There are still many public disagreements about the government’s plan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, while many know little about what such an agreement would entail. Despite this, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) sees it as a panacea, saying that not only is an ECFA necessary, but also that the sooner it is signed the better.
Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬), who went to Beijing for a fourth round of informal trade talks with China last week, said there probably would not be a fifth round of informal talks. Does that mean the government is ready to sign an economic pact with China?
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), although fully occupied with preparations for the year-end elections, should not ignore this issue. An ECFA with China could be signed during the visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) next month. That would be a bitter pill for Taiwanese to swallow.
The People’s Sovereignty Movement has touched some Taiwanese, but that will not change Ma’s decision to sign an economic pact with China. Nor will Ma endorse a proposal on an ECFA referendum as he represents the interests of “superior Mainlanders,” certain corporations and even the Chinese Communist Party. If Ma continues to act willfully, Taiwan may soon see violent confrontation.
To avoid this result, I propose that the government sign an ECFA with China “backwards.” By that I mean that the government should first sign concrete agreements before moving onto signing the framework agreement. Doing so would first give the public an understanding of the concrete contents of the agreement and its pros and cons before deciding whether or not they can accept the framework agreement.
Here are my reasons for making this proposal.
First, the Hong Kong government signed a closer economic partnership arrangement (CEPA) with Beijing in 2003 and since then, has signed supplementary agreements every year.
Second, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial supervision, which Taiwan recently signed with China, is included in the ECFA “early harvest” list. In other words, the MOU was signed before the ECFA. Because an MOU can be signed in advance, what would be the harm in signing other agreements beforehand? For instance, the tariff issue that Taiwanese businesspeople care the most about could also be solved as an “early harvest” item. In so doing, the government would know which industries will benefit from or be harmed by tariff-free treatment.
Third, the Ma administration said that an ECFA with China would help Taiwan sign free-trade agreements (FTA) with ASEAN countries. Neither China nor other countries are willing to take the initiative in proving this. If Taiwan could first sign concrete agreements with China, it would serve as a test of whether other countries will sign FTAs, or similar agreements, with Taiwan without opposition from China.
Fourth, Taiwan has long been isolated in the international community, so it does not have many experienced negotiators. Even negotiations with the US on a protocol for US beef imports were a huge mess, not to mention talks with a country that has long tried to annex Taiwan.
Since signing a CEPA with Beijing, the economic development of Hong Kong has been dependent on China, causing it to lose its past vitality.
Thus, Taiwan should sign agreements with concrete contents with China to gain more experience before signing an ECFA. After all, how could we have a framework without concrete contents?
Paul Lin is a political commentator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS