The Presidential Office and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will hold a debate on the government’s proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China in a live TV session on April 25.
The debate, to be hosted by the Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation, will take place at 2pm and will be moderated by Huang Ming-ming (黃明明), one of the channel’s news anchors.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will each ask and respond to five questions and issue five additional rebuttals, said Presidential Office Spokesperson Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) and DPP Spokesperson Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) in announcing the format in a joint press conference last night.
The questions are expected to focus on the effects an ECFA would have on jobs, the content of the government’s closed-door negotiations with China and the “early harvest” list of goods and services that will be subject to immediate tariff concessions or exemptions.
The list, which is reported to include 500 items on Taiwan’s side and 700 items on China’s side, is a sore point for the DPP, which argues that it would be unable “to hold a fair debate” unless the government discloses the content ahead of the event.
Lo said he would take the DPP’s requests, which also include disclosing the content of the 20 articles that would reportedly form the full text of the agreement, back to the Presidential Office for further consideration.
In return, the Presidential Office has asked the DPP to make public its alternatives to an ECFA and how it intends to develop further cross-strait economic ties.
Also last night, the Government Information Office (GIO), in conjunction with New York-based Overseas Press Club of America Foundation, held a teleconference for academics in Taiwan and the US to exchange views on an ECFA and Asia-Pacific economic integration.
Panel members participating in New York included American Institute in Taiwan Director Douglas Paal and visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics Daniel Rosen.
In Taiwan, former minister of the Council for Economic Planning and Development Chen Tain-Jy (陳添枝) and Philip Hsu (徐斯勤), executive director of National Taiwan University’s Center for China Studies, participated.
Paal, who is also vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that signing an ECFA would help Taiwan “reverse marginalization” amid regional economic integration.
An ECFA would restructure the region, provide Taiwan with more economic opportunities in the region and open up the possibility for Taiwan to sign free-trade deals with Southeast Asian countries, Paal said.
Rosen rejected the idea that an ECFA would make a US-Taiwan FTA more likely and said he did not consider a US-Taiwan free-trade agreement to be advisable, either for the US or Taiwan. Rosen suggested instead that Taiwan pursue inclusion in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
GIO Minister Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) denied the event was part of a government campaign to promote an ECFA. The topic was chosen because many overseas journalists have been intrigued by an ECFA, he said.
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