The Ministry of Economic Affairs came under fire after a draft free-trade agreement between South Korea and China was revealed on Wednesday, as the tariff reductions proposed in the pact were not as significant as the ministry previously claimed.
Critics said that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration exaggerated the impact of the pending treaty to coerce the public into supporting trade agreements between Taiwan and China.
They said that the ministry used the Beijing-Seoul deal as a “scare tactic” in an attempt to swing the vote in the KMT’s favor during last year’s nine-in-one elections.
Photo: CNA
In November last year, the ministry said that the pending Beijing-Seoul pact would deal a NT$650 billion (US$20.7 billion) blow to Taiwan’s economy and urged the nation to ratify the proposed cross-strait service trade agreement to mitigate the impact.
A KMT campaign advertisement leading up to the elections last year featured a woman dressed in traditional Korean garb who thanked the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for blocking cross-strait trade bills.
In contrast with the ministry’s earlier claims, Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) on Wednesday said that the draft was “quite different” from the ministry’s previous expectations.
According to the Beijing-Seoul draft, tariffs for many industries considered key export industries for Taiwan will not be reduced significantly — including LCD panels, automobile parts, petrochemicals and machine tools.
Human rights lawyer and Economic Democracy Union convener Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) yesterday said that the unveiled contents of the draft “shattered all sorts of exaggerated and unrealistic threats” by the KMT.
Lai said that the pending Beijing-Seoul agreement gradually lowers tariffs between the two nations over a buffer period of 20 years.
“Members of the public should not panic over the agreement,” Lai said.
Lai added that the transparent deliberation process of the pact could serve as an example for Taiwan, as both China and South Korea would be given another four months to conduct economic assessments of the draft before the treaty is ratified.
He said the “transparency mechanism” presented by the Beijing-Seoul treaty could serve as a lesson for the KMT administration in its interactions with China.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets last year during the Sunflower movement, after a KMT legislator was perceived to ram through the proposed cross-strait service trade agreement while bypassing legislative deliberation.
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