Where are Beijing and Taipei heading to?
Beijing and Taipei just signed their agreement to have direct flights (36 flights / annum). In addition to establishing direct flights, both sides will also establish visa granting offices. What are the important and relevant points here?
It is too early to say which entity will carry this function on the Taipei side. On the Beijing side, it is obvious that will be China Travel Services . This is a company total owned by the Beijing government. The implication here is Taipei needs to have a debate about what to be done about Mainland China companies operating in Taiwan. This is something Taiwan did not prepare for.
What Taiwan should really want is: if there is any grease to be distributed on the Mainland side, make sure the grease is distributed to a non-government owned entity. If that is not possible, then make the recipient as remotely government controlled as possible. Diluting (or weakening) the influence of Communist Party is the goal when unification comes. Since reciprocity is a must in an agreement like this, Taiwan has no problem in instituting such a condition on its own end. If Mainland doesn’t like it, it just becomes another chip on the table. So the requests can work out like these: the tourist companies need to be publicly traded which no stocks are owned by government or government owned companies. The visa applications will be collected by tourist companies and forwarded to a government agency.
In fact this office establishing was not on the original agenda. This again shows Taiwan has a lot more development potential for its negotiation staff. And it also shows Taiwan needs to check its own inventory: what chips does Taiwan have, especially Mainland China will get stronger annually?
Outside of this agreement and moving forward, what Taiwan needs is some space in the international arena. And Mainland China President Hu is really selling the co-inhabitant atmosphere. Hu is selling so hard for the following reasons:
1) Hu is having his second and final term of presidency. Taiwan is the holy grail for any Mainland China or Taipei president;
2) Tibet gave China a bad rep and Olympics is coming;
3) Sichuan earthquake, no matter how well Mainland China government performed during the crisis, is still a negative.
For relationship and confidence building purposes, now is the time to give more exposure to Taiwan. APEC could be a place for it since Mainland China should be very confident about its own influence there. WHO is another place since sovereignty is not as prominent as health security in that organization. If Hu wants this as his accomplishment, then he needs to dance with Taiwan: Give more love offense to Taiwan.
We all know the famous line of Roosevelt: “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” However, will this same line work if a Mainland Chinese president says it while the audience is Taiwan voters?
Ireland: Florida 2000 to EU
The Irish vote against the Lisbon treaty becomes the Florida 2000 to EU. 3 million Irish blocked 490 million of Europeans. Is this comparison fair? What did they prevent? What does it matter? Who gets the most out of it? What can we learn from it?
Ireland closed its referendum polls for the EU treaty called Lisbon Treaty. CNN reports it is the only country that has a referendum because the treaty affects the Irish constitution while all the other countries make their parliaments ratify the treaty. This is a close vote because the Lisbon Treaty means a lot. Well, it meant so much that France and Netherland rejected the almost the same text back in 2005.
Most quoted difference this treaty produce is all countries will cede their veto rights. New rules will become effective when the committees pass the rules.
This gives less accountability to the new EU body. Voters of all countries will not vote on anything that EU does or the officers in the body. In the post SOX era, governance or accountability becomes more and more important. However the governance structure (accountability) in the new Europe is slipping away. Power without accountability is a bad omen. In America, governance requirement has evolved from publicly traded companies to charities now. Europe is stepping back in this regard.
All EU countries will cede some powers to EU and create a president and an EU foreign minister to be called “High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy”.
EU has been having a chair for European Commission. However, that position is half a year long currently and without a budget. The newly created position of president will have tenure of 2.5 years, renewable once and with a budget. High Representative will also have a budget. Once these two offices get their own budget, they will get their own legs to all sorts of places that voters cannot possibly dream of.
Multi-National Corporations (MNC) will get the most of it. MNC have access to Brussels. EU has no accountability. The already hierarchical society/economy in Europe will be even more restrictive. Regulations will be more difficult. Market entry barrier will be higher to starve off competitions from young companies. A market environment like this will lead more mega mergers once these institutions matured.
The Secretary of State of America will immediately see a big difference. No longer will America be the representative of the West, of the democratic world. There will be a strong voice about what “democracy” means. And Europe may put an emphasis that America did not think of: peace. Europe will give diversity to the interpretation and approach to the promotion of democracy. However, Europe may not want to compete in that keyword. Europe may find its own voice with the concept of peace. With that, Europe may find itself more popular in the international arena than America.
The lack of referendum in so many countries shows politicians want to keep the voters out of the decision process because politicians want to be brokers. Letting voters have a direct say is making the outcome unpredictable (let’s assume this is not about their jobs and grease). However, who else is a better jury for an important decision? Should we not have a jury?
