China Blocks Taiwan’s Request to Join GATT

Heavy pressure from China has succeeded in sidetracking, at least temporarily, Taiwan’s application to join the key organization that administers the world’s trading system, U.S. officials said Sunday.

Although Taipei initially had strong support in its bid to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Beijing’s warnings have become so intense that many of GATT’s 97 members have begun calling for a go-slow approach.

At the same time, the Bush Administration has halted an internal political review that might have led to official U.S. endorsement of Taiwan’s application, even though U.S. trade officials already have endorsed the application on strict economic grounds.

U.S. officials say that although the issue could be revived, senior Administration policy makers believe that U.S. relations with Beijing have become so sour that serious consequences might result from even a relatively benign step such as endorsing GATT membership for Taiwan.

The combination of developments effectively ends, at least for the foreseeable future, Taiwan’s chances to join GATT now rather than having to wait until Beijing is granted full GATT membership first.

China has enjoyed observer status in GATT--the first step toward becoming a full-fledged member of the Geneva-based organization--since late 1986. At that time, major Western democracies, anxious to encourage Beijing’s economic reforms, lifted their longstanding barrier to Chinese membership.

However, since last summer’s massacre at Tian An Men Square, China’s bid for GATT membership has been in abeyance. Western countries, including the United States, have indicated that they will not resume deliberations on it until Beijing shows signs of relaxing its political crackdown.

Taiwan’s surprise application, filed Jan. 1, was an attempt by Taipei to take advantage of the stalemate involving China to leapfrog ahead of Beijing in the lineup. Previously, Taiwan had seemed tacitly resigned to waiting for Beijing to gain GATT membership first.

Moreover, to preempt expected protests from Beijing that the application posed a challenge to the communist regime’s right to represent China, Taipei packaged its application as though Taiwan were applying not as a separate country, but as part of a customs union that includes its neighboring islands.

For a time, it seemed that the ploy might work. An informal survey of GATT members in January and February showed widespread support for Taiwan’s application. And late last month, a subcabinet-level Bush Administration panel endorsed the plan on economic grounds. Taiwan already is an important U.S. trading partner and is a major holder of cash reserves.

The issue was then put up for review by the Administration’s national security advisers and political strategists, who were expected to make a recommendation within a few weeks on what position the United States should take.

Congress, too, has rallied to support the Taiwanese application. Both the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees have written to urge that the United States back Taipei’s move.

In the meantime, however, China has begun making its opposition known more forcefully, contending that accepting Taiwan into GATT now would violate almost two decades of understandings between Beijing and the major Western powers. This past week, Taiwan’s fortunes began to dim both in Geneva and in Washington.

Although neither GATT nor the Administration has made any formal decision to shelve Taipei’s application, U.S. officials said the bid now was “essentially on hold until the situation with China settles down”--that is, until Western relations with Beijing can be restored to a more “normal” course.

“The issue is when you do it,” said a senior Administration official.