The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) would seek a trade deal with Beijing under international rules if it returns to power, seeking safeguards for Taiwan that it says are missing in the pact the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government plans to sign next month.
China and Taiwan, which conduct US$109 billion in annual two-way trade, need a deal under the WTO that would give Taiwan tariff reduction benefits but not be too hasty, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
“We are trading with a country that has this very aggressive political intention,” Tsai said in an interview. “We’d be telling Beijing that the immediate task in the trade area between the two of us is to be good citizens of the WTO community.”
“We are guaranteed we would not be discriminated against. We would be competing with others everywhere on equal terms,” she added.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is pushing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, which it says is essential to ensure the competitiveness of Taiwan’s economy. However, opponents fear the deal would allow China to pursue its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan and would also lead to massive unemployment as Taiwan is swamped by cheap Chinese goods.
A DPP-led government, if re-elected in elections due in 2012, would propose a referendum on the deal and scrap the pact if most voters expressed opposition, Tsai said.
While financial markets have largely backed an ECFA deal, eyeing the potential benefits to Taiwan’s top exporters, Tsai however sees “rushing into ECFA” as dangerous as it would not allow Taiwan’s economy time enough to restructure to deal with the new environment.
“We have no hurry for that ECFA thing,” said Tsai, 53, a forthright former law scholar and professor with degrees from Cornell and London Universities who was Taiwan’s vice premier in 2006.
“The issue is how urgent we need this sort of agreement with China,” she said in the interview conducted in English. “Our argument is there is no urgency for that kind of agreement with China. Our companies are doing OK.”
Previous efforts to build trade ties when the DPP ruled from 2000 to 2008 struggled as the party’s anti-China rhetoric outraged Beijing.
Tsai said the opposition would pursue a separate dialogue mechanism with Beijing, possibly under the umbrella of an outside organization, to seek peace and “teach Beijing about the island’s democracy.”
The party has already organized a group of scholars and non-governmental organizations to open talks, she said.
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