From September 17 to 19, U.S. Under Secretary of State Keith Krach visited Taiwan. He is the highest-ranking State Department official to visit Taiwan since Washington cut diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979. In effect, his trip embodied the spirit of the Taiwan Travel Act, passed at U.S. Congress in 2018. Regardless of whether the scope of Krach’s official position - economic growth, energy and the environment - is compatible with his attendance of the memorial service for the late president Lee Teng-hui, which was previously said to be the reason for him to go to Taiwan, there is no doubt that a U.S. official of a higher position, compared with other officials recently sent by Washington, has paid visit to the island.

There are a lot of political talks surrounding Krach’s trip. But still there are many other non-political issues that are worth discussing. For example, we should consider how to look at the Taiwan-U.S. Economic and Commercial Dialogue.

The other day, Vincent Chai, head of the political division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., said on Facebook that in view of the timing of Krach’s trip, the members of his delegation and other details of the trip, it was “very obvious” that the main objective of his trip was to attend President Lee’s memorial service. Honestly, that is hardly convincing. For one thing, the American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) press release published on its website on August 31 pointed out that the U.S. and Taiwan would launch an Economic and Commercial Dialogue, “led by the Department of State’s Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and Environment Keith Krach”. To be sure, one can say the AIT statement means the dialogue will take place “in the future” instead of “now”.

The Economic and Commercial Dialogue is so called because the authorities concerned want to avoid disputes surrounding trade talks. In the division of labor concerning negotiations with other countries under the organizational structure of the Taiwanese government, there are no distinct differences between the three concepts of economy, commerce, and trade. In hindsight, perhaps that is precisely the very source of disputes.

Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s representative in the U.S., together with her U.S.-based colleagues, have worked very hard to coordinate with the U.S. about the dialogue. When meeting journalists on September 1, she stressed that the Taiwan-U.S. Economic and Commercial Dialogue did not run into conflict with the Taiwan-U.S. bilateral trade agreement (BTA) and the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), since the focus of BTA is on strategic aspects and the latter is hosted by the Office of the Trade Representative (USTR) of the U.S.. Hsiao’s remark indicates that Taiwan and the U.S. intend to separate “trade” from “economy and commerce”, and that at the will of the U.S. State Department, a new Taiwan-U.S. policy platform is needed. Has this approach been met with bureaucratic resistance from USTR? The answer seems self-evident.

Let us set aside partisan differences for now. There is one question we ought to ask: “Before going onto the battleground of economic and trade talks, has Taiwan communicated properly with domestic sectors?”

No one knows exactly why business leaders such as Lin Por-fong, head of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce Chairman, and Lin Wen-yuan, head of the Chinese National Federation of Industries, were reluctant to meet Krach. It is reported that the two businessmen have huge interests in China’s capital and real estate markets, but that sounds more like an excuse to cover up the real reason why they dodge the topics of the Taiwan-U.S. Economic and Commercial Dialogue and the transfer of supply chains.

Regardless, business leaders have every right to make their own business plans. Even though the government wants them to align their plans with its strategies, it should not simply criticize them but properly communicate with them.

I must stress that I cannot be sure that the Taiwanese businessmen were reluctant to meet Krach because of their interests in China. I am of the view that Taiwanese companies should take the initiative to talk to the U.S. and understand what the U.S. is thinking. Besides, given the current Sino-U.S. rivalry, Taiwanese businessmen should really abandon their “go west” mentality and reflect on their plans to go global.

It is not good for Taiwanese businesses to miss this opportunity to meet with Krach. But even so, we should ask how much the government has done to engage the public since the idea of an economic and commerce dialogue first emerged. Or has the government simply zeroed in on its wish to make diplomatic breakthroughs, thus overlooking the need to create a consensus with people?

To answer this question, we can consider the dinner banquet that Krach attended at the residence of President Tsai Ing-wen. Morris Chang, CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), was one of the guests. Don’t forget that TSMC announced earlier this year that it would invest in a plant in the U.S.. Chang showed his respect for the U.S. by attending the dinner. Had there been other business leaders attending the event, the U.S. would have felt Taiwan’s resolve and goodwill to cooperate with the U.S. on the economic and trade front.

In the long run, should we merge the foreign affairs and economic and trade authorities? This is no novel idea but is something that has been discussed in the past. Besides, Canada’s foreign affairs, trade and development authorities have been merged to become Global Affairs Canada, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was established by combining the diplomatic and trade authorities.

Regarding Taiwan’s foreign economic and trade talks, in the past such talks were ostensibly headed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when in fact it was the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Bureau of Foreign Trade that took care of all the technical details. That was quite an embarrassing situation. In the future, shall we consider integrating the foreign affairs and the economic and trade authorities, so as to centralize the power of the Taiwanese government to handle international trade talks?

The above reminder is meant to encourage people in Taiwan to have discussions on something more practical than all the political talks surrounding Krach’s visit.

(Jerry Liu Shih-chieh, ex-diplomat, director of International Affairs for the New Power Party.)

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