Taiwan’s Bid to Join China-led Development Bank Hits Early Snags
Taiwan has expressed its intention to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, but its effort has encountered protests at home and early snags over sensitive issues of sovereignty.
Beijing set a deadline of Tuesday for applications to join the bank as a founding member. Despite pressure from the United States, several American allies decided to join in the first round, including Australia, Britain and South Korea. Japan said it would not join in this round.
Chen Deming, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, the semiofficial China organization that handles negotiations with Taiwan, at the Boao Forum on Sunday that he did not see any obstacles to Taiwan joining the bank.
President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan held a National Security Council meeting late Monday to discuss the bank, and afterward, the government announced its intention to join. A presidential office spokesman, Charles Chen I-hsin, said membership could help Taiwan’s integration in the regional economy, elevate its involvement in international affairs, increase business opportunities and improve its ability to join other international economic organizations.
Taiwan’s application reflected its complicated relationship with Beijing, which considers the self-ruled island part of its territory, separated since the Chinese Civil War, when Chiang Kai-shek’s forces fled the Communist victory on the mainland in 1949. Beijing has not renounced the use of force to achieve eventual reunification or to block moves toward formal independence.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance submitted a letter of intent to the new bank’s interim secretariat, while Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the office that handles relations with China, sent a letter to its counterpart in Beijing, the Taiwan Affairs Office. Opposition lawmakers in Taiwan criticized the letter’s submission to the Taiwan Affairs Office as a move that diminished Taiwan’s standing compared with that of other applicants.
Membership in the bank raises questions of Taiwan’s sovereignty, which plays out in the question of names. Its used the name Taiwan, instead of its official name, Republic of China. In addition, it was not written on formal letterhead stationery, nor did it include the full title of the signatory, Finance Minister Sheng-ford Chang.
A spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, said on Tuesday that Taiwan’s application should avoid “problems of the appearance of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’ ”
Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, reported on Wednesday that the Taiwan Affairs Office had received Taipei’s application — an indication that that was the channel that Beijing considered suitable.
“The A.I.I.B. is open and inclusive,” Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for the bank’s interim secretariat, according to Xinhua. “We welcome Taiwan to participate in the A.I.I.B. under an appropriate name.”
China has restricted Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, sometimes allowing its entry under modified names. Taiwan was a founding member of the Asian Development Bank, which it joined as the Republic of China. But its name was changed to Taipei, China, a designation Taiwan , when China joined the bank in 1986.
Prime Minister Mao Chi-kuo of Taiwan said on Tuesday that Taiwan would invest $200 million in the A.I.I.B. but that if it could not join with “dignity” and “equality,” then “we would rather not participate.”
Taiwan’s application triggered resistance at home, where many people express concerns about growing economic ties with China. Last year, demonstrators occupied Taiwan’s legislature for more than three weeks, stalling efforts to approve a trade pact with China. On Tuesday evening, members of the Black Island Nation Youth Front, a group that played a key role in organizing the protests against the trade pact last year, outside the presidential office in Taipei to vent frustration with government efforts to join the bank.
The Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan’s main opposition party, questioned the suddenness of the government’s application to join the bank. Cheng Yun-peng, a spokesman for the Democrats, called the process “” and found it lacking in input from society and the legislature.
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