Nation seeks to boost economic ties with Mexico
BY THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS
The News
Although Taiwan and Mexico do not maintain formal diplomatic relations, combined bilateral trade between the two countries amounts to nearly $7 billion annually, and accumulated Taiwanese investment here amounts to $600 million. (Mainland China has only $281 million in investment holdings in Mexico.)
“There is no reason why our political relations with Mexico should influence our two-way commercial and economic ties,” Carlos S. C. Liao, head of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Mexico, told The News executive director Alejandro Maccise during a visit Monday to the Colonia Lomas de Chapultepec installations of Grupo Mac Multimedia, the newspaper’s parent company.
“The Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office has been operating here for nearly 21 years and there are more than 300 Taiwanese companies with factories or representative offices here, providing jobs to more than 50,000 Mexican workers.”
In fact, according to Mexican government statistics, Taiwan is Mexico’s ninth-largest trade partner worldwide and its seventh-largest provider of imported goods and services. But because the Mexican government has maintained a steadfast one-China policy since the mid-1970s, Taiwan does not have an embassy in Mexico and two-way diplomatic relations do not exist.
“We are not giving up hope that Mexico will consider improving our binational political ties in the future, but for now, we want to get the message across that Taiwan is ready and eager to increase trade and investment relations,” Liao told Maccise and a group of Grupo Mac’s editorial staff.
Liao also noted that historically tense cross-Straits relations have, over the last six years, improved dramatically as the result of an avid rapprochement policy stewarded by Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou, who took office in May 2008.
Earlier this year, China and Taiwan held their highest-level official talks since the two rival nations split at the end of a brutal civil war in 1949, in an effort to improve people-to-people relations and economic links.
Notwithstanding, the mainland Chinese Communist Party still considers Taiwan a renegade province and has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its wing after taking control of the mainland in 1949.
Currently, China has at least 1,600 ballistic missiles pointed at Taiwan, and Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense says the mainland nation will have sufficient military capability to mount a full cross-Strait attack by the year 2020.
Business exchanges resumed in the late 1980s, and in the early 1990s, the two sides began to engage with each other through the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and its Taiwan counterpart, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF).
“In these last six years, Taiwan and China have signed 19 bilateral accords, including an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (in 2010),” Liao said.
“Now, Mexican entrepreneurs should understand that bilateral trade and investment projects with Mexico can be a win-win opportunity for Mexico, Taiwan and China to do business.”
Liao went on to say that while Mexican businessmen have long tried – for the most part, with little avail – to break into the Chinese marketplace, Taiwan today can serve as a “springboard” into the mainland dragon’s massive economy.
The Taiwanese official also pointed out that Taiwan has a long-standing vested interest in Mexico, providing academic scholarships to nearly 200 Mexican graduate and Mandarin-language students each year.
He said Taiwan has helped Mexico through technological cooperation, donating six digital learning centers which have so far trained 11,000 technicians. Also, Taiwanese universities have signed seven reciprocity agreements with Mexican counterparts.
Liao said that his government is very interested in joining the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
“In the near future, Taiwan would like to form a part of that pact, with the endorsement of Mexico and the United States,” Liao said.
The Republic of China was founded after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. When years of Japanese occupation ended after World War II, civil war broke out between nationalists and communists.
In 1949, nationalist troops fled to the island of Taiwan.
Since then, the Taiwanese people have considered themselves an independent nation, although their sovereignty is sorely contested by China.
The Mexican government does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically because of a one-China policy.
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