 Okay thank you everyone for coming on this still slightly rainy afternoon I'm Michael Green I'm the senior vice president for Asia here at CSIS and a professor Georgetown and a good friend like many of you of Joseph Wu. We are privileged to have Joseph here to brief us in person on the report of the China Affairs Committee expanded meetings on China policy under the 2014 China policy review. Joseph has a PowerPoint briefing and after that we'll have a brief discussion up here and then open it up to the floor for questions and answers. I was previously in government in the National Security Council staff of President George W. Bush and during a DPP government in Taipei and Joseph in his role as the head of the MAC mainland affairs council and the representative here was one of our go-to guys someone we could always rely on for not only a straight description of what was happening in Taipei in terms of the policy the politics the strategy but also someone who would help us solve problems and add some clarity and common purpose between Washington and Taipei going forward. One of the challenges in those days but it's still a challenge is understanding how policy towards the mainland will unfold and a lot of Washington pundits demand that the DPP have an absolutely clear and predictable China policy that's very convenient for us as if there were no domestic politics in a fellow democracy and so it's not an easy thing to do but nevertheless I think there's a broad consensus in Washington that we need a bit more predictability in how not only the blue camp but the green camp the DPP are thinking about China how the policies evolving and this report is a heroic effort to do that the press has said either depending on where they come from it's too much Joseph Wu is a dangerous man or it's not enough Joseph Wu is not ambitious enough the DPP should do more Joseph will tell us more but I view this as an evolutionary step towards building consensus we may not quite have the 2014 consensus but it's a step in the right direction it seems to me and one that should be of interest to people in Washington who care about our friendship with Taiwan and peace and security in East Asia as a whole so Joseph's gonna give us the brief I'll ask him a few questions and then we'll turn this into an LI session and people throw questions at him but not food and no shoes Joseph thank you for coming back to CSS and and the floor is yours look forward to it you can use the podium well thank you very much Mike for the very elaborative introduction I'm honored and I'm very happy to be back in Washington DC I'm especially happy to be able to come to the CSIs for this briefing the reason why we want to come over here to Washington DC to brief you in person about the 2014 China policy review is because this is a major development in the DPP and I think the more I can explain the better you can understand about the DPP or where the DPP is from the 2014 China policy review was completed last week and was accepted by the China Affairs Committee of the DPP last Thursday but before I go into the details of the China policy review or the China Affairs Committee I think I need to explain to you a little bit about why we have this China policy committee or we want to do a review on our China policy and I think the reason is because the reason is because there is a general background general context that we need to look at in more detail and there's a general context that we worry a little bit that prompts the DPP to look at our relations with China more and the general context is that China seems to be growing quite rapidly it's growing militarily and it's also growing with its political leverage political influence political power and also its economic might and this is the first factor that we need to face it's very different from the older days when the DPP was still in office maybe China was rising at the time but its influence today is much more than what it was when the DPP was in the office and there's also growing tension in East Asia especially in East China Sea if we look at the Diao Yitai area there was several moments that we thought that it was coming very close to a real conflict situation and I think the situation is still going very bad in East Asia and we need to pay a lot of attention to what's going on in East Asia and I think there's also a new regulation over South China Sea by China requiring the fishing boats not only the Chinese fishing boats but also other international fishing boats to register to the Chinese authorities otherwise they will face a stiff penalty and I think this is all raising tension in East Asia and this is something that we need to pay a lot of attention to one of the new things one of the new development in East Asia of course is the alias issue the Chinese government made announcement on 23rd of November last year and this heightened the tension in East Asia and if we put all this as a background for us to understand about Taiwan's relations with China and I think we need to ask in a very careful way if China is making tension or if the tension is heightened which side are we on or are we dealing with the issue in a proper manner or is Taiwan being prepared enough to deal with the issue and of course if you look at the tension in East Asia including the East China Sea and South China Sea maybe there's one question that a lot of people would like to ask is whether Xi Jinping making any difference and I would like to show you a chart to see whether this chart would make sense I try to give you a chronological chronological chart of what's going on in South China Sea or East China Sea and you can probably tell that before the dotted line it was before Xi Jinping came to power as the president you can see the small skirmishes like they try to confront the US survey votes but after Xi Jinping came to power you can see an escalation you know for example the escalation over the time or the announcement of the eddies or the announcement of the new rules on the South China Sea fishing and therefore you can see that Xi Jinping seemed to be making a difference but there's also a long-term trend if you see the whole chart whole chronicles that the tension has already been there except that when Xi Jinping came to power the tension seems to be getting worse and Xi Jinping seemed to have adopted a new strategy of trying to extend China's sovereignty claim in East Asia or in East China Sea or South China Sea and under these kinds of circumstances the normal situation will be that Taiwan has to try to find the best position in its relations with China and its relations with Japan or the United States or other countries in the area and we will always have to ask one question this is a key question we have to ask all the time where there's a tension between China and Japan and when there's tension in between China and the United States or there's a tension in between China and other Southeast Asian countries where is Taiwan on which side is Taiwan on and if people started to feel maybe Taiwan is too much on the side of China then there we might have some problem and normally speaking or rationally speaking the United States is the best friend of Taiwan and China is the only source of threat against Taiwan and therefore what we need to do under the circumstances that there's tension in East Asia is that we need to strengthen our security ties we need to strengthen our economic ties with the United States which is the most important to Taiwan and we also have to increase our relations with Japan and the Philippines our immediate neighbors and at the same time we also need to try very hard to reconcile with China but in the very careful manner after all China has that motivation against Taiwan and they want to incorporate Taiwan and they've been there they have stated in the very blunt way so we have to be very careful but if you look at Taiwan-China relations in 2013 you probably feel that the picture is not exactly the same as what I just described that Taiwan should have a more rational calculation on where it stands in East Asia this is a chart that shows high-level meetings in between Taiwan and China in March Lian Zhan went to Beijing and he met with Xi Jinping and in April Xiao Wan Chang Vincent Xiao went to Hainan Island for the Boa meeting and he met with Xi Jinping and in June there was a straight forum this high-level forum in Fujian province they do this every year and there's always more than 10,000 people from Taiwan participating in this straight forum and in June Wu Bo Xiong the honorary chairman of the KMT also went to Beijing and he met with Xi Jinping and in October Vincent Xiao met with Xi Jinping in APEC in Bali and in October there was a peace forum in Shanghai and in November there was a Zijinshan forum in Nanjing and in December there was an economic cooperation meeting under ECFA that held that was held in Taipei and in December there was also media prospect forum that was held in Beijing so if you put all this together you see that Taiwan and China are meeting frequently and the level of the meeting are it's very high and next year the coming February next month the main interface council chairman Wang Yiqi will travel to Shanghai and he will meet with Taipei's office director Zhang Zijun and this is another one of those high-level meetings and maybe there will be other high level meetings coming up for example there's a possibility that Ma Yingzhou president of Taiwan may attend the coming APEC meeting in Beijing and he will have a chance to meet with Xi Jinping so if you look at all this chart you see that Taiwan's relations with China is far beyond Taiwan's relations with any other country you know the country as important as the United States you know we don't have these kinds of high-level meetings but we have high-level meetings with China and this is something that we need to pay attention to there's also a question about Ma Yingzhou meeting Xi Jinping we have been asking this question in Taiwan where the Ma Yingzhou meeting Xi Jinping is a good thing or not without considering any other factor China is the one that has been threatening Taiwan all these years and if there can be high level meeting in between the Chinese officials and the Taiwanese officials under normal circumstances this will be very good and it will be a signal or a sign of the cross-state normalization and therefore if Taiwan status is not affected or if Taiwan's interests can be safeguarded even the opposition in Taiwan were not opposed to the high-level meeting we would even welcome the high-level meeting but in order for us to make sure that Taiwan's interest is not affected we need to ask some key questions for example what kind of conditions have we been agreeing to the Chinese side in order for this high-level meeting to take place or what will come out in the meeting there was a report from Taiwan a senior National Security Bureau official was saying to the press that China is already preparing for a joint statement for the Xi Jinping and Ma Yingzhou meeting and we have to be very cautious on this you know if something comes out that is not in Taiwan's interest then we have to be very careful we have to prepare for something like this in order to prevent Taiwan's interest from being affected and I think we also need to think about the possible implication strategic implication for Xi Jinping and Ma Yingzhou meeting with Taiwan's interest being affected or Taiwan's strategic interest with the United States being affected by this senior level meeting if we flash back just a year and a half to what happened after September 2012 there was a conflict in between Taiwan and Japan over fishing rights there was a water cannon shooting incidents you know Taiwan doesn't seem to be on the side of the alliance between the United States and Japan and there was also a fishing boat you know fishery conflict in between Taiwan and the Philippines which is another one of the US ally and Taiwan government is sending a kick class destroyers and Mirage 2000 to intimidate your ally and then the ADIZ issue a lot of people in Taiwan feel that maybe Taiwan government is reacting too soft and too slow to the situation for instance Taiwan's civil aviation administration just submitted the material requested by China without checking with the United States or Japan or Korea and what they're going to do there was a lack of coordination with all these key countries and therefore if Taiwan and China is getting too close without having our strategic interest in our picture that might affect Taiwan's real interest or affect Taiwan's key friends interest like the United States or Japan we also need to ask this question we also need to ask the question where the the conditions between Taiwan and China have met on a high level meeting or what kind of exchanges have been going on in the languages they use and this is a chart that I come up with to show you the kind of languages between Taiwan and China I've been using that seems to have come to a point where they can agree with something for more serious meetings to take place like for Wang Yiqi to travel to Shanghai to meet with Zhang Zijun beginning from March Lianzai mentioned about one China, one China, real sorts of the Chinese nation Zhenjing Zonghua and he also spoke about an effective framework for political effective cross-strait political framework and Xi Jinping in return was saying that the two sides should jointly maintain the what China framework and in April Mindjou was saying that there should be no there should be no two China's no one China one Taiwan no China alone Taiwan independence and in June Wu Bochang was saying that according to each framework or constitutional framework or legal framework of Taiwan and China both indicated that it has one China framework and in July Mindjou was saying that both sides insist upon one China principle that's a letter he sent to Xi Jinping in return for Xi Jinping's congratulatory remarks for his re-election as the KMT chairperson and I should bring to your attention that both sides would insist upon one China principle is the interpretation of the Chinese side on 1992 consensus and Taiwan has been resisting that beginning from leader Huaiyue I says no this is not true in 1992 and of course the DPP administration did not accept this but Mindjou at this occasion accepted the Chinese interpretation of the 1992 consensus and then they go on and on and seems to me that the one China framework has become the common language and if both sides agree to the one China framework there seems to be the conditions on the two sides met with each other to allow the senior government officials to meet with each other for example for Wang Yiqi to be able to travel to China and under these circumstances when the DPP look at what's going on in Taiwan or what's going on in between Taiwan and China and the regional dynamics we try very carefully and we try very comprehensively think about Taiwan's strategic picture and we know that Taiwan's strategic priority may be shifting to China as I indicated to you the high-level meetings between Taiwan and China has been going on very frequently but there's not as much in between Taiwan and the United States and therefore we need to reset our strategic priority and in order to show to the people in Taiwan that we pay more attention to our strategic priority of our democratic partners we try to arrange chairperson Su's visit to other federal democracies to Japan to the United States and we're also traveling to Europe very soon to make sure that people understand that these countries are very important to Taiwan and we have to keep these fellow democracies in mind and we should also try to strengthen Taiwan's defense capabilities you know Taiwan's defense capabilities have been laying behind the government hasn't invested enough and what we tried to do is to come up with sets of defense blue papers we had the first set in June last year and we are coming up with a second set which is coming at the end of February and I'll be here again to report about the second set of the blue papers and the third issue area that we try very hard is to look at Taiwan's overall relations with China from all aspects political economic social or security aspect to look at our relations with China in a very comprehensive manner and this is where the China Affairs Committee coming in and I will also explain a little bit about the China Affairs Committee it was a party organization with the organization rules adopted by the Central Standing Committee on November 21st 2012 and therefore this is a party organization it's a permanent organization rather than an ad hoc organization that deal with issues at a certain time it will continue to exist it will continue to function it will continue to discuss and deliberate anything that is related to China and there were rounds of meetings with more than 30 advisors they are the specialist on the cross-strait relations they continue to meet and they'll come up with an agenda for the committee to consider and the first committee meeting was May 9th 2013 and the fifth committee meeting which is taking place last Thursday and in between all these committee meetings we also held expanded meetings and this is at the request of some of the members of the China Affairs Committee and we had nine expanded meetings throughout this period of time and the participants would include more than 600 specialist party officials and even people from different backgrounds and I would love to talk about this I invited Sushi to come to address on the issue of 1992 consensus and he agreed to come and we were very happy that the people from different backgrounds have a chance to dialogue with each other we also invite other scholars from the pen blue background we also invite people from Hong Kong invite people from China not only the Chinese dissidents but also the Chinese students who are studying in Taiwan so we try to bring in as many people as possible into this course of dialogues in Taiwan and as far as I can remember this is the most extensive effort in Taiwan on any single issue area and last Thursday the report the China Policy Review was completed and passed by the members of the committee and I would like to bring to your attention that this is not the end of our effort because there are still more issues that we need to work on and China's China Affairs Committee as I said to you a little bit earlier is a party organization and it will continue to function and we will continue to ask the committee to meet in an interval of once every two months to discuss very serious issues in between Taiwan and China and the most likely scenario in the coming months is that we will arrange topics for discussion or for debate for the China Affairs Committee and if they think that the debate will be appropriate in the next stage there will be debate and if they think that the extensive discussions closer discussions is more appropriate and then we'll arrange for closer discussions and about this finding or the China Policy Review Summary Report some of you may have a chance to read it beforehand and some of you might have a chance to have it in your hand and we'll read it a little bit later this is a summary of the findings and I think you can find some of the good wills in this summary report and this good wills is what we put into this report to show to the Chinese side that we are willing to reconcile even though we are not giving up some of the core values or fundamental positions on the DPP side the first part of the report actually is not this yet it's the forward and some of us worked on the forward realize that maybe this is the first page or the first paragraph the Chinese side will read and therefore we need to be very careful to show them our true intention but at the same time also to show them that there's good will in this forward and there were scholars in Taiwan continue to tell us that we need to show to them that we are in good faith in having exchanges with China so we did that and I'm sure if you read the first paragraph and the second paragraph you will feel that this is a very moderate warning of the description of the China affairs committee and then the second part of the China policy review is the core principle of fundamental principles and core values and the finding after rounds of discussions either in the committee itself or in the expanded meetings we realized that these principles or the values are being accepted by the majority of the people in Taiwan and there's really no need for us to make any modification on these principles will include that Taiwan is already independent Taiwan is not ruled by any other country Taiwan is ruled by itself Taiwan has its own president which is democratically elected Taiwan has its parliament which is also democratically elected and the government in Taiwan exercises exclusive jurisdiction over the territory on this control and therefore this is a reality and we don't have any need to change that and the second is Taiwan is already a democracy and therefore any kind of resolution to the future relations between Taiwan and China needs to be adopted by the people in Taiwan through democratic means the change of the status quo which Taiwan is not part of China or Taiwan is de facto independent also needs to be approved by the people in Taiwan through democratic means and I think it's very simple is that Taiwan is already a democracy and when we try to check with the public opinion is in Taiwan we do that very often we found that majority of the people in Taiwan do agree with us on these two fundamental principles so we try to tell the public that we are reaffirming these two core principles sorry and the part following the fundamental positions is the political relations between Taiwan and China and this is a part that we had lots of discussions either in the expanded meetings or in the committee meetings especially in the last round of committee meetings these are the abbreviation of what came out in the report and I'm sure you have the report itself so you can read more extensively on what we had in our conclusion but I would like to bring to your attention on the second conclusion of political exchanges reached by the committee on last Thursday the first one is about the exchanges in between the think tanks in Taiwan and think tanks in China the principle that we had was that we should deal with China or have exchanges with China from a self-confident perspective we need to engage them confidently and the think tank exchanges with China or the track two dialogues in between Taiwan and China is something that we can look forward to and it's not just the pink green think tanks or pink blue think tanks it also would include the party thing thing the new frontier foundation and this is the first time ever that the DPP has authorized its own think tank to be able to engage China so we can look forward to more scholarly exchanges between Taiwan and China and another point is intercity exchanges cultural mayor Chen Ju was in China a little bit earlier but she was a little bit concerned whether this is in line with the party position in engaging China and this is a definite response to her that we would encourage intercity exchanges between our local government and Chinese local governments and the reason is because we are confident in engaging China and another one that is a slight deviation from the earlier draft or the preliminary conclusion we submitted to the committee before last Thursday the original language was based on the consensus of constitutionalism we can have dialogues with China but there was a lot of debate in the committee meeting and we cannot agree upon this some people say something else and then the conclusion of the committee meeting is that we should probably take that out and leave it open for future discussions and then the wording is like this we should seek internal consensus to form the basis for cross-strait dialogues so if the door is still open for future discussions on those key issues whether it's constitution or constitutionalism that can be the basis for cross-strait dialogues or anything else chairperson Tai mentioned about Taiwan equals to Republic of China and the Republic of China equals to Taiwan and she says that maybe that is something that we can discuss in the future as well and the next part is the economic relations in between Taiwan and China even though a lot of people in Taiwan worry about the extensive economic relations or Taiwan depending on China too much but I think it's good to show to the international society or show to the Chinese side that we will not scrap the economic agreements in between Taiwan and China if the DPP has a chance to come back to power so you can see from the wording here Taiwan should continue to examine the existing agreements to ensure their effective implementation and then based upon the existing agreements we should try to open Taiwan's door for more FTAs or TPP or RCEP that means we will not we will honor the existing agreements but at the same time we also recognize Taiwan's concentration of its economic interest in China is may not be in Taiwan's interest and we should diversify so this is the conclusion on the economic part and then there's also a civic society civil society relations in between Taiwan and China and this is an entirely new perspective you know we have scholars in Taiwan who stress very much on the civil society they think that China's civil society is a rising it's just started and it's very important for us to link up with them for us to pay attention to them so that they can learn from our experience so we draw from their experiences or their sufficiency into this section so you can see the wording that is very much like the scholarly work that Taiwan should serve as a beacon to future China's development and not only China but also Hong Kong Hong Kong Democrats are coming to us these days and they think that Taiwan should pay more attention to Hong Kong and some of the participants from Hong Kong in the expanded meetings also made a call and this is a direct answer to them that we do pay attention to the development in Hong Kong and I think there's also something here that we would like to show to the Chinese side or show to the international community that the DPP will pursue cross-strait relations in good faith on the social dimension there's a lot of Chinese spouses in Taiwan Chinese students and there are also millions of Chinese visitors to Taiwan on the annual basis and we should try to formulate a more friendly environment in Taiwan to make sure that they understand how democracy functions so that they would enjoy Taiwan's openness and they can become Taiwan's best partners in Taiwan's democratic society and the national security part should have no surprises because Taiwan's national security is very important and we feel that our national security has been threatened by China and we feel that Taiwan's defense is not keeping pace and we need to strengthen our security capability and we especially need to have more investment in the national security especially in asymmetrical warfare to make sure that Taiwan has that ability to defend itself and we also think that in the last few years we paid more attention to China than to our democratic partners and we propose that Taiwan should pursue its foreign policy based on values of freedom and human rights and democracy and basically this is the last part of our report and there's also implications that I can think of in reading or in presenting our China policy review the implication for example for the DPP this is an open forum the China affairs committee is an open forum not only for the DPP but for Taiwan in general and for the DPP these forum will continue to exist and it will continue to debate on the China related issues and this is not only an ad hoc type of arrangement to deal with presidential election you know normally the case is that we need to come up with a new set of principles in dealing with presidential election rather than dealing with China in a more serious manner and we don't have a presidential election until 2060 and this is a real effort in thinking about how we should deal with China and this will continue to exist there may be more debates or discussions in the China affairs committee and the next round will be two months from now and for Taiwan this is also something that we can look forward to the China affairs committee serves as a very good model for rational discussions, rational discourse, deliberations on any important and controversial issues not only on China but also on other public issues if the DPP can organize a forum like China affairs committee to allow different opinions different voices people with different background to discuss China related issue maybe on other issue areas we can also organize committees like this or open forums like this and maybe these can serve as a model for the government to follow maybe the government should also think about a forum like this to allow people with DPP background to participate in the government's deliberation on policy issue areas and I think this is also very important for China China will go through this policy review and I'm sure they will be able to understand Taiwan a whole lot better after all when we go through the public opinion surveys our fundamental positions or core principles have been accepted by the majority of the people and in the deliberation we also put in a lot of opinions into this effort and therefore China can understand Taiwan a whole lot more through studying very carefully about the China policy review and I think for the international community this is also a very good chance to see how the opposition engaged in soul searching about one policy issue area and also important for the international community to see that the DPP and opposition in Taiwan is ready to shoulder its future responsibilities you know and at this point to take your questions thank you very much thank you Joseph clear and still evolving debate but very useful for the DPP I think but also for all of us who follow Taiwan even if the conclusions are not all there yet I want to ask a few questions then we'll open it up you spent a lot of time focused on a potential Maying Joe Xi Jinping summit or higher level interactions than we've had thus far in cross-trades is your concern or is the committee's concern that President Ma will do this kind of summit and not get the right thing for it or is it more that you're worried he'll pay the wrong price to get a summit and there's a difference in other words if President Ma did a summit with President Xi Jinping but didn't pay a price didn't accept you know a more unequivocal 92 consensus or one China formulation as advanced by Beijing or some other statement that that the Beijing may want about Japan or the US or these China see if he did it and didn't pay any price to the to the Chinese would your party be okay with it or do you still think for somebody's got to get something back fewer missiles or or some or some concessions on the 92 consensus this is a very good question and maybe I should ask your personal opinion because I know you don't represent everyone on the committee or the 500 participants well in Taiwan we joke that in the DPP if they're three person there will be four or five opinions and maybe one of those issues in the high-level meetings in between Taiwan and China some people always feel that we should just cut off the relations China is being threatened in Taiwan no matter how kind what kind of good words we thrown to China they just continue to build their military threat against Taiwan they will continue to block Taiwan's international participation and they don't even renounce the use of force against Taiwan and therefore some people in Taiwan would very naturally say said you know we shouldn't do it but for those who are more serious about the long-term cross-strait development they would most likely argue that if Taiwan's interest is not affected or Taiwan's interest can be safeguarded we should look at the very high-level meeting in between Taiwan and China as one of the most important steps toward cross-strait normalization and I personally will look at it that way and in order for that cross-strait normalization to take place without Taiwan's interest being tarnished I think we need to look at some of the things very carefully but some of the things may have happened already you know for example agreeing to the one China framework into the Chinese this is very clear one China framework means Taiwan is part of China and therefore agreeing to something that should have come at the end of the negotiation if Taiwan is ready to accept unification with China but you know one China framework put out as a condition agreed to the Chinese side for this kind of meeting to take place may not be exactly in Taiwan's interest and as you can see when the Wang Yiqi the Mac chairperson who is about to visit China in February lots of our legislators especially the DPP side and the TSU side they don't want Wang Yiqi to speak about one China framework or anything similar of that nature to prevent Taiwan from being seen accepted China's conclusion or pre-conclusion of the political negotiations that is not even there yet and another thing we need to be very careful about is the Chinese way of doing the maneuver in this kind of high-level meeting and it took place in 2005 when Lianzhan was in China and again when James Song was in China China always prepared the joint statement or a consensus or communicate for the two sides to make the announcement at the same time and one of the lessons a lot of people in Taiwan learned a very hard way which is last month there was a media delegation in China participating in that media forum and the Chinese side just took out one joint statement without consulting the Taiwanese side they said that this is joint statement so we have to be very careful on what China may put out and therefore I would urge the government to negotiate or to bargain in a very serious way if my enjoy is to visit China to make sure that when there is a joint statement the joint statement does not harm Taiwan in any way and one thing related to your question about Mashi meeting is who wants it more and that is a question that we have been asking in Taiwan passionately in some of the forums we had with our own scholars we cannot even make a final decision who wants it more some people said that is president Ma who wants a meeting with Xi Jinping the reason is very simple his popularity is extremely low cannot be any lower and therefore he needs something to check up his popularity or at least he has something to tell his chosen or to tell the people that he has a legacy in the legacy is Taiwan China normalization but at the same time they were also very serious scholars on our side saying that no it's not president Ma it's the Chinese side who wants it more the reason is because you know China has attention with the United States with Japan with North Korea with South Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan can be a break for China and the Xi Jinping is so confident in dealing with China now that if my enjoy this is China it will show to the international society that Taiwan now is under China's influence so therefore Xi Jinping really wants the meeting to take place and the problem for us is that the Xi Jinping may want to frame a model of the meeting or the visit to make sure that is in China's interest so this is things that complicated my guess would be to answer my own question in terms of US perceptions or perceptions of other democratic friends of Taiwan that a cost-free summit would on balance be viewed as a positive development the same view you have in principle in the abstract but it's also very hard to see given past Chinese practice is how you get a cost-free summit yes that's right and I personally am not so sure that Xi Jinping wants this as much as some people in Taipei and Taiwan think you know President Ma is going to be in a very weakened position at the end of his term in all likelihood unable to deliver anything considerable through the L.Y. and for Xi Jinping and the leadership in Beijing there's a risk in showing this gesture to Ma and getting nothing and then there's a DPP win and I'm not sure you would know far better I'm not sure that it would affect necessarily the election in 2016 because Ma is done and the new candidate from the Pamble Camp will be separating themselves from Ma so I have a sense this isn't going to be a problem because I'm not sure that Xi Jinping wants this as much as some commentators in Taiwan think but in the abstract you're you're you're you're you're right I think it's in the abstract it could be a positive thing but it is hard to figure out how this would be done you know Vice President Biden with all the help of the NSC the State Department the think tanks around town you know went to Tokyo Soul Beijing tried to carefully manage the message but within the region Beijing did a really quite skillful job spinning that trip and taking the embrace of a new model of great parolations and other things to say we have a joint agreement and consensus of the Americans so it's risky even though in the abstract it has potential let me ask another question you say one of the key themes is strengthening ties with other Democratic partners and you're concerned that if there is a Ma Xi summit that a comparable thing wouldn't happen with other Democratic partners and the reality though is for the major not your diplomatic allies but for Japan or a US or Philippines President Ma is not going to get a summit that's just a reality so if there is a Ma Xi summit it would be difficult to establish balance in terms of summaries you have to look at other tools you mentioned TPP and RCEP and my question is I think TPP in particular is the way to counterbalance or add ballast to Taiwan's relations with Democratic friends but what concerns me when I travel to Taipei is in the abstract people who were thoughtful and international like you know that but when it comes down to the politics of it I don't get the sense that there's any stomach in either political camp to do some of the hard trade liberalization doing a free trade agreement with the Americans is like going to the dentist with no novocaine and and it and it takes a real you know no more you did it and Abe is probably going to do it but it takes a real decision big big hard decisions am I wrong about that is there a is there a disconnect between the strategic concept and the actual politics or do you think they could converge in the coming years well I think it's conversion president Ma in his first announcement of his interest in joining the TPP a couple of years ago he said that we will join the TPP negotiation in 10 years well too long it will be a long retired and under pressure he said that we'll join the TPP negotiations in eight years it's still too long and we waited for two more years before you know he made an announcement very recently that he would urge the government institutions to try to participate in the TPP as soon as possible and he also asked Vincent our former vice president to lead a civilian group to study the possibility for Taiwan to join the TPP as soon as possible and this is a positive step and I agree that the Taiwan should participate in the TPP as soon as possible and the opposition in Taiwan the DPP even though it's natural for the DPP to say things that are opposed to the interests of the ruling government it because the reason is because we want to replace the KMT but our trade issues this is different on Taiwan New Zealand trade agreement and STEC which was agreed upon earlier last year the DPP not only did not oppose it we try to move it up the calendar in the Y sessions so that it could be passed earlier than what was scheduled on and there was also an agreement in between Taiwan and Singapore the ASTEM the Singaporean government was very good in briefing us what it's all about and we agree that that is a very important agreement in between Taiwan and another economy and therefore we supported for hardly and if there's can be another FDA in between Taiwan with any other economies and I think the DPP is going to come up with the same spirit that will support the the the FDA's with any other country and for the TPP I don't know whether you remember what the chair Sue the chair Sue came over here and deliberate deliver a speech in the Brookings jointly held by the CSIS and the Brookings and in that speech he talked about the need for Taiwan to participate in the TPP and he spoke about that several times when he went back to Taiwan and last week we also had a report by the director of our international department on the lessons to learn from Japan and Korea in the pursuing FTAs and the TPP and we're studying very carefully on the what kind of programs we need to be prepared what kind of things Taiwan needs to engage in voluntarily in order for Taiwan to be accepted by the partners of the TPP as a responsible partner and of course there are things the government should do and can do right away you know for example the structural reform make investment in the upgrade of our industries or streamline our rules and regulations which is too complicated and too cumbersome and we need to simplify the bureaucratic procedures you know some of the international corporations in Taiwan finds life very difficult because they have to deal with a very complicated bureaucracies sometimes we should just go to one bureaucracy and say I want to do this and they should return with that bureaucracy but in Taiwan this chops you know you have to have 100 chops 200 chops in order to get one thing done it's not right for us to continue to do that and we have made concrete suggestions in the central standing community report that we need to pursue TPP but there are things we need to do right away and we are urging the government to do them and finally before I open it up you you give a very clear and very I don't want to sound pejorative but clever skillful I should say description of the China committees and the party's position on these existential questions about one China definition 92 consensus constitutionalism and you were very clear that you know de facto Taiwan has its own president and so forth and as a democracy these things have to be decided democratically but you also said issues like constitutionalism are still on the table could be discussed if we invite you back in a year or in two years should we expect answers on those or is it more realistic to expect that those issues are going to wait until after 2016 as a general matter well I would say that the members of the committee are very eager in taking on those there are serious issues we understand that those are the issues that we have to confront otherwise you know when we get closer to the election it will be more difficult for us to deal with those questions and we have to deal with those questions before the election the 2016 election rolls along you know we can take off those you know emotional factor out of the discussion the better and according to some of those participants in the committee meeting we need to think about constitution as a consensus or as a basis for the cross-strait dialogues which is proposed by Frank Shea he always has that idea in one of the expanded meetings he talks about that idea but that was overthrown it been turned into consensus on constitutionalism but the participants in the last Thursday's committee meeting they feel that that is too complicated for the people to understand and that might not be good enough especially the Chinese spokesperson for the Taiwan affairs office has already came out and rejected that and therefore we need to think of something new cheer woman's high thought that is good for us to think about the formulation Taiwan equals to Republic of China Republic of China report you know equals to Taiwan and the reason is quite simple is you know when we talk about the Republic of China that is that linkage with the Chinese concept of one China even though the Republic of China in Taiwan is being accepted as that something that is different from China and therefore you can see that the people in the committee are very interested to take on these fundamental issues and come up with a new formulation or a new concept to serve as a basis for cross-strait dialogues this may be inaccurate from your perspective but my takeaway politically about this is you said part of the point is to take the emotionalism out of these issues before the election but I always thought Taiwan elections were about putting emotionalism in before the election to turn out the base something which may have become a little more reliability for both parties so that's why I think there's some real credibility to this something the Republican Party sort of figuring out now too and so it's not just Taiwan's issue let me open it up please identify yourself and yes sir we have camera microphones right yeah John Xen with CTI TV just welcome back I have a just what do you think of the the reaction from Beijing to the result of the review and also while you were you are in town here have you met with administration officials what is their reaction to the review particularly the result of the review I also have a question for Mike if I may Mike you said in your opening that the review is a revolutionary step evolution evolution I don't want to get him in trouble evolutionary yeah Mike what is it in the review or in the result of the review that you think is significant from the US perspective thank you very much take on those well for the Chinese reactions the Taiwan Affairs Office issued a press statement right after we made public the 2014 China policy review but when I look at the response from the Chinese side is it's the way I would describe is a knee jerk response you know it's quick response a typical response traditional way of responding to the DPPC initiative they responded to things like we use national security as an excuse to block crossway normal exchanges which is not true okay and they also said that we use core value to incite you know Taiwan's nationalism against China things like that which is also untrue and the way I look at the Chinese response is still quite moderate it's not screaming off the roof against this report and I think there's still room for us to make exchanges with China we have plenty of scholars who can have opportunities to engage the Chinese scholars and I'm sure they will study this document in the much careful manner than the immediate response from the Taiwan Affairs Office after all there are quite a few what I would call goodwill or goodwill gestures to the Chinese side and I'm sure they can they will catch them and the second question that you asked me about the meetings with US officials you know you have been covering this news for a long time you know the rules I cannot speak about it we speak with US officials from time to time but we cannot speak about who that is or what we spoke about well in general reaction up until today speaking with friends in the United States including some of the friends in the think tanks I think they have an appreciation of how hard the TPP has been working on this and for the US officials I again I would urge you to ask the US officials rather than you know coming from me it would not be nice for me to say what they say I'm not currently a US official but but for you all play one on TV I mean from my own perspective this is evolutionary because it's reasonable it's not complete leaves a lot of big unanswered questions that are pretty fundamental but it's reasonable and you know frankly I think the view when I was in the administration was to be honest Joseph from time to time the DPP put out statements that were highly insensitive to responses in the US or Japan let alone China this reads as a document that's carefully calibrated to demonstrate that the DPP is going to be responsible no surprises doesn't answer all the questions but the US can feel confident that there's a sensitivity to US interests here in US Taiwan relations it's quite clear to me and the mood music is better generally in terms of the opening paragraphs so you know I it's interesting you thought I said revolutionary I don't think a revolutionary document my own personal opinion I don't think a revolutionary document would be helpful because sometimes if you break the consensus in a political party you have another group spin off that's even more radical and helpful so I you know this is this is poor Joseph's herding cats but but I think it's in the right direction but not complete yet you were a professor thank you I'm Andre so was Joe and I'm the chief representative in Vietnam for the interstate traveler company in Detroit Michigan anyway wonderful presentation what my wonderful I my question is this could you how does you see the present Obama's so-called pivot to the Pacific that is the deployment of extra assets naval assets into the area friendship visits to Vietnam and the Philippines that kind of thing and and the what else he he oh and stationing Marines in the in the Australia that kind of overall how does this is this a positive impact from Taiwan standpoint from the DPP standpoint or or not well thank you very much for that question for the DPP perspective we welcome the US rebalance in East Asia we welcome the US paying much more attention than before what's going on in East Asia and we welcome the strengthening of US Japan security Alliance relationship we would welcome the United States sentiment rings to Australia and seeing the Alliance relations strengthen we are very happy to see that the United States is you know from a long-term perspective will have more than 50% of its fleet station in the West Pacific and I think to us this is a very reassuring you know for all this time the United States want Taiwan to engage China but we want to engage China with confidence and I think this is the kinds of action that will provide one with lots of confidence in engaging China but at the same time a lot of people in Taiwan also worry that maybe Taiwan and the pivot or the rebalance may not be exactly in line with each other you know for example the US is strengthening its security relations with Japan with the Philippines with Vietnam with Australia but how about the security relations between the United States and and Taiwan we haven't been able to get f16 cities and we haven't been able to discuss with the US on other advanced defensive weapons and there we seem to have some difficulties in discussing with the United States for future generations of Taiwan defense need and therefore it seems to me that time Taiwan does not seem to be in line with this overall trend in US pivot or rebalance but at the same time also heard it from Pentagon officials that there are all kinds of cooperation between Taiwan and the United States and that is the kinds of things we want to see and the DPP pays attention to Taiwan's own defense and we published the first set of defense blue papers in June last year and we will have the second set coming up at the end of February and that's not the end of our effort and in the process of preparing for our defense blue papers we tried to draw those retired military officials into the discussion and we also asked the American friends to come in for the discussion and I think the purpose is very clear if arms sale becomes difficult we have to rely on ourselves and if Taiwan wants to continue to be a good partner a faithful partner of the United States we should be seen by the United States as willing to pick up its own defense welcome hi my name is David Sadney my question is about the South China Sea as you look in your neighborhood the South China Sea is an area where a lot of people see potential for competition and perhaps even conflict what's your view what's the view of the party on the South China Sea and specifically what's your view on the nine dash line thank you thank you very much for your question and it's always very good to see you and he is always one of those people we can count on for good exchange on security issues and thank you very much for asking that question South China Sea in the way many people in Taiwan look at it as probably more dangerous situation than the East China Sea the reason is because it's much more complicated and China's power projection ability is much higher than other countries in Southeast Asia and therefore if there's going to be a conflict in between China and Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea area it's going to be not easy for the United States or any country that is willing to come in and try to help those countries just try not to forget about the Scarborough shore incidents the Chinese Coast Guard ships just came in to control of the area and there was nothing the Philippines could do about it and therefore this is one area that we need to pay attention to and Taiwan happens to be in control of the largest island in the South China Sea typing island and therefore you know we cannot stay out of the picture but the difficult thing for Taiwan is that there's no other country that is willing to negotiate with Taiwan Taiwan keep asking that we should participate in the multilateral forum but the multilateral forum just wouldn't accept Taiwan and we've been asking individual countries in Southeast Asia to negotiate with Taiwan facefully in order to have a peaceful resolution but those countries just wouldn't speak to Taiwan but I think the DPP's position has you know long-standing position position has been very clear Taiwan should be included in the negotiations because we are in control of one of the largest the largest island of the area and we are also in control of some other islands in South China Sea and therefore a resolution without including Taiwan is just unrealistic and we also see the conflict should be resolved in a peaceful way through peaceful dialogues and we also see that the free passages or free navigation should be the principle for all the countries before a resolution is found and we also argue that we should follow the international law of sea to resolve the differences among all these countries. Nadia Chow, Washington correspondent for Liberty Time. Joseph welcome back and also in your paper mentioned that DPP is going to seek a Taiwan consensus on this issue and we know this might be the most difficult one even more you know but maybe even you know more difficult than a cross-strait dialogue so when you it's when DPP is talking about Taiwan consensus does that means a consensus with the KMT as well because it's hard to imagine you know a consensus just one amount of one party but it's also hard to imagine that that will be initiated by a opposition party to have a consensus with the ruling party so what do you in mind thank you. Well this is a very tough question and I should agree that Nadia always ask very tough but very good questions and Taiwan consensus is something that is being a toast around beginning from 2011 and that idea has always been there even though there are some discussions or debate on what consensus is but if we run public opinion surveys actually it's not that difficult to find real Taiwan consensus on 70 issues or on other thawing issues you know for example on 70 issue majority of the people in Taiwan feel that Taiwan is already independent with national title the Republic of China majority people agree with that majority of the people in Taiwan agree that Taiwan is already an independent country majority of the people feel that the future of Taiwan should remain independent and this is Taiwan consensus no problem with it majority of the people have already spoken and there's also a majority absolute majority of Taiwan people say that we should participate in international affairs international organizations and this is also Taiwan consensus for formulation for Taiwan to be able to dialogue with China that might be a little bit more difficult for Taiwan Chinese always ask for one China principle or anything that relates to one China principle but that issue that doesn't have a consensus in Taiwan but that doesn't mean that they cannot be any consensus for example in last Thursday's committee meeting there were some good ideas being toast around you know for example Taiwan equals to ROC ROC equals to Taiwan or some other members of the committee argue that we should have a constitution to serve as a foundation for that dialogues and of course the main part of our constitution was taken from the 1948 constitution the Chinese I would be easy to point to the constitution accepting that one China connotation but any kind of consensus in Taiwan that can be called Taiwan consensus should not deviate from the majority view if we try to do something or say something and say that this is a consensus Taiwan consensus without majority of the people in Taiwan agreeing to it it's not going to be a very good consensus and therefore we need to be very careful in steering to our course in finding a consensus on the basis for the cross-strait dialogues and you say that it might be difficult to formulate consensus in between the KMT and the TPP or between the Pen Blue and the Pen Green yes it's very difficult these days in Taiwan's political landscape virtually everything the Pen Green is on the Pen Blue will oppose it and likewise you know in or vice versa but there are things the two sides can agree upon you know for example our trade relations with New Zealand and trade relations with Singapore the two sides have no disagreement with each other and on the service trade agreement there was also a very easy agreement in the legislative and they signed a written agreement saying that it has to go through serious or public hearings and President Marty not like it and then he asked the legislative and to read discuss it and the legislative and reconvened and re-agreed that the series of public hearings have to complete and therefore it's not as difficult as it normally would imagine that there will be a consensus in between the green and blue as long as there are good discussions and I'm sure the Pen Green and the Pen Blue can come to a consensus on some of the thorny issues you know we try to invite Su Chi one of the people that the DPP side love to hate you know I invited him to come to the expanded meeting and he agreed to come and it was a very polite manner that he and the DPP folks exchanged views with each other and we also invited Zhao Chun-san you know he is also from the Kinti side he publicly says that there is one of those advisors to President Ma on cross-strait relations and he agreed to come even though we may not agree with each other 100% but at least we are able to exchange with each other and as long as those kinds of exchanges continues I'm sure there can be some agreements in between the greens and blues on some of the fundamental issues just give you a newest example of agreement being possible that was about Wang Yuchi's visit to China he made a report to speaker Wang and speaker Wang convene the closed-door session with the key leaders from different parties caucus and and they agreed very quickly on the resolution binding resolution attached to the general budget that when Wang Yuchi goes to China he should not address unpolitical issues like one China framework or agree to negotiate with China on ending civil war or peace agreement things like that and that goes back to my argument that if we really tries you know there can be consensus in Taiwan hi Joseph welcome back thank you the report was characterized as evolution right now in this process evolution I suspect there must must have some descending minority view within the party can you explain to us is there any significant opposing view or descending view when you discuss this China policy issue they always like that in the DPP and it's not as easy to formulate a majority view and you know I lead a group of staffers in coming up with this China policy review and the process is not easy you have to go through the discourse the discussions through those expanded meetings in order to come up with this China policy review and there are a lot of things that good ideas toss around in the expanded meetings but they are not majority view and therefore we just seem to leave them alone some of those ideas being floating around including for example freezing the Taiwan independence platform that was a minority view in the expanded meeting and when that idea was presented again in the committee meeting again that was a very minority view and I would say the constitution to serve as consensus or consensus and constitution to serve as cross-strait dialogues foundation is also not a majority view and I think we need to work very hard or you know that particular political leader need to work up very much harder than before in order to persuade other leaders in the DPP to accept his view but I think you know normally what kind of views that has been aired in the DPP the DPP has always been a democratic and open political party you can see people like Julian Guo, Guo Zhengliang he criticized the DPP all the time sometimes he criticized the DPP itself harder than the KMT guys but he's still in the DPP it's not like the KMT the DPP is an open political party any kind of ideas can be tossed around and if they are attractive enough I'm sure they will become a majority view thank you very much for good presentations my name is Leonid Tishnyi I study international relations global affairs in my life in many countries I met many Tevanese all of them dream about unifications I don't meet another Tevanese it's one side another side China never says that they attack Taiwan global political economic relations prove that China says the truth now questions why Taiwan having no enemies around in China it's not an increase you say that they increase try all-time increase from your jet a budget for defense a defense a defense against home better this money move to development industry development better relations between China and Taiwan to go to another way change directions of mentality stop enemies speaking enemy enemy and you said that is enemy and now I'm not agrees with you China is not enemy of Taiwan and future is one country so I suggest change politics in declare is it we have no military intentions we don't have any enemies and we country without army without any money from budget not for the answer in this case will be much better by my idea you cannot agree but I I think in your case it's a specific case because island in other so I think I know what this is going to be but well whether China threatens Taiwan or not it's a reality you know they build up so many different type of forces specifically against Taiwan just one instance they have built more than 1500 missiles including ballistic missiles and cruise missiles gear specifically at Taiwan and they are also building transportation ships in order to transport large number of troops across Taiwan Strait and this is all real so to Taiwan we have to maintain our defense capability and the reason is not because we want to attack Taiwan the reason is because we want to be able to safeguard ourselves to prevent Taiwan from becoming an attraction for the Chinese aggression but at the same time a defense is something that we want to pay attention to we also want to reach out to China to reconcile with China to prevent a situation from getting worse China's own 2005 anti-succession law states then under certain circumstances as a matter of law China will use for us so that's out there yeah we look at the Chinese you know intention as something is young more it's open character it's not in more it's not we always ask China to be transparent and they're very transparent on the intention of what I want thank you Mr. Wu welcome back my name is Donghui with China the real news agency and yesterday when Chairman Su had an interview with the central radio he mentioned China plus one from your understanding what does he mean is it a kind of message that he would like to send to the mainland China to see any reaction from Beijing or is a kind of new concept that could be discussed between the both sides thank you China plus one it's not a new concept I'm sure Mike knows it very well a lot of Japanese business people they made investment in China and they feel that maybe that's there's a risk associated with it and therefore they want to have some investment in a different country to diversify their risk this is called China plus one formula and I think we were trying to tell the Taiwanese business people if they want to make investment in China they need to think about their potential risk and it'll be good for them to have investment in a different country as well but it is him that we're trying to reassure to China is not just pulled out from China altogether or you know just to gear at China with all kinds of possibility and this is a peaceful message to China and this meant good will Joseph thank you if you do have more concrete answers to some of the core questions we'd certainly be happy to have you back and I as I said I think this is a reasonable document document and moves the debate in a good direction clouds of its argued in international relations that you know national security depends on the military power the economic power allies but also internal cohesion yes and I've often worried that one of Taiwan's real vulnerabilities is lack of internal cohesion this helps and under president if you look at opinion polls for a variety of reasons I think president monitors or some credit the polls show there is as you pointed out some convergence as well it's a democracy it's a rambunctious democracy a real consensus would be kind of boring but this but this but this this is an important step so thank you for sharing