Ever since the controversy-plagued Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was signed in China last week, the pan-blue media have highlighted the need for bipartisanship and speed in reviewing the trade pact at the legislature.
In a Sunday editorial, the Chinese-language China Times wrote that while the ECFA needs to be screened by the legislature, “we would hate to see the trade pact delayed endlessly and Taiwan’s crucial chance of a comeback nixed because of partisan struggle.”
There are several problems with this statement. For one, it says that the legislature should “screen” the ECFA, a term so vague as to be meaningless. It includes no call for “careful” or “thorough” screening. Also, Taiwan’s economic comeback in the wake of the global recession began in the final quarter of last year and has proceeded well — without the ECFA. As such, partisan struggle over the trade agreement will not undermine the recovery.
It is particlarly ironic for the pan-blue media to be warning us about the pitfalls of partisanship when it comes to the ECFA because they remained unusually quiet when the pan-blue-dominated legislature prevented the administration of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from purchasing weapons approved for sale by Washington in 2001, at a time when the Chinese military budget was growing at a double-digit pace.
While it may be fair to characterize the ECFA as an unprecedented development in relations across the Taiwan Strait (for better or worse), the procurement of weapons to ensure that the nation can defend itself was no less important. Not only did those years prove detrimental to the development of the Taiwanese military as a viable deterrent against Chinese aggression, they also tarnished the nation’s image with the US, its sole supplier of advanced weapons, sparking unfair accusations that the DPP administration was not serious about defending Taiwan.
Partisan politics in the pan-blue-controlled legislature also resulted in the inability of the executive under Chen to implement a series of necessary reforms, which in many cases brought national development to a standstill. Did pan-blue media bemoan partisan politics back then? No.
Those same media also seem to believe that the DPP is determined, out of sheer malice, to delay “review” of the ECFA.
“As long as the ECFA is deferred for a single day, the DPP will feel triumphant for a day and the interests of the public will be impaired for one more day,” the China Times wrote, adding that “destructive boycotting does not constitute effective supervision.”
One might add that a pan-blue-dominated legislature, rubber-stamping a deal shrouded in secrecy that risks undermining the sovereignty of the nation isn’t effective supervision either.
What the DPP seeks is an article-by-article review of the deal, which is the only way to ensure that the ECFA is, as the China Times alleges, a “well-designed” trade pact. Anything less, anything that continues to keep the majority of the population in the dark, is unacceptable and does not deserve public support.
We’ve reached a point that transcends partisan politics. The ECFA touches on questions of national survival and if it is mismanaged and not scrutinized as an agreement of this unprecedented scope should be, and if calls for a referendum on the matter continue to be shot down by the executive, then yes, a boycott at the legislature may be necessary.
Ideas matter. They especially matter in world affairs. And in communist countries, it is communist ideas, not supreme leaders’ personality traits, that matter most. That is the reality in the People’s Republic of China. All Chinese communist leaders — from Mao Zedong (毛澤東) through Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), from Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) through to Xi Jinping (習近平) — have always held two key ideas to be sacred and self-evident: first, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is infallible, and second, that the Marxist-Leninist socialist system of governance is superior to every alternative. The ideological consistency by all CCP leaders,
The US on Friday hosted the second Global COVID-19 Summit, with at least 98 countries, including Taiwan, and regional alliances such as the G7, the G20, the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) attending. Washington is also leading a proposal to revise one of the most important documents in global health security — the International Health Regulations (IHR) — which are to be discussed during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA) that starts on Sunday. These two actions highlight the US’ strategic move to dominate the global health agenda and return to the core of governance, with the WHA
Just as the cause of the Kursk submarine disaster remains shrouded in mystery — the nuclear-powered Russian submarine suffered an explosion during a naval exercise on Aug. 12, 2000, and sank, killing all 118 crew onboard — it is unlikely that we will ever get to the bottom of the sequence of events last month that led to the sinking of the Moskva guided missile cruiser, the flagship of the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet. Ukraine claims it struck the vessel with two missiles, while Russia says ammunition onboard the ship exploded and the ship tipped over while being towed
The war in Ukraine continues, and lines are slowly being drawn in the sand. Nations have begun imposing sanctions; few can ignore the reality of Russia’s aggression and atrocities, especially as it edges to the possibility of making a full declaration of war. For Taiwan, this resurrects a different reality, the tangled web of its own complex past and how as a colony of Japan, it became involved with Russia, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Some role reversals are immediately evident. Taiwan is now an independent nation and the CCP rules China. The CCP indirectly
RSS