We finally got to have a look at the actual wording of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) for the first time since it was signed on June 29, and we find that it is packed with issues that give us more cause for concern than the minutiae of what is, or what is not, on the “early harvest” list.
First of all, in its current incarnation, it is unlikely to get past the WTO, which has the power to veto the agreement, as both signatories are member states.
The free-trade agreements (FTA) Taiwan has signed with Panama and Nicaragua, and the Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation between ASEAN countries and China, all specified from the outset which countries or regions were the signatories.
The individuals signing the agreements, too, were officials authorized by the governments of these signatory nations.
This was also the case for the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) signed by China and Hong Kong.
The ECFA, on the other hand, was signed by representatives of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), two semi-official organizations not recognized, obviously, as WTO members in their own right.
As a result, the ECFA is little more than a signed agreement between two private organizations from two different countries and as such does not comply with WTO regulations.
The same applies to the individuals who signed it. The ECFA was signed by the respective chairmen of the SEF and the ARATS, but it fails to specify who exactly the individuals signing it represent, or which government authorized them to do so.
Compare this with the FTAs signed by Taiwan. The agreement with Panama was signed by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the one with Nicaragua by former minister of economic affairs Morgan Hwang (黃營杉).
It was specified at the time that they represented the Republic of China on Taiwan.
However, on the ECFA documentation there is absolutely no mention of the fact that SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) represents Taiwan.
Consequently, in the eyes of the law, the ECFA is an agreement that solely exists between the SEF and ARATS, and is applicable only to the members and staff of those specific institutions.
It is difficult to pin down the actual legal status of the ECFA, more so than it was to define the CEPA, for example.
It is a curious piece of legislation and one suspects this is related to the government’s concerns that, once subjected to scrutiny by the WTO, the government’s adherence to the “one China” principle would be exposed.
The government has tried to play down this aspect of the agreement and says that by formulating an agreement that does not conform to WTO standards and is signed by private organizations, and not the government, it is possible that after the agreement has been passed through the legislature, it can be used as a model for Taiwan’s signing of FTAs with other countries that are not diplomatic allies.
This may well be.
However, at the same time, it makes it easier for Taiwan to bypass the WTO when signing future agreements and for agreements to be made by other institutions without the government’s involvement — effectively bypassing the government itself.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
Weeks into the craze, nobody quite knows what to make of the OpenClaw mania sweeping China, marked by viral photos of retirees lining up for installation events and users gathering in red claw hats. The queues and cosplay inspired by the “raising a lobster” trend make for irresistible China clickbait. However, the West is fixating on the least important part of the story. As a consumer craze, OpenClaw — the AI agent designed to do tasks on a user’s behalf — would likely burn out. Without some developer background, it is too glitchy and technically awkward for true mainstream adoption,
On Monday, a group of bipartisan US senators arrived in Taiwan to support the nation’s special defense bill to counter Chinese threats. At the same time, Beijing announced that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had invited Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) to visit China, a move to make the KMT a pawn in its proxy warfare against Taiwan and the US. Since her inauguration as KMT chair last year, Cheng, widely seen as a pro-China figure, has made no secret of her desire to interact with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and meet with Xi, naming it a
A delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials led by Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is to travel to China tomorrow for a six-day visit to Jiangsu, Shanghai and Beijing, which might end with a meeting between Cheng and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). The trip was announced by Xinhua news agency on Monday last week, which cited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Song Tao (宋濤) as saying that Cheng has repeatedly expressed willingness to visit China, and that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee and Xi have extended an invitation. Although some people have been speculating about a potential Xi-Cheng
No state has ever formally recognized the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) as a legal entity. The reason is not a lack of legitimacy — the CTA is a functioning exile government with democratic elections and institutions — but the iron grip of realpolitik. To recognize the CTA would be to challenge the People’s Republic of China’s territorial claims, a step no government has been willing to take given Beijing’s economic leverage and geopolitical weight. Under international law, recognition of governments-in-exile has precedent — from the Polish government during World War II to Kuwait’s exile government in 1990 — but such recognition
RSS