Given the Ma administration’s aversion to the details being made public, it wouldn’t be surprising if it ended up regarding the ECFA as a treaty domestically — in which case the legislature would not be required to review it item by item (only approving or rejecting it as a whole) — but a non- or quasi-treaty externally, to not anger Beijing (ironically, this puts the opposition in a quandary, because only by not designating the ECFA a treaty can the document be debated clause by clause, as it has requested).
Quasi-treaties and quasi-governmental agencies: For an agreement of such scope, that’s too many in-betweens and far too much Orwellian newspeak for comfort.
By refusing to clearly state the nature of the agreement and by relying on semi-official bodies to sign it, the Ma administration has created so much uncertainty that accusations the ECFA is a threat to Taiwan are increasingly hard to deny. What we need is clarity.
J. Michael Cole is deputy news editor at the Taipei Times.
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