The cross-strait negotiations between President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration and China lack public supervision, Taiwan Thinktank said yesterday, urging the legislature and civic groups to strengthen oversight mechanisms to monitor the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
Saying that the government has signed 12 agreements, one consensus and three memorandums of understanding with China in cross-strait negotiations without undergoing legislative review and approval, the think tank said that Taiwanese would face drastic changes soon if an ECFA were signed and economic links between China and Taiwan intensified.
“The government signed the cross-strait agreements in a black box. Facing public concerns over the lack of transparency in the process, Ma chose to revise administrative orders and avoid legislative reviews rather than engaging in dialogue with society,” Taiwan Thinktank executive director Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said during a panel discussion on oversight mechanisms of cross-strait agreements.
Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association of Relations Across the Taiwan Strait signed agreements on cross-strait flights, food safety, opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists and mutual judicial assistance last year. The agreements and the meeting minutes came into effect before the legislature had a chance to complete a review or could be informed of their contents.
Cheng said the government has also attempted to “harbor” the opening of the local market to China through administrative orders.
In the past two years, 373 administrative orders involving China took effect without review from the legislature. Only 3.75 percent of administrative orders went through the legislature, information from the think tank showed.
The Council of Labor Affairs, for example, amended the Act Governing Approval for Mainland Area Professionals to Engage in Professional Activities in Taiwan (大陸地區專業人士來台從事專業活動許可辦法) last year and again this year to allow Chinese nationals conducting business in Taiwan to stay longer, she said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said that Chinese companies investing US$33 million are allowed to send a maximum of seven managerial staff members to Taiwan.
However, the amendment said that Chinese-invested firms in Taiwan can receive an unlimited number of Chinese professionals as long as they are considered to be “making a contribution” to the local economy, job market and society and obtain the approval of government agencies, Cheng said.
“The government hid such an important regulation in an amendment,” she said. “We will have to deal with more openings of Chinese labor and products after an ECFA is signed if there’s no oversight mechanism.”
Citizens Congress Watch director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) urged both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to work with civil groups to create a platform to monitor the progress and content of cross-strait agreements and the upcoming ECFA.
He said the DPP should take a more active role in monitoring the government’s cross-strait negotiations rather than boycotting sessions on the legislative floor, while urging the KMT to hold public hearings and explain the content of an ECFA.
Chen Tung-sheng (陳東升), director of the think tank, urged the government to stop signing any agreements that would automatically take effect in an ECFA and called on the legislature to veto any agreements on tariff reductions that would harm local industries.
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