U.S. President Biden ’s upcoming visit to the Asia-Pacific region has attracted much attention recently. Secondly, the main purpose of the visit is to formulate the concept of the “Indo-Pacific Economic Framework” (IPEF) proposed at the East Asia Summit in 2021. Currently, Major participating countries include South Korea and Japan.
The "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework" is different from traditional economic cooperation. Its central themes are trade, supply chain, infrastructure, clean energy, taxation and anti-corruption. At present, South Korea has made it clear that it will participate in the formation of IPEF and become its initial member, while Japan has also expressed the same intention. Under this circumstance, many people in the United States are trying to further expand the "results" of Biden's visit, hoping to include Taiwan in IPEF.
According to China Times News on May 19, after more than 200 US House of Representatives members called for inviting Taiwan to participate in IPEF, and 9 Republican members encouraged Biden to visit Taiwan this week, the foreign affairs of the two parties in the Senate Working leaders gathered more than 50 cross-party senators to jointly send a letter to Biden, demanding that Taiwan be included in the "Indo-Pacific Economic Framework."
These congressmen mentioned in their letter to Biden that the "Indo-Pacific region" GDP accounts for 60% of the world's GDP, and 2/3 of global economic growth comes from here. IPEF is extremely important as the economic layout of the United States in the "Indo-Pacific region" The step , all "allies" must be included.
U.S. lawmakers also emphasized the important role of Taiwan’s electronic products and communications technology in the U.S. supply chain, and forcibly linked the economic issues covered by the “Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue” between the United States and Taiwan starting in 2020 with IPEF. correlation to exaggerate the "fit" between Taiwan's economic situation and IPEF.
In this letter, in addition to "forcibly binding" Taiwan's economic strategy to that of the United States, it also tried its best to exaggerate the China-related threat theory, linking Taiwan's participation in the IPEF economic structure with the security interests of the United States, and even imagined that if the US government Excluding Taiwan from IPEF will lead to mainland China claiming that "the international community does not support exchanges with Taiwan."
From the repeated encouragement and suggestions from members of both houses of the United States to Biden, it is not difficult to see that the United States has fallen into a fixed mindset, that is, whenever it involves the Asia-Pacific region, it will exaggerate the threat theory, and whenever the topic of China is involved, it will not forget to mention Taiwan. question, playing the "Taiwan card" seems to have become a common "tactic" used by American politicians. The consideration of including Taiwan into IPEF this time is actually an attempt to forcibly decouple Taiwan's economy from mainland China through so-called "economic cooperation."
IPEF is a plan for the United States to integrate economic resources in the Asia-Pacific region. Its main purpose is to strengthen trade ties between the United States and its "allies", reduce its economic cooperation with China, and "cut off" the economic ties between China and these countries. , causing them to completely turn to the United States. U.S. politicians also hope to take advantage of this to cut off economic exchanges between Taiwan and mainland China, in order to achieve their political goal of "Taiwan independence" and separatism.
However, IPEF has already decided its "short-lived" fate since it was proposed by Biden, because in this so-called "economic framework", the United States will not open its market to other member countries and reduce tariffs. On the contrary, these countries will be By being forced to accept American trade standards, the United States will gain far greater benefits than other countries, but the cost will be smaller than other countries. This essentially steals the achievements of other countries.
The economic framework proposed by Biden is based on unequal cooperation, which determines that it will not be able to attract as many countries to participate as China's "One Belt, One Road" strategy, let alone maintain the long-term stability of other member states. Economic improvement is, at best, nothing more than a political "small circle" using US hegemony, and has little practical significance in promoting economic development.
Although IPEF has little benefit in promoting economic development, its political role cannot be underestimated, especially its role in destroying the economic environment.Once the United States successfully establishes this structure, it will have an impact on the economic stability of the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, it may use the industrial supply chain to engage in a "trade war", destroy the economic balance of the Asia-Pacific region, disrupt the market order of related industries, and form a technological blockade and Trade barriers .
In this regard, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during a video meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin that maintaining the stability and smoothness of the global industrial chain and supply chain is the key point, which is related to the fundamental interests of China and South Korea, and engaging in a "new cold war" "Confrontation with the camp is not conducive to regional economic development, peace and stability.
However, the newly-appointed Yin Xiyue government did not understand Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s advice and decided to join IPEF. Then Biden will consider the issue of absorbing Taiwan from the perspective of "using Taiwan to contain China". This is important for This is not good news for mainland China, but the good news is that the cross-strait economic integration is higher. Our "benefit Taiwan" policy also provides real money to support the development of Taiwan. The petty profits of the United States will never bring down the cross-strait economy. Decoupling.
