REPRESENTATIVE SENSENBRENNER DISCUSSES U.S.-TAIWAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 000186 SIPDIS STATE ALSO FOR EAP/TC STATE PLEASE PASS USTR FOR ALTBACH, COMMERCE FOR 4431/ITA/MAC/AP/OPB/TAIWAN, AND USDA FOR FAS/OCRA RADLER AND ANDERSON-SPRECHER; FAS/ONA BERTSCH; FAS/OSTA RASMUSSEN; AND FAS/OFSO SALLYARDS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2019 TAGS: CH CVIS EAGR ECON ENIV ETRD MARR PREL TW MASS, ICAO SUBJECT: REPRESENTATIVE SENSENBRENNER DISCUSSES U.S.-TAIWAN TIES AND CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS WITH TAIWAN PRESIDENT AND LEGISLATIVE SPEAKER Classified By: Director Bill Stanton for reasons 1.4(b/d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Taiwan needed strong U.S. ties to pursue cross-Strait rapprochement, President Ma Ying-jeou told Representative James Sensenbrenner during their February 17 meeting. Sensenbrenner voiced support for a bilateral extradition agreement and urged Taiwan to improve the security of its passport as a step toward inclusion in the visa waiver program. He urged Taiwan to repair the damage done by its failure to implement a protocol opening the market fully to U.S. beef imports, warning that legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's proposal to defer action until 2015 would cause Taiwan significant problems in the U.S. Congress. While voicing support for Taiwan's efforts to participate in ICAO, Sensenbrenner urged Taiwan to look beyond the UNFCCC, which he described as a fatally flawed approach to climate change. End Summary. Economics and Trade Key to Taiwan's Survival -------------- ¶2. (C) President Ma Ying-jeou began his February 17 meeting with Representative Sensenbrenner by expressing appreciation for the recent U.S. decision to sell Taiwan a $6.4 billion package of arms. Not only was the sale in line with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA),Ma said, it would also help give his administration the confidence to continue efforts to improve cross-Strait relations. Ma reviewed the progress on cross-Strait issues and the economic, commercial and transportation agreements signed since his inauguration in May of 2008 and predicted that Taiwan and the mainland would sign an Economic Framework Agreement (ECFA) by the end of ¶2010. ¶3. (C) Both Taiwan and the mainland were committed to continued progress in expanding cross-Strait economic ties, Ma said. For Taiwan, doing so was a matter of survival. For decades, the island's economic vitality gave it the ability to resist political pressure. Over the past decade, however, Taiwan had lost ground on this front and ran the risk of becoming economically marginalized, Ma suggested. For example, he said, Taiwan did not belong to any of the 59 regional FTAs that had been signed by the end of 2009. The only other country in the region which had not signed an FTA in one form or another was North Korea, Ma noted. This had commercial economic implications, since it made Taiwan exporters less competitive. Breaking out of this box meant first signing an ECFA deal. Once Taiwan and the mainland reached a deal, Ma asserted, other countries would be willing to negotiate FTAs with Taiwan. U.S. Ties the Foundation of Cross-Strait Detente -------------- --- ¶4. (C) Cross-Strait rapprochement needed to be accompanied by improved ties between Taiwan and traditional partners such as Japan, the EU and, most important, the United States, Ma emphasized. Although there continued to be real concern, particularly among cattle-state members of Congress, about Taiwan's inability to meet its commitment to reopen fully its market to U.S. beef, this would not affect the recently-announced arms package, Sensenbrenner said. It would be impossible for any democratically elected President to oppose a unanimous resolution of the legislature, Ma said, but his administration would work to ensure that there were no obstacles to the U.S. beef products that could be imported under the new law. ¶5. (C) Noting Taiwan's interest in concluding an extradition agreement with the United States, Sensenbrenner emphasized the importance of putting in place a network of international agreements to prevent criminals from exploiting loopholes to evade justice. Taiwan had already returned many criminal suspects to the United States, Ma said, but had difficulty obtaining reciprocal treatment. Sensenbrenner stressed the TAIPEI 00000186 002 OF 002 importance of the law enforcement relationship working in both directions. ¶6. (C) Turning to Taiwan's interest in joining the visa waiver program (VWP),Sensenbrenner noted that U.S. law required candidates have in place measures to ensure the security of their travel documents. In this regard, Taiwan needed to take action to require that all passport applicants personally appeared before a government official before a passport was issued. He observed that Taiwan had a security interest in closing a loophole that had the potential to allow PRC and other mala fide travelers to obtain Taiwan travel documents. Once Taiwan took this step, and assuming Taiwan's visa refusal rate continued to approach the 3% statutory requirement, entry into VWP should be relatively straightforward, Sensenbrenner said. Taiwan would continue to work to reduce the applicant refusal rate, Ma replied. ICAO, UNFCCC Top IO Priorities -------------- ¶7. (C) Expanding Taiwan's ability to participate meaningfully in international organizations was another key goal of his administration, Ma said. In particular, Taiwan hoped to gain access to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Taiwan's importance as a regional aviation power and the growing number of cross-Strait flights were good reasons to support Taiwan's ICAO participation, Sensenbrenner said. At the same time, however, he expressed skepticism about the long-term viability of the UNFCCC. The failure of the Copenhagen meeting suggested that it was only a matter of time before countries moved from a UN-centric, consensus-based approach, Sensenbrenner said, to one based on less ambitious agreements among like-minded actors. Legislative Speaker on Beef, Passport Security -------------- - ¶8. (C) In a February 21 lunch with Legislative Yuan (LY) Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, Sensenbrenner underscored the negative impact the LY's decision to amend the Food Sanitation Act to prohibit the importation of certain U.S. beef products. The United States was the only major country to stand by Taiwan's side, Sensenbrenner noted, and we would not promote (or serve to our children) a product that we believed was unsafe. Wang responded that the revision to the law could be reviewed as "early" as 2015, or 10 years after the last known discovery of a BSE-infected animal in the United States. Allowing the problem to fester for 5 years was unlikely to be well-received in Congress, Sensenbrenner pointedly observed. ¶9. (C) Sensenbrenner urged Wang to take the legislative steps needed to strengthen the security of Taiwan's travel document, both to improve Taiwan's eligibility for inclusion in the VWP, but also to keep fraudulently-acquired passports out of the hands of illegal immigrants and other mala fide travelers. Wang agreed that this was a worthwhile goal and suggested that there were non-legislative fixes to the problem. ¶10. (SBU) Representative Sensenbrenner did not have an opportunity to clear this cable before leaving Taipei. STANTON