“I don’t think you (Taiwan) have much of a choice but to embrace that if you want an economic future,” said Boston University’s Dr. Joseph Fewsmith in Washington on Thursday. According to Fewsmith, speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation, “Taiwan has no economic future outside of the PRC.”

With Premier Yu Shyi-kun willing to spend up to US$75 billion to turn Taiwan into an Asia-Pacific hub of digital design and manufacturing, Fewsmith can foresee no other alternative for the island other than closer economic ties with the mainland.

“How is Taiwan going to be an Asia-Pacific operations center if you can’t fly from Taipei to Shanghai?” he asked.

In short, “the big issue is the ‘san tong,’” said Fewsmith, referring to the future opening of the three direct links of trade, mail and air and shipping services between Taiwan and the mainland.

“I just can’t imagine them not opening up some kind of route between Taipei and Shanghai sometime in the next five years,” he said.

Plus, Fewsmith pointed out, “somebody’s going to make a hell of a lot of money out of it!” This is already apparent, as many of Taiwan’s business heavyweights, such as Formosa Plastics Group chairman Wang Yung-ching and Evergreen Group founder and chairman Chang Yung-fa, have long campaigned for closer economic links with the mainland. Adding to this is the fact that mainland China recently overtook the U.S. as Taiwan’s largest export market.

Even in the absence of direct links with the mainland, cross-strait trade is booming. According to one recent government estimate, Taiwan’s total investment in mainland China since Taipei allowed cross-strait civilian exchanges in 1987 amounts to as much as US$70 billion, much of it by the high-tech sector, compared with US$42 billion invested in Southeast Asia.

Making matters worse for Taipei, according to Fewsmith, is the realization in Beijing that the economic inducements of investing on the mainland will prove too great for Taiwan’s leaders to ignore in the long run. Moreover, adding to Beijing’s confidence on the economic front, there is a feeling among mainland officials that neither President Chen nor any future administration in Taiwan will actually declare Taiwan independence.

“China’s politicians argue that time is on China’s side,” said Dr. Cheng Li, a resident fellow with the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center, particularly because half a million people from Taiwan live in Shanghai and because the mainland was successful in bidding for the 2008 Olympic Games.

An ever-present and crucial factor in Taiwan-mainland relations is of course the influence of U.S. policy on the region. Cross-strait issues will be on the agenda when President George W. Bush and mainland President Jiang Zemin meet in Crawford, Texas on Oct. 25, but neither is expected to do more than respectfully restate their existing approaches to Taiwan, which is said to be the biggest sticking point in U.S.-mainland relations.

Nor, according to Dr. Carol Hamrin of George Mason University and a former U.S. State Department official, is President Bush likely to compromise on issues such as human rights and Taiwan in order to win mainland China’s assent for White House plans to take on Iraq.