“As long as other nations have already signed FTAs with the mainland, Beijing will have no objections if these countries wish to discuss similar deals with Taiwan,” the president said.Now, news just in that Ma jumped on a quote by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman, Wang Yi (王毅) in which he was supposed to have said that Beijing would be happy for Taiwan to sign FTAs with other countries. Turns out, Ma was misled and the opposite is true:
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) yesterday denied that its spokesman, Wang Yi (王毅), ever said that it would be to the advantage of both sides of the Strait if Taiwan could sign free trade agreements (FTA) with other countries.
A Central News Agency (CNA) report filed from Beijing said the TAO told the agency that what Wang had actually said was signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) would be good for Taiwan’s economy.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和), who is in Beijing, also told the CNA that the TAO telephoned him yesterday to express its concern and tell him that he had misquoted Wang.
Taiwan’s Chinese-language papers, the United Daily News and the China Times — yesterday quoted Chung as saying, after his delegation’s meeting with Wang, that the TAO spokesman said both sides would benefit if Taiwan signed FTAs with other countries.
Yesterday, however, CNA quoted Chung as saying that when members of his delegation expressed the hope that China would assist Taiwan in signing FTAs with other countries, Chung said Wang’s answer was that “it would benefit the two sides if they aggressively push the ECFA.” (and not FTAs)
Wang did not give a direct reply to the question on whether Beijing would help Taiwan sign FTAs, the CNA quoted Chung as saying yesterday.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), however, did not waste time in commenting on Wang’s alleged remark during an interview with the China Television Co yesterday morning.
Ma quoted the reports as saying that Wang declared it would benefit Beijing if Taiwan could sign FTAs with other countries.Let that be on the record clearly then. Ma, whether knowingly or not, has misquoted the Chinese and misled the Taiwanese public, because KMT Legislator Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和) said so, which was then reported by two major newspapers. China has not said it would back Taiwan signing FTAs with other countries and that makes sense since FTA's, whether with Beijing's permission or otherwise (and why should we even need it anyway), would signal sovereignty. An ECFA on the other hand signals nothing but the first step of Anschluss - economic dependence and integration or loss of economic sovereignty.
One other issue: a new law has been passed to allow political parties, government and military to hold up to 10% shares in satellite broadcasting companies. This is supposed to make ownership clearer and allow the NCC to enforce its rules better. One boggles at the thinking of allowing political parties, military or government to hold shares in media .... its like Martial Law never happened.
