The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday responded to comments made by Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) against the government’s free economic pilot zones project, saying that the DPP’s opposition to the initiative has been “biased” from the outset.
Tsai on Monday said that the project lacks substance and that the KMT aims to use it as a pretext under which to “smuggle in various controversial deregulation measures.”
KMT spokesperson Charles Chen (陳以信) yesterday rejected the claims, saying that since Tsai was once a legislator, she should know better than to describe the legislative review process as a vehicle for policy “smuggling.”
Photo: CNA
In response to Tsai’s comment that the extra legislative session will be a “fierce battle,” Chen said the DPP should allow the pilot zones plan to be carefully reviewed item by item to prevent any possible “smuggling” instead of fighting a “fierce battle” by occupying the speaker’s podium.
Chen added that Tsai likening the KMT’s move to “smuggling” and calling for a “fierce battle” well before the start of the extra session “only shows that the DPP has been biased against the bill from the outset and is preparing to oppose [its passage] in the extra session in the name of due process.”
Calling Tsai “oblivious,” the spokesperson also railed against the DPP chair’s Facebook comment lauding her party’s “consistent” positive attitude toward cross-strait exchanges, saying that the DPP had “led the protests in 2008 against the visit by then-Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), which caused injuries among the crowd.”
“In 2000, Tsai also compared the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement to sugar-coated poison and said it would be detrimental to Taiwan’s economy,” Charles Chen said. “Is this what you call ‘a consistently positive attitude?’”
KMT caucus whip Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) accused the DPP of “taking an opposing stand on any issue to do with China” and accused the opposition party of trying to make the pilot zones “another cross-strait service trade agreement,” an attempt Lin said would come at a price for Taiwanese.
Asking the party to stop “faking its opposition by calling for a review,” Lin said the KMT is “aiming toward a good bill and will not rush the procedures [in the extra session] for the sake of progress.”
Separately yesterday, National Development Council Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said that he will contact Tsai to arrange a meeting to discuss the pilot zones initiative.
“The pilot zones’ establishment should be an economic, not a political, issue,” he said.
Meanwhile, in response to Tsai’s remark that the pilot zones would liberalize Chinese agricultural imports, Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Hu Hsing-hua (胡興華) said that agricultural goods from China would only be used as raw materials for food processing in the zones.
“The pilot zone project will help the local agricultural sector enter the global market and offer more jobs to the nation’s workforce,” Hu said.
Taking food manufacturer T-Ham Co (台畜) as an example, Hu said the company plans to set up a food processing factory in one of the planned pilot zones to make instant beef noodles.
Although the company would use agricultural products from overseas, it would also use green onions and fermented vegetables grown locally, Hu said.
Additional reporting by Camaron Kao
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