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Taiwan Church News 3046 Edition July 12~July 18, 2010
PCT announces historic conference in wake of ECFA
Reported by Sam Lee, Lin Yi-ying Written by Lydia Ma Photo by Lin Yi-ying
As the Ma administration got ready to sign an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) withChina, PCT General Assembly Executive Committee convened its second meeting on July 6 and confirmed it’d hold a “State of National Affairs Conference” on October 26-28, 2010, at Presbyterian Bible College in Hsinchu.
The conference’s theme will include the role and mission of churches as Taiwan faces yet another season of crises and turning points. PCT will invite nearly 200 representatives from various NGOs in Taiwan and abroad to discuss latest national developments from the perspectives of NGOs, churches, and political parties.
Besides inviting PCT General Secretary Andrew Chang to speak on church and missions, Soochow University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Dr. Lo Chih-cheng will be invited to speak on how NGOs can respond to new national circumstances. DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen will be invited to speak on what opposition parties can do in light of the Ma administration’s China-leaning policies.
This conference will adopt Open Space Technology (OST) for hosting meetings, which will begin with group discussions on the 3 topics presented by the speakers and conclude with the drafting of an agenda that will later serve as a blueprint for mutual cooperation between participants and the organizations they represent.
In related news, many Taiwanese living in USA and Canada, including members from Greater New York Taiwan Pen Association, returned to Taiwan to lobby against ECFA. With help from PCT Associate General Secretary
The press conference focused on dispelling myths about ECFA that had been circulated by the government in recent months, including rumors that China was bending over backwards and ceding rights and privileges for Taiwan’s benefit under this trade agreement.
The press conference clarified that not only will ECFA forceTaiwan into accepting the “One China Policy”, it’ll become an economic tool for Beijing to control Taiwanese politics. Taiwan’s manufacturing companies will be hard hit and most Taiwanese jobs risk being reduced to low-paying, low level, and manual labor jobs.
Dr. Hsu Fu-tong, trade policy advisor to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, noted that many things about ECFA indicated it was an unusual trade agreement between two countries. He cited that countries negotiating a trade agreement rarely revealed their bottom line at the outset. But this is what the Ma administration has done, and Beijing has also uncharacteristically agreed to cede some rights to Taiwan.
Based on these strange phenomena and his experience as national trade advisor, Hsu suspects some sort of conspiracy behind ECFA. He worries that no one in Taiwan really knows what national rights have been conceded behind close-door negotiations and Taiwanese people may discover too late that they’ve paid too high a price.
Hsu further pointed out the Ma administration’s China-leaning policies had already set off alarm bells inJapan and US, to Taiwan’s detriment. Though both countries had considered Taiwan an ally in the past, they’ve now begun adopting more conservative and cautious tones when dealing with Taiwan. He predicts if the Ma administration continues its present course, Taiwan may soon become a point of contention in US,China, Japan relations.
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