Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is looking more and more like a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) version of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ma constantly criticized Chen for his feeble governing and for blaming every problem on 50 years of corrupt KMT rule. Now, when the Ma administration is critical of issues like the environmental assessment of the Central Taiwan Science Park and the dilapidated state of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, it resorts to blaming the Chen administration. How does this make Ma any different from Chen?

A watchdog organization yesterday accused the government of overlooking human rights and environmental issues while developing closer economic ties with China.

“At the very beginning of a trade agreement signed between the EU and South Korea, it was mentioned that the environment and human rights should be fully respected in trade relations,” Tseng Chao-ming (曾昭明), a member of Cross-Strait Agreement Watch and secretary-general of Corporate Social Responsibility Taiwan, told the forum. “Unfortunately, such issues are not mentioned at all in the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) the government signed with China in June.”