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Presidential election 2008: 9 days to go: Hsieh camp urges KMT to abandon `one China market'

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign team yesterday urged the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to drop its "one China market" plan.

Producing a copy of an editorial from the Economic Daily News dated Sept. 1 last year, Hsieh spokesman Shen Fa-hui (沈發惠) said that the writer, Ma Kai (馬凱), is an economic adviser to Ma's campaign team. He argued in the editorial that under the framework of a common market, it is impossible to block Chinese laborers from entering the local market.

"If the arrival of [Chinese] laborers is inevitable under the policy, they must consider renouncing the common market platform," Shen said.

Hsieh spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said that even before the common market is established, many of Taiwan's agricultural products have been copied by China and agricultural technology has been stolen.

"They are not selling fruit. They are selling out Taiwan's agriculture," he said. "We condemn such an act and urge the KMT to immediately stop agricultural cooperation with China."

VESTED INTEREST?

Hsieh Hsin-ni (謝欣霓), a spokesperson for Frank Hsieh, said that she suspected KMT officials, KMT lawmakers and former KMT agricultural ministers will be the biggest beneficiaries of the common market policy because they attended the inauguration of agricultural cooperation parks in China and also invested in joint ventures.

She said that Taiwan had invested more than NT$109 billion (US$3.5 billion) in China's experimental parks for cross-strait agricultural cooperation, while only NT$259 million in Taiwanese agricultural produce was exported to China as of 2006.

To drum up more criticism of the "cross-strait common market" plan, five DPP-ruled local governments held a press conference at Hsieh's campaign office yesterday morning.

Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) said that he was against the establishment of a common market because it was bound to hurt Taiwan's agricultural sector. He was also worried about the dumping of China's poor quality agricultural products.

Pingtung County Commissioner Tsao Chih-hung (曹啟鴻) expressed the same opinion, adding that many of Taiwan's agricultural products are now registered under China.

Lee Teng-hui

In related news, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday said that there was no such thing as the "one China market" because the "cross-strait common market" is a state-to-state framework that is rejected by China.

Lee said businesspeople came here to do business and it would be best if everyone all got along with each other.

Lee made the remarks in Taipei County when asked about recent disputes over the "one China market."

Meanwhile, Council of Agriculture Minister Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) told the press conference at Hsieh's campaign headquarters that farmers under the farmer's insurance program will have the same benefits if they transfer their coverage to the national annuity program.

Su said that his ministry approved a compensation program on Jan. 3 to ensure farmers covered by the farmer's insurance program receive subsidies when the national annuity program goes into effect on Oct. 1.
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