Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration hopes to sign with China sometime next month is, despite what Ma wants the public to believe, a very political affair.

Any doubt that this is not the case was dispelled on Sunday after the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported that customs authorities in Shenzhen City’s Yantian Port, one of the largest container ports in the world, said they would strictly enforce “country of origin” rules, meaning products made in Taiwan would have to be labeled “made in Taiwan, China” or be barred entry into the Chinese market.

Taiwan is a democracy, and the basic principles underlying democracy are the separation of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, and the mutual checks and balances thereof. Of these three, it is the checks and balances of the first two, the executive and legislative branches of government, that are the most crucial. This is because they are instrumental in making sure government policy reflects public opinion, and in preventing it from going off in its own direction unchallenged.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been in power for two years, and he has doubled as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman since last October. Over the past two years, the power of the legislature has been curbed to the extent that it is losing its ability to effectively keep the government in check or participate in policymaking.