In recent weeks, the government has begun to resemble a snake oil salesman in its frantic efforts to promote a so-called panacea for Taiwan’s economy — an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) that it is determined to sign with China.
In the months since the agreement was floated, the government has used a number of tactics to promote the pact, including an ethnically stereotyped cartoon, sleep-inducing public forums and, more recently, talk of enlisting the help of a thug politician to preach the ECFA gospel to a population that remains unconvinced.
The most successful tactic, however, appears to be repetition of the notion that following the signing of an ECFA, China will be willing to let Taiwan sign free-trade agreements with other countries.
As the adage goes: “Repeat a lie a thousand times” and eventually someone will start to believe.
One individual who seems to be unaware of this ruse is US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers, who this week said the signing of an ECFA “would dramatically reduce the ability of the Chinese to oppose Taiwan making other regional agreements.”
It would be interesting to know what the reasoning behind Hammond-Chambers’ statement was, because so far there is not a shred of evidence to support that claim.
At no point since an ECFA was first mentioned has a Chinese official said that Beijing would stop blocking Taiwan’s efforts to sign trade pacts with other nations. In fact, the opposite is more likely true; countless Chinese officials have gone on record saying that an ECFA is one more step toward unification.
It is hard to believe that China will acquiesce to such a request from Taipei when Beijing continues to block attempts by Taiwan to join UN special agencies. Last month in Copenhagen, a Chinese delegate openly opposed Taiwan’s participation as an observer in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, citing the “one China” principle.
Even in the international bodies in which China grudgingly tolerates Taiwan’s presence, such as the WTO and the World Bank, Taiwan fights a constant battle to block efforts by Chinese officials to downgrade its status.
If any reminder is needed about China’s intentions, one only need refer to a recent e-mail sent by World Bank vice president and corporate secretary Kristalina Georgieva, who reminded her colleagues that because China is a member of the bank’s institutions, “Taiwan, China” must be used “on all occasions.”
In fact, the sole crumb of Chinese “goodwill” that has succored President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during the 20 months of his administration was the shady, underhanded deal that resulted in Taipei’s participation in last year’s WHA, details of which have never been released.
Come May, China may well sign an ECFA and Taiwan may well claim that the deal adheres to the “WTO framework.” You can rest assured, however, that Beijing will not allow any language into the agreement that infers Taiwanese statehood. Once signed, it will be back to business for Beijing, belittling Taiwan at every opportunity.
Only then will those who believed Ma’s claims that Beijing would have a change of heart will come to realize that they, too, have been taken in by the biggest snake oil salesman of them all.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
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
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
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,
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