Taiwan could face immediate risks if it fails to conclude the proposed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China, said Premier Wu Den-yih yesterday during an administrative interpellation in the Legislative Yuan.“It’s extremely disadvantageous to Taiwan if the ECFA is not signed,” said Wu in response to an inquiry by Kuomintang (KMT) Lawmaker Lo Shu-lei yesterday morning, according to local media reports. Wu warned that “every trade in Taiwan would lose competitiveness.”
Note the terminology at use here. "Immediate risks", "extremely disadvantageous", "every trade would lose competitiveness" and also, but not mentioned above, "Taiwan would be downed". The KMT is ramping up the fear of ECFA not being signed yet at the same time hardly anyone believes that any significant obstacle will prevent the KMT from signing the agreement with the CCP so it would appear that this fear mongering is purely a way to build up the legitimacy and necessity of signing a deal that is as good as signed already. To my point of view there is a difference between a government persuading a people that a policy is needed and THEN, when public support indicates sufficient approval, pushing the policy into practice, and unilaterally moving to implement a policy goal in an environment of severe public skepticism whilst continually trying to justify the action on threats of a dark future without it. The obvious parallel is not with Obama's healthcare reforms which in principle the US public supports but rather with the post 9-11 Bush administration's push for an unnecessary war in Iraq and afghanistan citing a war on terror. In terrorising the Taiwanese people with stories of economic doom without ECFA, the KMT administration betrays its desperation to sign an agreement that many observe to be one that will trap Taiwan's economy within China's sphere of influence. Yet that's arguably a real threat Ma seems utterly oblivious to.
