Since the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China in June, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has made considerable efforts to promote the trade pact and use it as a major campaign theme for the year-end elections.
However, approaching voters with the ECFA may not be the best campaign strategy, as the effects of the trade pact remain too abstract for the majority of people, analysts said.
“The ECFA has yet to take effect and the people are unaffected by the government’s propaganda,” said Wang Kun-yi (王崑義), a professor of international affairs at Tamkang University. “It’ll be difficult for the KMT to turn the ECFA into votes.”
Addressing the party convention on Aug. 7, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as KMT chairman, said the ECFA would create more than 34,000 jobs and would have a production value of NT$110 billion (US$3.4 billion) in the five special municipalities where the year-end elections will be held.
He instructed candidates to “promote the impact of the ECFA as much as possible during their campaigning.”
“The ECFA will definitely benefit the five special municipalities … I also want to tell the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP]: You will be the enemy of our people if you continue to oppose it,” Ma said.
Wang said that even if the deal brought about substantial benefits to Taiwan’s economy, as Ma claims, those benefits could take five to 10 years to materialize.
The only thing people can see as a direct result of the ECFA at this stage is rising house prices, Wang said.
Under the ECFA, 539 items from Taiwan will receive zero-tariff treatment within the next two years, while Chinese exporters will get a reciprocal deal on 267 items.
However, the pact failed to pass a legislative review last month as opposition parties insisted that it be reviewed article-by-article.
The legislature on Friday agreed to hold a two-week provisional session, starting today, to review the pact.
The Ma administration is showing signs of ignoring apprehensions over and criticism of the ECFA, with the president demanding a quick review in the legislature and saying a vote should only be held on the document as a whole, rather than clause-by-clause, as opposition parties have requested.
As soon as the ink had dried on the trade documents, Ma was calling on the KMT’s five candidates to promote the benefits the ECFA would bring to the five special municipalities.
Ma and the five KMT candidates — Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Sinbei candidate and former vice premier Eric Chu (朱立倫), Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), Greater Tainan candidate and former legislator Kuo Tien-tsai (郭添財) and Greater Kaohsiung candidate and KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) — kept the focus of their campaigns on the ECFA at the party convention last week, saying the pact would bring in more foreign investment and boost economic activity in the five municipalities.
Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒), a political observer at National Dong Hwa University, said the KMT’s promotion of the ECFA in their campaigning targeted middle class voters in the northern and central parts of the country, while the strategy would have little traction in Greater Kaohsiung and Tainan — two pan-green strongholds that depend more on traditional and agricultural industries.
The KMT is likely to retain this campaign strategy during the presidential election in 2012, he said. However, the party should refrain from exaggerating the advantages of the ECFA and focus on the performance of its candidates to sway voters, he said.
While promising to help traditional industries transform and survive after the trade deal is implemented, the KMT had very little to say about the negative side of the ECFA, telling voters that the ECFA would usher in a “golden decade” for Taiwan.
KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), who arrived in Los Angeles yesterday on a five-day visit, said the majority of Taiwanese believe the benefits of the ECFA will outweigh its deficits, adding that the DPP could not shirk its responsibility to discuss the deal in the legislature.
Wang Yeh-li (王業立), a political science professor at National Taiwan University, said the KMT spent too much energy packaging the ECFA as the perfect trade pact for Taiwan while doing little to address public concerns about the damage it could inflict on the nation.
The KMT should devote more energy to communicating with the people and seek a better understanding of the reasons why there remains strong opposition to the ECFA, he said.
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