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DE RUEHIN #0186/01 0550840
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FM AIT TAIPEI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3377
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHMT/AMCONSUL MONTREAL 0009
RUEHC/DEPT OF AGRICULTURE WASHINGTON DC
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RHMFISS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RHHMUNA/USPACOM HONOLULU HI

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TAIPEI 000186 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO FOR EAP/TC 
STATE PLEASE PASS USTR FOR ALTBACH, COMMERCE FOR 
4431/ITA/MAC/AP/OPB/TAIWAN, AND USDA FOR FAS/OCRA RADLER 
AND ANDERSON-SPRECHER; FAS/ONA BERTSCH; FAS/OSTA RASMUSSEN; 
AND FAS/OFSO SALLYARDS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/21/2019 
TAGS: CH CVIS EAGR ECON ENIV ETRD MARR PREL TW
MASS, ICAO 
SUBJECT: REPRESENTATIVE SENSENBRENNER DISCUSSES U.S.-TAIWAN 
TIES AND CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS WITH TAIWAN PRESIDENT AND 
LEGISLATIVE SPEAKER 
 
Classified By: Director Bill Stanton for reasons 1.4(b/d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Taiwan needed strong U.S. ties to pursue 
cross-Strait rapprochement, President Ma Ying-jeou told 
Representative James Sensenbrenner during their February 17 
meeting.  Sensenbrenner voiced support for a bilateral 
extradition agreement and urged Taiwan to improve the 
security of its passport as a step toward inclusion in the 
visa waiver program.  He urged Taiwan to repair the damage 
done by its failure to implement a protocol opening the 
market fully to U.S. beef imports, warning that legislative 
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng's proposal to defer action until 2015 
would cause Taiwan significant problems in the U.S. Congress. 
 While voicing support for Taiwan's efforts to participate in 
ICAO, Sensenbrenner urged Taiwan to look beyond the UNFCCC, 
which he described as a fatally flawed approach to climate 
change.  End Summary. 
 
Economics and Trade Key to Taiwan's Survival 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) President Ma Ying-jeou began his February 17 meeting 
with Representative Sensenbrenner by expressing appreciation 
for the recent U.S. decision to sell Taiwan a $6.4 billion 
package of arms.  Not only was the sale in line with the 
Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), Ma said, it would also help give 
his administration the confidence to continue efforts to 
improve cross-Strait relations.  Ma reviewed the progress on 
cross-Strait issues and the economic, commercial and 
transportation agreements signed since his inauguration in 
May of 2008 and predicted that Taiwan and the mainland would 
sign an Economic Framework Agreement (ECFA) by the end of 
¶2010. 
 
¶3. (C) Both Taiwan and the mainland were committed to 
continued progress in expanding cross-Strait economic ties, 
Ma said.  For Taiwan, doing so was a matter of survival.  For 
decades, the island's economic vitality gave it the ability 
to resist political pressure.  Over the past decade, however, 
Taiwan had lost ground on this front and ran the risk of 
becoming economically marginalized, Ma suggested.  For 
example, he said, Taiwan did not belong to any of the 59 
regional FTAs that had been signed by the end of 2009.  The 
only other country in the region which had not signed an FTA 
in one form or another was North Korea, Ma noted.  This had 
commercial economic implications, since it made Taiwan 
exporters less competitive.  Breaking out of this box meant 
first signing an ECFA deal.  Once Taiwan and the mainland 
reached a deal, Ma asserted, other countries would be willing 
to negotiate FTAs with Taiwan. 
 
U.S. Ties the Foundation of Cross-Strait Detente 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶4. (C) Cross-Strait rapprochement needed to be accompanied 
by improved ties between Taiwan and traditional partners such 
as Japan, the EU and, most important, the United States, Ma 
emphasized.  Although there continued to be real concern, 
particularly among cattle-state members of Congress, about 
Taiwan's inability to meet its commitment to reopen fully its 
market to U.S. beef, this would not affect the 
recently-announced arms package, Sensenbrenner said.  It 
would be impossible for any democratically elected President 
to oppose a unanimous resolution of the legislature, Ma said, 
but his administration would work to ensure that there were 
no obstacles to the U.S. beef products that could be imported 
under the new law. 
 
¶5. (C) Noting Taiwan's interest in concluding an extradition 
agreement with the United States, Sensenbrenner emphasized 
the importance of putting in place a network of international 
agreements to prevent criminals from exploiting loopholes to 
evade justice.  Taiwan had already returned many criminal 
suspects to the United States, Ma said, but had difficulty 
obtaining reciprocal treatment.  Sensenbrenner stressed the 
 
TAIPEI 00000186  002 OF 002 
 
 
importance of the law enforcement relationship working in 
both directions. 
 
¶6. (C) Turning to Taiwan's interest in joining the visa 
waiver program (VWP), Sensenbrenner noted that U.S. law 
required candidates have in place measures to ensure the 
security of their travel documents.  In this regard, Taiwan 
needed to take action to require that all passport applicants 
personally appeared before a government official before a 
passport was issued.  He observed that Taiwan had a security 
interest in closing a loophole that had the potential to 
allow PRC and other mala fide travelers to obtain Taiwan 
travel documents.  Once Taiwan took this step, and assuming 
Taiwan's visa refusal rate continued to approach the 3% 
statutory requirement, entry into VWP should be relatively 
straightforward, Sensenbrenner said.  Taiwan would continue 
to work to reduce the applicant refusal rate, Ma replied. 
 
ICAO, UNFCCC Top IO Priorities 
------------------------------ 
 
¶7. (C) Expanding Taiwan's ability to participate meaningfully 
in international organizations was another key goal of his 
administration, Ma said.  In particular, Taiwan hoped to gain 
access to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 
(UNFCCC) and the International Civil Aviation Organization 
(ICAO).  Taiwan's importance as a regional aviation power and 
the growing number of cross-Strait flights were good reasons 
to support Taiwan's ICAO participation, Sensenbrenner said. 
At the same time, however, he expressed skepticism about the 
long-term viability of the UNFCCC.  The failure of the 
Copenhagen meeting suggested that it was only a matter of 
time before countries moved from a UN-centric, 
consensus-based approach, Sensenbrenner said, to one based on 
less ambitious agreements among like-minded actors. 
 
Legislative Speaker on Beef, Passport Security 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶8. (C) In a February 21 lunch with Legislative Yuan (LY) 
Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, Sensenbrenner underscored the negative 
impact the LY's decision to amend the Food Sanitation Act to 
prohibit the importation of certain U.S. beef products.  The 
United States was the only major country to stand by Taiwan's 
side, Sensenbrenner noted, and we would not promote (or serve 
to our children) a product that we believed was unsafe.  Wang 
responded that the revision to the law could be reviewed as 
"early" as 2015, or 10 years after the last known discovery 
of a BSE-infected animal in the United States.  Allowing the 
problem to fester for 5 years was unlikely to be 
well-received in Congress, Sensenbrenner pointedly observed. 
 
¶9. (C) Sensenbrenner urged Wang to take the legislative steps 
needed to strengthen the security of Taiwan's travel 
document, both to improve Taiwan's eligibility for inclusion 
in the VWP, but also to keep fraudulently-acquired passports 
out of the hands of illegal immigrants and other mala fide 
travelers.  Wang agreed that this was a worthwhile goal and 
suggested that there were non-legislative fixes to the 
problem. 
 
¶10. (SBU) Representative Sensenbrenner did not have an 
opportunity to clear this cable before leaving Taipei. 
STANTON