Under the administration of Republic of China President Ma Ying-jeou, the nation’s diplomatic efforts focus squarely on fostering peace and stability through viable diplomacy.

Working on the basis of mutual trust, the ROC government has pursued a raft of pragmatic cultural, economic and trade policies.

The first step in this process began with improving cross-strait relations. Tensions between Taipei and Beijing long hindered Taiwan’s ability to participate substantively in the international community. The only way forward was to address the root of the problem, and this meant engaging with mainland China on the principles of no independence, no unification and no use of force.

Pact with potential

Such an approach has delivered handsome dividends on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. On June 21 this year, more than two years of negotiations paid off with the signing of the Cross-Strait Trade in Services Agreement. The agreement calls for the opening of the cross-strait market to services in dozens of sectors, marking a new milestone in the realization of 2009’s Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement.

Services constitute one of the pillars supporting Taiwan’s economy, with the expansion of service exports set to boost economic growth. Some 70 percent of Taiwan’s gross domestic product (calculated by production) is in services, while for mainland China this is less than 50 percent, reflecting the relative maturity of the local market.

The agreement gives Taiwanese service providers access to preferential treatment that in some cases exceeds mainland China’s World Trade Organization commitments, facilitating expansion of operating scope and economic scale. In addition, Taiwanese investors in mainland China will enjoy new business opportunities there.

Foreign companies will benefit as well. After establishing businesses in Taiwan, such firms can enjoy the preferential treatment in the mainland Chinese market that the agreement provides once they have operated in Taiwan for a certain period and paid taxes. For construction and finance businesses, that period is five consecutive years and for other industries, three consecutive years.

In the bigger picture, the agreement underscores ROC government efforts to boost cross-strait economic exchanges. Since Ma took office in May 2008, Taipei and Beijing have restored institutionalized negotiations and, as of June, signed 19 agreements and reached two consensuses.

Time for talking

In March this year, talks resumed on the Taiwan-U.S. Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. TIFA talks were suspended in 2007 mostly due to a lack of agreement over U.S. beef exports to Taiwan containing a leanness-enhancing feed additive. The controversy was resolved in late July 2012 when Taiwan’s legislature decided to allow a maximum of 10 parts per billion of the drug in beef. The decision followed an announcement earlier that month by the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a food standards group established by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, accepting that level of the drug in beef and pork.

The positive atmosphere continued during a keynote address Ma delivered in a videoconference organized by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University in California in April this year. Fellow panelists were former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CDDRL director Larry Diamond, Stanford international studies professor Francis Fukuyama and Gary Roughead, former chief of U.S. naval operations.

During the videoconference, Ma spoke of the international community’s increasingly warm response to the East China Sea Peace Initiative, which he proposed in August 2012 to address rising tensions over the Diaoyutais ― a group of five uninhabited volcanic islets and three rocks located about 102 nautical miles northeast of Keelung in the East China Sea. The Diaoyutais are an inherent part of ROC territory, but are claimed by Japan and mainland China. The proposal calls on all parties involved to shelve sovereignty disputes in favor of jointly developing and sharing the area’s natural resources.

A fisheries future

The success of the initiative was evident on April 10 when a new fisheries agreement with Japan was announced that allows Taiwanese fishermen to operate without interference from Japan in an area they had long considered a traditional fishing ground. Signed in Taipei by Taiwan’s Association of East Asian Relations and Japan’s Interchange Association, the pact safeguards the rights of Taiwanese fishermen to operate unimpeded near the Diaoyutais, or Senkakus as they are known in Japan.

Under the agreement, ROC-flagged fishing vessels have the right to operate in a zone measuring 21,575 square nautical miles. That zone includes three areas totaling 1,400 square nautical miles previously outside the temporary enforcement line patrolled by the ROC Coast Guard Administration. The pact calls for the establishment of an ROC-Japan fisheries committee, which will meet once per year and discuss issues such as conservation and bilateral fisheries cooperation.

This hard-won agreement is the first Taiwan has signed with a neighboring country based on the principles of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. Taiwan and Japan have been negotiating fishing rights in the area since 1996, with the two sides holding 16 formal fisheries meetings and numerous preparatory ones through February 2009, after which no talks were held until a preparatory meeting in November 2012. In March this year, further preparatory discussions paved the way for the 17th formal meeting in April, which resulted in a consensus and the signing of the fisheries agreement.

Growing global ties

The ROC’s determination to build closer links throughout the world was on show August 12-21 this year, during Ma’s 12-day state visit to South America and four nations in the Caribbean. The 42,000 kilometer journey, which included transit stops in New York and Los Angeles, took Ma to Haiti, Paraguay, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The president’s eighth official trip abroad since taking office succeeded in boosting bilateral relations and further strengthening the country’s standing on the international stage. It also showed that the ROC would continue as a responsible provider of foreign aid while consolidating relations with its diplomatic allies and partners.

Ma’s state visits were made in the same spirit as his trip in March this year to attend the inaugural mass of Pope Francis at the Vatican. This was the first time an ROC president attended such a ceremony since the country established formal ties with the Holy See 71 years ago.

The president’s official trips to South America, the Caribbean and the Vatican are representative of Taiwan’s improving relations with the world. Such a development is also evidenced by a sharp increase in the number of countries and territories granting visa-free or visa-on-arrival entry to ROC passport holders in recent years. In May 2008, there were 54 such nations and areas, but the number had increased to 133 by June this year following the decision by Turkey to include Taiwan in its e-visa system.

But the favor shown to ROC citizens by members of the global community goes beyond visa-free treatment. The ROC government has signed bilateral agreements with nine countries that allow young Taiwanese and their foreign counterparts to travel and work in each other’s countries. As of May, agreements were in place with Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom. The beauty of these pacts is that more young Taiwanese can go abroad and experience the world, opening up their minds and broadening their global perspectives.

The ROC stands ready to shine on the international stage as it endeavors to play the role of peace facilitator in the Taiwan Strait and East and South China seas. There is no question that the country is increasingly seen as a calming influence in East Asia, with viable diplomacy and improved cross-strait relations putting the building blocks in place for Taiwan’s expanded engagement with the world.