The government owes the public an explanation of the adverse effects of a trade pact with China and a public consensus should be established before any deal is signed, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday.
The appeal came as the two parties urged the public to sign a petition requesting that the government hold a referendum on the issue.
Speaking at a press conference in Taipei, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that Chinese government documents showed Beijing viewed the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Taiwan as a preliminary step toward unification.
“So far, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has refused to come clean with the public on the negative implications of such a pact. The government has continued to dodge the issues when local industries have expressed their concerns about it,” she said.
The public perception, she said, is that the government is eager to push the deal through without giving a clear explanation.
The pact would threaten the jobs of more than 4 million people in Taiwan, she said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has argued that an ECFA will boost Taiwan’s trade and improve the country’s ties with ASEAN nations, but the pan-green camp says Taiwan’s economic muscle and its sovereignty would be jeopardized by over-reliance on the Chinese market.
TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) cautioned against signing an ECFA with Beijing, saying it would cripple Taiwan’s traditional industries.
Huang said that based on the conversations he has had with businessmen and workers in the agriculture, bedding and shoe industries, all of them were opposed to an EFCA.
The Referendum Act (公投法) stipulates that the signatures of 0.5 percent of eligible voters — approximately 80,000 — must be collected to apply to hold a referendum.
The DPP has said it plans to collect 100,000 signatures by the end of next month in the first stage of its plan to call a referendum.
In the second stage, 5 percent of eligible voters — approximately 800,000 — must sign the petition before the Referendum Review Committee will sanction the proposed referendum.
Ma Ying-jeou has said he is opposed to a referendum on the ECFA issue because the proposed agreement would not involve political issue.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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