Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday lambasted the agreements reached at the economic forums held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and said the forums "have been selling out Taiwan and they will continue to sell out Taiwan."
If the KMT wins the upcoming election, Hsieh said the communications set up between the two parties would become an official channel.
Without public oversight, interest groups and regional factions could participate in the forum and reach agreements with the CCP, leaving Ma with little alternative but to endorse them, he said.
PHOTO: CNA
With the KMT's legislative majority, the Taiwanese public would have no say on national policy, he said.
Under agreements reached at the forums Taiwan has invested more than NT$109 billion (US$3.5 billion) in China's experimental parks for cross-strait agricultural cooperation, but only NT$259 million in Taiwanese agricultural produce was exported to China in 2006, Hsieh said.
Hsieh said he was opposed to the "cross-strait common market" policy and thought it was strange that Ma ignored the "one China market" issue in his opening and closing remarks at Sunday's debate.
Hsieh said he suspected Ma did not have confidence in the policy.
In the debate Hsieh proposed putting the "cross-strait common market" policy to a referendum, urging voters who support the concept to vote for Ma and those who oppose it to vote for him.
Hsieh dismissed the policy as "irresponsible," saying that it was Ma's running mate, Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), not Hsieh who had coined the phrase "one China market."
Meanwhile, Hsieh attributed a slight decline in Ma's popularity to his opponent's performance during Sunday's debate.
A poll for the Chinese-language China Times placed the popularity of the DPP ticket at 22 percent, an increase of 1 percent from its previous survey, and that of the KMT ticket at 49 percent, a 4 percent decrease.
Another poll for the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday showed that Hsieh's popularity had increased from 18 percent to 22 percent after Sunday's debate, while Ma's slid from 55 percent to 52 percent.
The poll also found that 46 percent of the respondents considered that Ma won the debate, while 28 percent thought Hsieh the victor.
The China Times poll showed 43 percent of respondents said Ma did a better job, while 27 percent said Hsieh won the debate.
Hsieh said that a candidate's popularity constantly fluctuates and he paid little attention to polls.
He said the reason that Ma's approval rating had dropped was because he dodged questions on the "cross-strait common market" policy during the debate and frequently changed his position on issues when he came under pressure.
"I, on the other hand, have been consistent and did my best to explain and defend my policies," he said.
Another poll released by the Southern Taiwan Society yesterday showed that Ma had the support of 41 percent of respondents, while Hsieh was backed by 38 percent.
Commenting on the switch of allegiance of a taxi association linked with the pan-greens, Hsieh's campaign team yesterday dismissed it as a KMT election gambit.
Hsieh spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said that there were many taxi associations in the nation and they supported different candidates. He said the campaign team was attempting to speak with each of them and seek their support.
Meanwhile, Ma yesterday condemned Hsieh for creating the term "one China market" in order to attack him.
"The so-called `one China market' is a scarecrow created by Hsieh. He has spared no effort in attacking the scarecrow, but what he has created does not exist," Ma said yesterday during a visit to Penghu (澎湖).
Ma said he and KMT vice presidential candidate Vincent Siew (
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS