Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday accused the government of eroding Taiwan’s democracy and warned that its insistence on signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China would bring “irreversible havoc” to Taiwan.
The remarks were Lee’s strongest criticism yet of the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) since the new government took office in May last year.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) delivered the speech on Lee’s behalf at a forum hosted by the Taiwan Advocate think tank yesterday. Lee was unable to attend the event in person because he suffered a bout of flu.
In the speech, Lee said the Ma administration was oblivious to Taiwanese voices, saying that the government’s polices have “entirely run counter to the principle of democracy that the government is of the people, by the people and for the people.”
The Ma administration’s series of erroneous policies stems from its mindset that “locks Taiwan inside China, turning cross-strait relations from ‘special state-to-state relations’ into ‘non state-to-state special relations’ that transform Taiwan from a sovereign country into a region under China,” Lee said.
On the economic front, Lee criticized the Ma administration’s plan to sign an ECFA with China despite the negative effects that Hong Kong faced after it signed a Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement with China.
Signing an ECFA with China would not only infringe upon the rights of Taiwanese farmers, workers and small and medium-sized enterprises, but also lead Taiwan deeper into a trap set up by China that aims at unifying Taiwan through economic integration.
In a bid to break through the economic gloom facing Taiwan, the country should cooperate with advanced economies to enhance its technology, rather than establish closer economic and trade relations with a developing country like China, he said.
When asked to respond to Lee’s comments late yesterday, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said the Presidential Office respected Lee’s right to express his opinion, adding that all Ma administration policies kept the best interests of Taiwanese in mind.
Meanwhile, academics attending another forum yesterday lambasted Ma’s failure to implement his “6-3-3” campaign promise to revive the country’s economy.
As one of his major campaign platforms, Ma unveiled the “6-3-3” policy in which he pledged that Taiwan’s annual economic growth would be 6 percent, per capita GDP would be US$30,000 and the unemployment rate would be 3 percent.
Five months into his presidency, Ma said what he meant by the “6-3-3” plan was that he expected to have a 6 percent economic growth and 3 percent unemployment after two years in office, while the goal of US$30,000 per capita GDP was to be attained in 2016, the last year of his second term if re-elected.
Speaking at a forum sponsored by the New Century Foundation yesterday, Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said that recent government statistics showed that Taiwan’s unemployment rate was 5.81 percent. He said that the rate would spiral “out of control” if Taiwan signed an ECFA with Beijing.
The core of Taiwan’s economic woes is its heavy reliance on exports to China, therefore the key to pulling Taiwan out of its slump is to lessen its dependency on China, which will never happen once an ECFA was signed, he said.
Hu Chung-hsin (許忠信), associate professor at National Cheng Kung University’s Graduate Institute for Legal Sciences, said the ECFA was a “sugar-coated poison” because once it is signed, Taiwan would only become marginalized, not globalized, as the government has advertised, he said.
Hsu, a specialist in International Trade Law and Intellectual Property Rights, said that under WTO rules, within 10 years of signing an ECFA, Taiwan would be forced to allow a comprehensive opening to almost all Chinese products. When that happens, he said, much of Taiwan’s traditional industry, including agriculture, would be become uncompetitive, he said.
“Ma promised that under an ECFA, Taiwan would never allow 830 agricultural products to be imported into Taiwan. Since he has already broken his 6-3-3 promises, what assurances can he give to farmers that his ‘830’ promise will be fulfilled?” asked National Taiwanese University professor of entomology Yang Ping-shih (楊世平), another panelist at the forum.
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