Hong Kong ties boost is long overdue

Under the terms of an agreement reached last week between Taipei and Hong Kong, both governments will soon establish high-profile intermediary bodies and authorize them to handle bilateral exchanges.

In Hong Kong, the government-run Hong Kong Trade Development Council will establish a "Hong Kong-Taiwan Commerce and Trade Cooperation Committee."

And here in Taiwan, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) will set up a "Taiwan-Hong Kong Economic and Cultural Cooperation Council."

Both of these nominally private organizations will be fully authorized by their respective governments to handle matters such as renewing the Taiwan-Hong Kong aviation services agreement, negotiating trade pacts and relaying important communications between the two governments.

The two organizations are also expected to serve as platforms for indirect communications between the two sides.

This arrangement is expected to strongly resemble that between Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and mainland China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), which act as intermediaries between Taipei and Beijing.

This historic step in normalizing relations and exchanges between Taiwan and Hong Kong is long overdue and should be encouraged.

The need for increased communication and exchanges between Taiwan and Hong Kong has existed for a very long time and long before Hong Kong was handed over to Beijing in 1997.

But this need became more acute after the economies of Taiwan and Hong Kong began rapidly developing in the 1960s and 1970s, leading to increased economic and cultural exchanges.

Today, Hong Kong remains the financial and legal services "capital" of the greater China region.

And while mainland China has emerged as the manufacturing powerhouse of the region, much of the investment capital and know-how used in mainland Chinese operations originate from Taiwan.

While we often read about hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars invested by Taiwan businesses in mainland China, the fact is that much, if not most, of this money has been routed through Hong Kong banks and corporations. Before 1997, when the British were still in control of Hong Kong, colonial authorities were reluctant to engage in any high-profile exchanges with our government for fear of provoking Beijing.

1|2|Next Page>>

PrintEmail

Write a Comment

Terms

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos
 Respond to this email