All Taiwan citizens concerned with the future of their livelihood and our collective future should support or participate Sunday's demonstration in Taichung City by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party to "break the black box" surrounding cross-strait negotiations and "let the people decide."
Beginning on Monday, the fourth meeting between Taipei's Strait Exchange Foundation Chairman and ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) Chiang Ping-kun and Beijing's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin, representing the Chinese Communist Party -ruled People's Republic of China, will be held in Taichung.
The Chen-Chiang meeting will sign four agreements that have already been negotiated between the KMT and the CCP through the respective "white gloves" of the SEF and ARATS or in high-level secretive KMT-CCP leadership "dialogues."
The four agreements concern cooperation on the setting of industrial standards and certification, on the inspection and quarantine of agricultural products, on avoidance of double taxation and on labor affairs related to the fishing industry.
All of these pacts will facilitate the penetration of PRC influence in Taiwan's high technology industries, manufacturing, agricultural and fishing sectors and pose major challenges if not threats to Taiwan's industrial competitivenes, health security and employment and will be landmarks in the process of market unification across the Taiwan Strait.
As in the case of nine previous pacts, these four pacts will not be submitted for ratification by Taiwan's national legislature but will take effect automatically in 30 days unless the Legislative Yuan explicitly rejects them in whole or part as, under Article 25 of the statute for the handling of cross-strait relations, the KMT government is only required to submit portions of the agreements that require changes in the legal code for legislative approval.
The official Mainland Affairs Council maintains that the majority of Taiwan citizens approve of this process.
Yesterday, the MAC issued the results of a public opinion survey conducted December 11 among 1,092 Taiwan adults which found that more or less 60 percent of those surveyed expressed support for each of the four agreements, but the MAC news release did not mention whether respondents were asked whether they understood the content of the four new pacts.
On the other hand, a survey of 956 Taiwan citizens conducted by the DPP Public Survey Center December 15-16 showed that only 12.4 percent said they knew the content of the Chen-Chiang meeting while 87.6 percent said they were not aware of the contents of the meeting.
This finding, which is similar to surveys about the controversial "economic cooperation framework agreement," revealed the most fundamental problem in the current process of cross-strait negotiations, namely that these talks are now routinely conducted in a "black box" by the KMT and CCP and the contents are only revealed as accomplished facts which neither the Taiwan citizenry or their elected legislators can challenge or overturn.
An open process
President Ma Ying-jeou and various officials of his KMT government have chided the critics for opposing these agreements or ECFA while failing to "understand" the content of such pacts.
On the contrary, the widespread opposition to these pacts has resulted precisely because of the blanket of secrecy which the KMT government itself has imposed, as shown in these talks and in the US beef importation protocol.
Many Taiwan citizens may be unaware that most democratic countries do not conduct trade or economic negotiations under such secrecy.
For example, the U.S. Trade Representative Office published in the "Federal Register" Wednesday an official "Request for Comments Concerning Proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement" and announced it "is seeking public comments on all elements of the agreement in order to develop U.S. negotiating positions," has notified related Congressional committees, has already begun a series of public hearings on a wide range of specific related issues and will publically release assessments on trade, environmental and employment impacts.
Hence, while the USTR naturally enjoys wide tactical discretion in direct negotiations, its negotiating positions and strategy are to a considerable extent formulated through a largely transparent process with extensive public input and detailed Congressional monitoring.
This process may not satisfy all sides, but it does at least ensure that the negotiating positions of the U.S. government are not determined unilaterally by the governing party or designed only for the benefit of favored conglomerates but are the product of bipartisan and public consensus building through transparent and public and legally grounded democratic processes.
Sunday's march and rally aims to "protect the rice bowls" of the overwhelming majority of the Taiwan people by breaking the KMT-CCP black box and demanding that "the people must decide" cross-strait economic, social or political agreements through an open and democratic process ending with ratification or rejection by national citizen referendum.
Our hard won democracy is the most powerful weapon to protect Taiwan from absorption into the PRC and ensure the prosperity and autonomy of our people. The strength of that democracy will be shown Sunday when thousands of people vote with their feet and voices to break the KMT-CCP black box.
Source: Taiwan News Editorial 2009/12/18
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
