To each his own: Opposition demonstrators hold placards in protest against Taiwan and China's cross strait meetings outside the Windsor Hotel, Tuesday, in the central Taiwan city of Taichung. AP/Wally Santana
Negotiators from China and Taiwan met for a fourth round of trade talks Tuesday amid protests from critics who fear the Taiwanese government's China-friendly policies are opening the door to eventual unification with the mainland.
Top officials plan to sign a trio of minor agreements later in the day and discuss a free-trade deal that has fired up critics of President Ma Ying-jeou's push to link the export-dependant island's economy ever closer to China's.
Hundreds of protesters have gathered outside the hotel in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung where the meetings are taking place, held off by a strong police presence determined to prevent a re-occurrence of the violence that marred a previous meeting in the Taiwanese capital Taipei one year ago.
In their opening statements, the negotiators dwelt on the benefits of closer cooperation for both sides.
"Peaceful development between the two sides is the overwhelming trend. No one can stand in its way," Chinese delegation leader Chen Yunlin said.
Since taking office in May 2008, Harvard-educated Ma has eased tensions across the 100-mile-wide (160-kilometer-wide) Taiwan Strait to their lowest level in 60 years, turning his back on predecessor Chen Shui-Bian's pro-independence policies.
He has pushed a welter of business-boosting initiatives, including regular air and sea links with the mainland and ending across-the-board restrictions on Chinese investment in Taiwan.
While most Taiwanese back closer economic ties with China, a dip in Ma's popularity in recent months has hurt public backing for his pro-China policy.
Many in the main opposition Democratic Progressive Party believe Ma's China-friendly push is setting the stage for an eventual Chinese takeover of the island, which the president vehemently denies. China has made unifying with Taiwan - by force if need be - the core of its Taiwan approach since the sides split amid civil war in 1949.
The DPP says Ma's intended trade deal - formally known as the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, - will flood the island with cheap Chinese products, prompting massive job losses.
"Our president has turned blind to the possibility that jobs will be lost" after signing the agreement, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen told tens of thousands of pro-independence demonstrators who marched through Taichung's streets Sunday, a day ahead of Chen's arrival in Taichung.
Ma rejects that assertion, saying the trade deal is necessary to prevent Taiwan's economic marginalization amid growing commercial ties between Beijing and neighboring Asian countries.
Washington strongly supports Ma's approach. Despite withdrawing its formal diplomatic recognition of China from the Taipei government and shifting it to Beijing in 1979, it remains the most important foreign partner of democratic Taiwan. However, it fears being drawn into any armed conflict that Beijing threatens in response to moves to formalize Taiwan's de facto independence, and it sees Ma's policies as strongly reducing that possibility.
Ma has said repeatedly that unification is not on the cards during his presidency - if he's re-elected, his term would last until 2016 - and most Taiwanese take him at his word. But some in his party favor union with the mainland, so many in the opposition fear that steps toward that end could still be taken while he is in office.
Despite the protests, Ma's push for a partial free trade agreement with Beijing is still on track to be signed in the spring of 2010. His Nationalist Party enjoys a substantial majority in the legislature, allowing him to implement virtually any deal he wants.
Speaking ahead of Chen on Tuesday, Taiwanese negotiator Chiang Pin-kung said Taiwan still hoped for more direct flights between the sides and an increase in numbers of mainland tourists visiting the island, which have fallen far short of expectations.
He said an agreement on avoiding dual taxation that the sides had planned to sign at the talks was being postponed to allow more time to hammer out technical issues.
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