The government must closely scrutinize the impact of cross-strait agreements signed to date before the fourth cross-strait meeting later this month, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, adding that if the government was going to “cheat” the public as it did in the three previous talks, then it should cancel the meeting.
The fourth meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yun-lin (陳雲林), is scheduled to take place in Taichung.
While pan-blue leaders have welcomed the planned meeting as a crucial step toward improving cross-strait relations, the pan-green camp has vehemently opposed to the visit and plan to stage a mass protest on the eve of the meeting.
DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said one of the agreements signed six months ago was on joint efforts to fight crime.
“The government convinced the public that by signing this agreement, many of Taiwan’s white-collar criminals who have absconded to China would be repatriated. I would like to ask President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to name at least one major white-collar criminal that has been sent back to Taiwan since the signing,” she said at a press conference.
Speaking about an agreement on food safety that was signed in November last year at the first Chiang-Chen meeting, Chen said the government had insisted that it would enable the 12 Taiwanese companies who lost money because of Chinese-made tainted milk powder to seek NT$700 million (US$22 million) in compensation.
“So far, none of the victims has received a dollar, only a short apology note from ARATS,” she said.
When Ma tried to sell the idea of opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists, she said, he promised the policy would greatly boost the tourism industry and that at least 3,000 Chinese tourists will visit per day.
“But the reality is that since January we have only seen a daily average of 1,307 Chinese tourists,” she said. “Moreover, we have seen an 11.53 percent drop in Japanese tourists and an 18.2 percent decrease in overall tourist visits.”
She urged the government to come clean with the public and stop lying about the ineffective and possibly damaging aspects of the cross-strait agreements.
If the fourth Chiang-Chen meeting will only yield more deception, she said, it should be scrapped altogether.
In related news, the 1221 Action Alliance (行動聯盟), a group of more than 10 pro-localization groups from central Taiwan, including the Central Taiwan Society (CTS, 台灣中社), held a press conference in Taichung yesterday morning. CTS head Chen Wan-te (陳萬德) said the alliance had three basic demands: Any negotiations concerning Taiwan and China should be conducted on a state-to-state basis; the nature of the agreements should be monitored and reviewed by the legislature; and anything involving the public interest should be put to a referendum.
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