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The ECFA is a love
letter to China
By Huang Tien-lin 黃天麟
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has challenged Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to a debate, but is there really any need to
debate whether the government’s policies are pro-Chinese? The way the Chinese
Nationalist Party (KMT) forced through the Economic Cooperation Framework
Agreement (ECFA) without paying any attention to public opinion is clear proof
of the party’s pro-China stance.
Beijing made it clear long ago that using economic means to spur unification and
using business to force political talks is a core component of the Chinese
Communist Party’s Taiwan policy. The Ma government rushed to sign the agreement
and has kept on insisting that it has nothing to do with politics or
sovereignty. However, the ECFA does have political premises and poses a huge
threat to Taiwan’s existence.
To make matters worse, Taiwan’s economy has been deeply affected by the ECFA.
Here are a few random examples.
First is the stock market crisis. On Sept. 27, the TAIEX -plummeted 169 points,
falling below the psychological 7,000 mark to its lowest level in two years. The
government blamed the crisis on international factors, but does not explain why
the TAIEX has dropped more than markets in other nations. Since the ECFA was
signed more than a year ago, the TAIEX has dropped more than other Asian stock
markets, making it clear that the ECFA was mostly to blame for the recent
crisis.
Second is the salary crisis. Taiwan employs 6.64 million people and 60 percent
of these are blue-collar workers. The month the ECFA was signed, the average
monthly salary was NT$33,957 (US$1,115), but a year later this had dropped to
NT$33,772. Compared with the average salary of NT$35,049 in 2000, it has dropped
NT$1, 277, or 3.6 percent. This is exactly what happened in Hong Kong after it
signed the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement with China, which sent the
average salary from HK$27,708 (US$3,559) down to HK$24,244. There are now
114,000 Taiwanese households living below the poverty line, and it seems
salaries in the ECFA age will continue to plummet.
Third is the housing crisis. Housing is a basic human right, but it has become
very hard to find suitable housing in Taipei because of worsening speculation.
Last quarter, the average price per ping (3.3m2) was NT$570,000, an increase of
13 percent for the quarter, with the total cost for an apartment averaging
NT$27.87 million, which means that people would have stop eating and drinking
for 16 years before they could buy a home. The average person would never have a
chance to own their own home.
Fourth is the large drop in the export growth rate. As of August, exports to
China grew by 7.9 percent, 1.96 percentage points lower than the growth rate of
9.86 percent that was experienced from January to June. However, for the same
month, South Korea experienced a growth rate of 21.2 percent. In terms of export
growth to the rest of the world, from January to August, Taiwan’s exports grew
by 15.7 percent, well behind South Korea’s 24.6 percent and Singapore’s 21.1
percent growth rates.
Fifth is the outflow of business and industry. As more companies move to China
in search of the first opportunities of the ECFA, instances of investments of
NT$480 billion and NT$180 billion have gone to China. Such numbers are
astonishing. This has caused a serious shortage of domestic Taiwanese investment
and foreign investment has also stopped as a result. Economic momentum is
dropping off day by day.
There may be little for Taiwanese to like about the ECFA, but the government is
still in love with it. If it didn’t lean toward China, it would have never
thought the ECFA was a good idea.
Huang Tien-lin is a former national policy adviser to the president.
Translated By Drew Cameron
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