year ago promising
to restore the rule of law. That
pledge does not seem to extend to refugees.
Last January the Thai army was
revealed to have pushed back hundreds
of Rohingya Muslim boat people from
Myanmar who then drowned or went
missing at sea.
For Hmong insurgents in Laos, relief
may ultimately come from California,
from where an exiled former leader, Vang
Pao, occasionally plots armed revolution
at home. Now 80, Vang Pao said recently
that he wants to go home to make peace
with his Communist foes. Nearly 35 years
after the fall of Saigon, America’s Indochina
war is not over yet.