China urged not to politicize trade amid probe into Taiwan barriers
ROC Central News Agency
10/09/2023 09:43 PM
Taipei, Oct. 9 (CNA) Taiwan on Monday urged Beijing not to politicize trade after the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced earlier in the day that it had extended its investigation into Taiwan's alleged trade restrictions toward China for an additional three months.
The Chinese ministry launched a trade barrier investigation in April into what Beijing saw as trade restriction measures by Taiwan against China. It was expected to be completed by Oct. 12.
In an online statement Monday, however, the ministry said it would extend the investigation period by three months because of the complexities of the case, and that the deadline for the completion of the investigation would be Jan. 12, 2024.
That would be one day ahead of Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections.
The Office of Trade Negotiations under Taiwan's Cabinet branded China's Commerce Ministry announcement as proof of its political motives.
It described the extension of the investigation, coming a day before the National Day of the Republic of China (Taiwan's official name), as a breach of World Trade Organization (WTO) norms and a politically motivated attempt to interfere with Taiwan's elections through economic coercion.
Taiwan has said several times that any bilateral trade issues should be settled through consultations between the two sides in accordance with WTO mechanisms, according to the office, which again called on China to stop manipulating trade issues politically.
Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) responded Monday that it was willing to negotiate with Beijing over its trade barrier allegations under the WTO platform.
It said it would also continue to assist Taiwanese industries in diversifying their markets and carry out policies to help them undergo low-carbon transformation and smart upgrades to improve their competitiveness.
Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, responsible for handling China-related issues, also called on Beijing to not play politics with trade and take advantage of the openness of Taiwan's democratic society to interfere with Taiwan's democratic elections.
China announced on April 12 that it had initiated a trade barrier investigation involving 2,455 categories of Chinese products that may be subject to import restrictions or prohibition in Taiwan.
In August, it announced that the number of items under investigation had been adjusted to 2,509.
Tamkang University China studies professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳) indicated Monday that Beijing will definitely take some countermeasures once its investigation has concluded.
Among the possible responses are adjusting the items and scale of the early harvest goods for tariff reduction under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), signed between Taiwan and China in June 2010, he said.
China is unlikely to terminate the ECFA with Taiwan, however, as it focuses on trade and investment facilitation and industry exchanges and cooperation, and its termination would symbolize an economic and trade decoupling between the two sides, Chang said.
If the trade barrier investigation were to yield negative results, leading to the termination of the ECFA, it could hurt Taiwan's exports significantly and drag down its economic growth, warned Dachrahn Wu (吳大任), director of National Central University's (NCU) Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development.
The results of the investigation could also hurt confidence in financial markets given that geopolitical tensions between the two sides have already led to lower Taiwan stock prices and a steep fall in the Taiwan dollar against the U.S. dollar, Taishin International Bank (台新銀行) head currency strategist Chen Yu-chung (陳有忠) said.
(By Chen Chun-hua, Pan Tzu-yu and Evelyn Kao)
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