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Opacity made service
pact monster
By Kuo Chen-hero ³¢®¶Åb
The cross-strait service trade agreement is gradually devolving into a
confrontation between those who support it and those who oppose it.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which supports the passage of the pact
through the legislature, has made three claims backing its implementation:
First, the KMT said that the government was unable to discuss the deal with
domestic industrial and commercial groups before Taiwan and China signed it on
June 21 because there was a ¡§confidentiality agreement¡¨ between the two parties.
It was not the government¡¦s intention to sign the pact through in such a
non-transparent way, the KMT has said.
However, many of those who oppose the service trade pact feel that since the
agreement is so significant, a consensus should first have been reached
domestically, beginning at the grassroots level and moving upward, instead of
the policy being formulated by a few powerful national leaders in a top-down
manner to satisfy their own motives.
Second, the KMT said the local economy has stagnated and has wondered why many
Taiwanese are finding it impossible to accept the pact as a means to remove
trade barriers between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and strengthen
bilateral cooperation.
However, those who oppose the trade pact feel that Taiwan¡¦s economic stagnation
is a result of President Ma Ying-jeou¡¦s (°¨^¤E) inept leadership, saying that his
ineptitude has resulted in an inability to stimulate private consumption and
boost economic growth. They further say that these economic failings have
nothing to do with the service trade agreement, which they claim will humiliate
the nation and forfeit its sovereignty.
Third, the KMT also claims that Taiwan stands to gain more than it will lose by
ratifying the cross-strait agreement and that the overall effect of the pact
will be positive.
Despite that, those opposed to the agreement feel that if it will be so good for
the nation, then the government should commission a comprehensive report on the
domestic impact it will have so that the public can thoroughly understand all
the benefits. By doing this, the government would clarify the public¡¦s doubts
over whether implementing the pact would adversely affect their jobs and
salaries, and whether some are criticizing the pact just for the sake of
opposing it.
However, instead of taking this route, the authorities have not offered the
public any explanation on questions such as: After signing the pact, what are
the possible problems that Taiwanese industry might face? How will the nation
benefit from exporting services from certain sectors and how will it suffer from
the import of services from other sectors? How should Taiwan¡¦s service sectors
react to these possible impacts and how should the nation use the agreement to
strengthen its industrial competitiveness and increase economic growth? To this
day, the public have yet to see or hear about any assessment being carried out
on these key issues.
By failing to handle the signing of the service trade pact properly, the
government has turned the agreement into a monster. The Ma administration should
not blame its poor handling of the matter on public opposition to the pact.
Kuo Chen-hero is an adjunct professor in the School of Business at Soochow
University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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