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Opposition slams
KMT-CCP suggestions
‘IMMEDIATE DANGER’: The DPP and TSU criticized
the forum’s recommendation to push for the trade service pact’s ratification,
despite the lack of public support for it
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The pan-green camp yesterday criticized the 19-point recommendation reached by
the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on
Sunday, saying it showed contempt for the legislature and the mainstream
opinions of the 23 million Taiwanese.
The recommendation, reached and announced at the ninth KMT-CCP forum that was
concluded on Sunday in Nanning, China, listed the implementation of the
cross-strait service trade agreement as a top priority.
“While the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] has always supported free trade,
we argue that the unfair pact poses a ‘clear and immediate’ danger to small and
medium enterprises in Taiwan,” DPP Department of China Affairs director
Honigmann Hong (洪財隆) said in a press release issued late on Sunday.
The forum’s recommendation ignores the rapidly decreasing support for the pact
among the Taiwanese public over the fear of the harm it could cause the local
service sectors, Hong said.
He reiterated that the DPP is demanding that the agreement be renegotiated
because of the lack of transparency during the initial talks, as well as the
failure to consult with the affected sectors.
According to a legislative resolution resulting from cross-party negotiations,
the pact is scheduled to be screened and voted on clause-by-clause this week in
the legislature.
The establishment of the forum, which began in 2005, was the CCP’s and the KMT’s
attempt to bypass the previous DPP administration and make decisions on
cross-strait relations a party-to-party mechanism that excluded the public, Hong
said.
“I don’t think [the forum] can speak for Taiwanese,” he said.
While the forum recommended holding a joint discussion on “linking both sides’
efforts to participate in Asia-Pacific economic integration,” the director said
it was Beijing that had blocked Taipei’s efforts to join integration in the
past.
Hong added that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has been
inconsistent in its stance on a number of experimental free-trade zones on
China’s southeastern coast, with the Mainland Affairs Council de-emphasizing
Beijing’s promotion of the zones due to their “strong political implications.”
However, the KMT, of which Ma is chairman, has been encouraging Taiwanese
businesspeople to invest in the zones this year, he said.
Comments by Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲), chairman of the National Committee of the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee, which blamed “a group of
Taiwanese independence supporters” for stalling the ratification of the service
trade pact in the legislature, said Beijing “did not understand Taiwan at all,”
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
More than 70 percent of respondents in most public opinion polls oppose the pact
and only a handful of KMT lawmakers support it, Lee said.
Throughout its history, the forum has shown Taiwanese nothing except how
high-ranking KMT officials fawn over Beijing for personal gain — be it financial
or political — Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said
yesterday.
The forum has been a platform for the KMT’s strategy of “collaboration with the
CCP in containing Taiwan,” through which politicians from both sides of the
Taiwan Strait exchange favors without regard for the Taiwanese public’s
interests, Huang said.
With the emphasis on the cross-strait service trade agreement, the forum has now
become a tool with which China can pressure the Ma administration, he said.
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