The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday dismissed a Reuters article that said the low turnout at an event it organized on Saturday against the government’s proposed cross-strait trade pact signaled a “broad but guarded acceptance of the deal by the Taiwanese public.”
The article said attendees “fell far short of the 50,000 to 100,000 who rallied in previous years against overtures to Beijing by the China-friendly Taiwanese government” and cited political analysts as saying that “the size of the protest, a month after a sit-in in Taipei attracted only a few hundred, was an indication that Taiwan’s public accepted the deal, wanted to know more details or believed the government was deaf to protests.”
Former DPP legislator Julian Kuo (郭正亮), speaking for the DPP’s task force in charge of responding to economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA)-related issues, said Saturday’s event in Kaohsiung City was a local event and not a protest or a demonstration as referred to in the article.
He added that despite heavy rain, attendance numbers at the event, which featured “Made in Taiwan” products, agricultural shows, concerts and speeches by politicians, were higher than expected.
The DPP estimated that 3,000 people attended the speeches, which Kuo said “came as a surprise as the DPP did not mobilize its supporters to show up in force.”
He said a rally on the ECFA issue is currently in the planning stage and is expected to take place later this month in Taipei.
Kuo said more than 200,000 people could attend that rally.
“We could mobilize 1,000 buses [carrying protestors] if we needed to,” he said.
While the government said signing an ECFA with China would prevent Taiwan from being marginalized amid regional economic integration, critics argue that an ECFA would jeopardize Taiwan’s sovereignty and make it too economically dependent on China.
Huang Kun-bin (黃崑濱), an 81-year-old farmer from Tainan County who achieved national fame after being cast in the lead role in a 2005 rice-farming documentary Let It Be (無米樂), said an ECFA would devastate both farmers and blue-collar workers.
Speaking at Saturday’s event, Huang, who is affectionately known by the public as Kunbinbo (Uncle Kun-bin, 崑濱伯), said that based on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledge to create a NT$95 billion (US$2.9 billion) fund to help industries potentially hard-hit by the agreement, an ECFA would have a deep impact on Taiwan’s economy.
Head of the Taiwan Footwear Manufacturers Development Council Yang Rong-te (楊榮德) said if an ECFA was signed, investments in Taiwan would dry up and head to China.
“The next step for Taiwanese laborers would be unemployment,” he said, adding that an ECFA could kill off Taiwan’s medium and smaller sized businesses.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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