Referendums should be used to obtain a mandate from the Taiwanese public for Taiwan and China to sign a cross-strait economic integration agreement, a former top cross-strait policymaker said yesterday.
Former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy chairman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that as the government is determined to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, it is duty-bound to engage in well-planned negotiations with China.
Tung, currently a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Development Studies, said the Presidential Office should establish a committee chaired by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to formulate the country’s strategy of global economic integration. The committee should solicit opinions from opposition parties, experts and academics, as well as industry and labor representatives, he said.
Tung also proposed that the government prioritize signing a preferential trade agreement with Beijing under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
Calling on the government to include referendums in its effort to sign an ECFA with Beijing, he urged the Ma administration to continue negotiations on trade issues through dialog between the Straits Exchange Foundation and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, to normalize economic relations and cooperation across the Taiwan Strait.
The proposed ECFA has flaws, Tung said, adding that the government’s economic strategy was unclear, its evaluation of the pact’s benefits incomplete, its communication with the public and the opposition insincere, and its ability at execution questionable.
In a bid to forge ahead with the proposed accord, Tung said the Ma administration must insist on principles that protect Taiwan’s sovereignty, consolidate political and public consensus, help industries adapt to economic challenges and upgrade their competitiveness and formulate a comprehensive global economic integration strategy.
Saying that Taiwan was a member of the WTO and APEC, which both have frameworks that ensure the freedom of international investment and trade, Tung added that formulating a comprehensive global economic integration strategy would be economically beneficial for Taiwan because China plays a less significant role under such an arrangement. The disadvantage, however, is that Taiwan has limited power to sway the direction and agenda of international negotiations on economic integration because it is not a strong player in international politics and economics, Tung said.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but