Taiwan will sign a key investment pact with former rival China at

Taiwan will sign a key investment pact with former rival China at a top-level meeting this week, but anti-Beijing critics remain deeply skeptical of closer ties with the mainland government.

China’s chief negotiator Chen Yunlin will put his name under the much-delayed agreement in Taipei on Thursday, providing a legal umbrella for the more than 80,000 Taiwanese businesses operating in China.

Taiwan’s China-friendly government has described the new pact as a milestone, reached two years after the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, or ECFA, eased tariff restrictions and gave trade a major boost.

The ECFA was widely characterized as the boldest step yet towards reconciliation.

She said a food safety agreement the two sides signed in late 2008 had done Taiwan little good, and had not prevented several people on the island from being sickened by imported Chinese goods.

Even so, once-fierce hostility to closer ties with China may be gradually waning.

Taiwan and China were split in 1949 at the end of a civil war, and remained implacable enemies for decades, even after the island’s businesses started exploring opportunities across the strait.

Growing economic interaction coincided with a political chill from 2000 to 2008 when independence-minded Chen Shui-bian was president of Taiwan, but his successor Ma Ying-jeou has advocated detente with the huge neighbour.

This is the eighth time in four years that Chen and Chiang meet for talks — unthinkable a decade ago in the absence of formal diplomatic ties but which have now become almost routine.

But despite the expanding interdependence — reflected in an estimated Taiwanese investment on the mainland well in excess of $100 billion — many question the merit of pursuing closer links with China.

She said a food safety agreement the two sides signed in late 2008 had done Taiwan little good, and had not prevented several people on the island from being sickened by imported Chinese goods.

Even so, once-fierce hostility to closer ties with China may be gradually waning.

Source AP

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