Pan-blues, business rebuke MAC for axing China issues

The pan-blue camp, joined by business groups and some academics, yesterday harshly criticized the Mainland Affairs Council's decision to leave a relaxation of the China-bound investment cap and direct cross-strait flights off the agenda for the economic conference that opens today, saying that the move would hamper the nation's economic development.

Objecting particularly to the conference organizers' decision to exclude a proposal to push for direct transport links with China, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday asked its party members who were participating in the event to express their objections and toe the party line.

Some party members suggested that the KMT should boycott the conference.

"It's impossible to reach any consensus under the circumstances. If we attend the conference, then it's like endorsing the government's economic policies," KMT Legislator Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠) said yesterday during the KMT's Central Standing Committee Meeting.

While agreeing that the party should not be "hijacked" by the conference, Ma demanded that party members participate as individuals, rather than as representatives of the KMT.

"The KMT should present our views on issues including direct links, finance and environmental protection at the conference," Ma said, adding that it was inappropriate to boycott the conference.

A total of 15 KMT think tank members will take part in the conference, but the KMT caucus decided to not to participate.

Ma said the party would hold a press conference after the conference to formally announce KMT policies regarding the issues discussed at the conference.

Kenneth Lin (林向愷), an economics professor at National Taiwan University, said the government was doing a poor job of improving the investment environment as the investment volumes by home-grown industries indicated that the nation was lagging behind the other three Asian tigers -- Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea.

Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), vice president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台經院), said the 40 percent cap, which had been ineffective in slowing the flow of capital to China, had actually become a burden to the Taiwanese economy.

"The government has the ability to review the effectiveness of this policy and come up with a more effective mechanism. [Low-end] industries which want to move to China should be allowed to go. But [high-end technology industries] should not be allowed to invest even one percent of their capital in China," Kung said.

Meanwhile, the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI) said yesterday that it would participate in the conference to push for cross-strait relaxation, but warned it would drop out if its recommendations were rejected.

"We will participate in the conference despite the fact that we have been unfairly treated," CNFI Secretary General Wang Yea-kang (汪雅康) said in a phone interview.

Additional reporting by Amber Chung