President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday again urged Beijing to avoid blocking other countries from signing free-trade agreements (FTA) with Taiwan, but failed to give any reason why China should comply.
Ma made the remarks when meeting representatives from associations of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
“Trade is Taiwan’s lifeline. As a member of the WTO, it is our right to sign FTAs with other members,” he said. “If we cannot do so, we will be marginalized during the process of regional economic integration and lose our competitiveness.”
Ma said he first urged China not to block Taiwan from signing FTAs during his debate with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ying-wen (蔡英文) on an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing last month.
Ma yesterday said he would like to urge China again because an ECFA is “very important for Taiwan’s lifeline,” adding that for the sake of Taiwan’s existence and development, the nation must sign trade pacts with other countries. He did not explain, however, why China should care about Taiwan’s existence and development and stop obstructing other countries from signing FTAs with it.
Ma, who doubles as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, made similar remarks during the party’s weekly Central Standing Committee meeting on Wednesday, which came in response to China’s statement on Tuesday that Beijing “firmly objects” to Taiwan signing official agreements with China’s diplomatic allies.
China’s statement was seen a major embarrassment to Ma, who has repeatedly said that his administration’s plan to sign an ECFA with China would give Taiwan a better chance of reaching similar deals with other major trading parters, including the US and Japan.
At a separate setting yesterday, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) dodged a Taipei Times inquiry on why China should care about Taiwan’s economic interest and respond to Ma’s call.
Liu first said that Ma’s comments were in response to the remarks by the Chinese foreign ministry and emphasized that the Ma administration would not stop the effort to sign FTAs with other countries.
When pressed, Liu said it was clear that China played a major role in the nation’s failed attempts to sign trade pacts with other countries over the years. The Ma administration faced the same pressure from China as before in efforts to participate in international activities and organizations, he said.
Liu added that he did not think US arm sales to Taiwan would affect ECFA negotiations because the talks were economic in nature.
In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Ma said he was not worried that further purchases of weapons from the US would anger Being or damage cross-strait relations because the weapons were defensive in nature and meant to replace aging equipment.
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