Building Kinmen-Xiamen bridge has much to gain for Taiwan

Yesterday, media reports revealed that President Ma Ying-jeou recently inquired into the status of plans to expand the “mini three links” between ROC-held Kinmen Island and the city of Xiamen on the Chinese mainland.

Initially, the reports suggested that President Ma was disappointed the plans had not been finalized and wanted the bridge to be completed as soon as possible.

The Presidential Office later denied that Ma had ordered the building of the bridge, and that he had merely asked about the status of plans that were still being drafted by the Council for Economic Planning and Development.

The news about President Ma's inquiry raised many questions about Ma's authority to order construction of what would amount to the first-ever road connection between both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Far more important, however, is the issue of potential benefits and opportunities the Kinmen-Xiamen Bridge could bring about. The potential risks to national security of building a bridge between Kinmen and Xiamen, which stand little over 10 kilometers apart across a narrow bay, are few and far in between.

Mainland Chinese tourists are already permitted to make visits to Kinmen, formerly known as Quemoy, by boats that travel across the narrow body of water several times a day. And since our government opened up the "mini three links" several years ago, trade and exchanges between Kinmen and the nearby mainland province of Fujian have already blossomed. Opening up road traffic would merely make travel between the two sides more convenient.

According to the reports, depending on which route the bridge between Kinmen and Xiamen takes, the journey that currently takes more than an hour by boat could be reduced to just half an hour by car or bus.

The chances that mainland China could one day use the bridge to launch a military invasion of Kinmen are slight at best since our troops could easily demolish sections of the bridge and troops marching across it would be sitting ducks for attacks from aircraft.

Reports have estimated that the cheapest of three main alternative routes, building a road bridge between northeast Kinmen's Wulungshan neighborhood and Dadeng Island, which sits just 8.6 kilometers away, would cost around NTD10 billion. Assuming that the mainland side would share some, if not half, of this amount, the cost of building the bridge is low when compared to the benefits its construction would bring about.

Besides transporting more visitors and cargo between both sides, the bridge's operation would serve as a model for the underground tunnels or bridges that some engineers believe will inevitably be constructed between Taiwan and the mainland someday.

There are political considerations to operating the Kinmen-Xiamen bridge as well, since both governments would have to reach an arrangement for customs and immigration checks on both sides.

Since immigration and customs are functions normally exercised by sovereign governments, it would be ideal to see mainland China and Taiwan acknowledge each other's right to set up inspection stations on their respective ends of the bridge.

Ideally, immigration and customs officials from both sides could sit together, or nearby each other, at the entrances on both sides of the bridge, so that travelers would only need to go through one set of inspections before continuing on their way.

But even if such arrangements are not feasible, both sides could easily maintain immigration and customs inspection stations on their respective sides of the bridge.

If a bridge between Kinmen and Xiamen can operate smoothly, this would bode well for eventually opening up road traffic by means of tunnels or bridges between Taiwan and mainland China.

The operation of the Kinmen-Xiamen bridge would also reflect positively on the peaceful state of relations between the two former enemies, perhaps even help push both sides toward signing a formal cessation of hostilities or even a peace agreement.

Since the risks and costs of building the bridge are so low, and the opportunities for benefits are so great, there is little reason not to go ahead with building the bridge.

In Taiwan, we will need to do more to generate the political will to make this symbolic move of building a road bridge to the other side. But Beijing will also have to be realistic and pragmatic about how customs and immigration matters will be handed once the bridge is built. There is also the obvious matter of how to pay for the bridge, as well as what contractors would be selected to build it and where materials for it would be procured.

The experience of working together on this joint construction project could serve as a model for cooperation in other areas, such as joint exploitation of oil and mineral resources in the Taiwan Strait. All in all, there is much to be gained from a Kinmen-Xiamen bridge, while there is little to lose.

SOURCE: The China Post

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