The Presidential Office and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday continued their war of words with the former accusing the latter of taking all the credit for getting Taiwan into the WTO, while the DPP shot back at the government’s accusations that it had an isolationist foreign policy.
Presidential Office Spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday said the DPP’s claim that it helped push the country’s accession to the WTO only reflected its isolationism and how it hurt Taiwan’s economic development when the party was in power.
Lo said there were official documents to prove that the initiative to join the WTO was launched by the previous Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration and that the DPP should not take all the credit.
PHOTO: TSAI TSUNG-HSIEN, TAIPEI TIMES
Lo made the remarks in response to the DPP’s argument that it did not thwart Taiwan’s economic development when it was in power, but helped the country join the WTO.
Lo said that when Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) was the head of the Bureau of Foreign Trade, Siew began planning ascension to the organization in 1987 when it was known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Taiwan applied for membership in 1990 and began negotiations thereafter, Lo said, adding that the country was granted observer status to participate in related activities in 1992 when Siew was the minister of economic affairs. In 1999, the organization completed the review of Taiwan’s application, and accepted the country as a member of the WTO on Jan. 1, 2002.
Lo said that while the former KMT administration “paved a wide free road” for the DPP administration, the DPP government then strait-jacketed the country’s economy with its conservative policies.
Taiwan’s exports were ranked 14th in the world before 2002, but dropped to 17th after the DPP’s rule, Lo said. Citing an assessment report conducted by the Bureau of Foreign Trade, Lo said that once an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) is signed with China, Taiwan’s export ranking could rebound into the world’s top 15.
Shooting back at the government’s accusations, the DPP yesterday said Taiwan’s trade with China had boomed during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) eight-year administration.
Faced with the government’s allegations that the DPP is against signing any sort of trade deal with China, DPP spokesperson Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said a decision to open up the import of 936 types of Chinese agricultural goods was made during the Chen administration. This showed that the DPP did not have an isolationist foreign policy, but that it was more careful when dealing with cross-strait trade issues, he said.
Tsai Chi-chang also took aim at President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) cross-strait policies, alleging that the Ma administration did not know “when to say no” when it came to dealing with China.
The reason why the Ma government has been unable to make any progress in free-trade agreements with other nations is that Ma is focusing solely on China at the expense of developing other trade relationships, he said.
The DPP also denied it had demanded that the Ma government put all deals with China through a nationwide referendum, but said that the ECFA was a special case because polls showed that the majority of Taiwanese were still confused over its content.
More than three-quarters of respondents in a recent opinion poll organized by the DPP said the government was not being clear enough about the agreement. A separate poll released last month by the Chinese-language China Times said that only 4 percent of respondents felt they had a “clear understanding” of the agreement.
These talking points from the Presidential Office and the DPP are expected to become the focus of a debate scheduled between President Ma and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) later this month. The Presidential Office and the DPP have agreed to hold a debate before the end of this month on an ECFA, which the Ma administration wishes to sign with Beijing in June.
The Ma administration has argued that signing an ECFA with China would prevent Taiwan from being marginalized amid regional economic integration.
Critics, on the other hand, oppose an ECFA over fears that it would jeopardize Taiwan’s sovereignty and make it too economically dependent on China.
Tsai Chi-chang yesterday said the planned pact has the potential to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty because of China’s repeated threats to annex Taiwan, by force if necessary.
The Ma-Tsai debate, to be broadcast live by the Taiwan Public Television Service Foundation, would be the best way to increase public awareness over the deeply controversial issue, Tsai Chi-chang said.
At a separate setting yesterday afternoon, Mainland Affairs Council Chairperson Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) criticized the DPP for spreading what she termed “false” information about an ECFA.
During a pre-recorded interview broadcast on SET-TV, Lai said it was incorrect to say that Taiwan must open up its market 100 percent to China in 10 years, adding that the WTO does not make such requirements, nor is there any penalty in place to punish members who don’t.
“The DPP is wrong in its allegations and it knows it,” she said. “It is also common sense that the WTO does not examine any trade deal signed between countries after they notify the international body.”
Lai said the reason the Ma administration wanted to sign an ECFA with China rather than a free-trade agreement was because it did not want to let China have full market access once a trade deal is signed.
Lauding the just-concluded second round of negotiations on an ECFA, Lai said the negotiation team “safeguarded what the government wanted” and it would continue to insist that certain items be not negotiable.
The public is concerned whether Taiwan will sacrifice something in return, but Lai said she did not think it was appropriate to make such an assumption because she believed both sides would negotiate on an equal footing and hammer out a deal that was mutually beneficial.
Lai said she would lead government officials to brief Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), caucus leaders and committee convenors tomorrow to keep the legislature informed of the negotiation process.
Tsai Chi-chang called on the government “to get their facts straight” and said the DPP has never said that Taiwan would have to open up its market 100 percent to China within a decade.
Additional reporting by CNA
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