A group of academics yesterday called on the public to stop the government from signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing, saying that there was a hidden political agenda behind the proposed cross-strait economic pact.
At a forum hosted by the group Taiwan Advocates yesterday, Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志) said the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Wang Yi (王毅), had stated that after Taiwan signs an ECFA with Beijing, there would be few cross-strait economic issues left for both sides discuss, so dialogue on political issue would be unavoidable.
Soochow University political science professor Luo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has expressed its hope to sign an ECFA this May. If that happens, Luo said, Taipei and Beijing would start talk on political issues from the middle of this year, and that political dialogue would possibly include signing a peace treaty with Beijing.
Luo said that a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) victory in the 2012 presidential election might be too late if President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) signs a political treaty with China during his term.
Luo said the DPP’s priority was to win the municipality elections. If the DPP is able to secure three of the five seats up for grabs at the end of the year, the party would govern more than 13 million people, accounting for 60 percent of Taiwan’s population.
The DPP could then employ a “Boris Yeltsin impact,” making Ma a “lame duck,” he said.
National Taiwan University economics professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) told the forum that he estimated that Taiwan stood more to lose by signing an ECFA, “hence the public and the oppositions should do what they can to stop the government from signing an economic treaty with Beijing this year.”
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), political science professor at National Chengchi University and a former representative to the US, said he thought it would be difficult to stop the government from signing an ECFA, but added that if the pact were signed, the government could not prevent the public from launching a referendum on it, and therefore people could exercise their rights to have their a final say about the pact.
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