As Taiwan and China engage in the second round of negotiations on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), it might be worthwhile to look at the long-term consequences of increasing Chinese investment in Taiwan.

Earlier this week, this paper referred to a recent report about possible People’s Republic of China (PRC) funding and involvement in the consortium of Hong Kong-based firms that has sought to acquire Nan Shan Financial Life Insurance Co. Earlier this month, financial regulators said they still had more than 40 unanswered questions about the application by one of the principal investors, China Strategic.

It is two years into the reign of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) the incompetent, and it appears the one-trick pony is getting desperate to defend his efforts to drag Taiwan into economic dependency on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) through an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

The latest effort of Ma and his combined hired gun and snake-oil salesman King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) is a string of expensive TV ads describing how the country will totally lose its competitiveness if it does not give the government a blank check to sign an ECFA.