Following on the heels of the signing of a controversial cross-strait trade agreement, the authoritarian People's Republic of China is now pressuring President Ma Ying-jeou's rightist Chinese Nationalist Party government to explicitly "oppose Taiwan independence" to maintain "the foundations for mutual trust" across the Taiwan Strait.

Ma has repeatedly declared his intention to "put economics first and politics later" and deal with "easier issues first and harder issues later," but Beijing clearly has its own agenda and timetable in the wake of the June 29 signing in Chongqing of the "Cross-Strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement" by Taipei's Strait Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Ping-kun and Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin.

A look at the headlines of most newspapers yesterday was enough to make one break into a cold sweat over Taiwan’s prospects.

One headline said a US Department of Defense report concluded that China’s military expansion is continuing and that “The balance of cross-strait military forces continues to shift in [China’s] favor” while Taiwan’s defense capabilities remain disappointing.

Accusing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of ramming the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) through without regard for public concerns or democratic process, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday vowed that it would revisit the trade pact if it regains power in 2012.

“Taiwan will have to one day pay the price for its reckless passage of the ECFA,” DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said, one day after the KMT-dominated legislature approved the bulk of the trade pact. “This important piece of national policy should have been carefully considered, transparent and subject to legislative oversight, but we did not see this take place.”