Chinese mainland and Taiwan negotiators signed the long-aspired the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in the city of Chongqing, southwest China on Tuesday, June 29. ECFA was inked at the talks between the mainland's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) and Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), which handle cross-Strait issues on behalf of their respective authorities. Then, why has an economic pact between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan attracted so much attention worldwide?
Taiwan business people in Fujian, east China, said that they had long awaited ECFA to be inked at an earliest date in a hope to facilitate moving Taiwan-based financial institutions to the west side of the Straits and to help resolve their fund shortage issue.
Since the market in Taiwan is limited, farmers on the island are painful and even come to tears when they see millions of tones of fruit and vegetable rot in fields and orchard or are plowed over in each big-harvet year, noted Taiwan farmers. And Taiwan agricultural products will have better access to the Chinese mainland market due to the conclusion of ECFA.
ECFA is just the "cake" that will extend the economic ties and free trade across the Taiwan Strait, and the removal of tariff barriers will make the complementary advantages of both sides even more obvious. The signing of ECFA has been put on the agenda, as public opinions call for normalizing the across-Strait economic ties; this is by no means a "sudden fantasy" but an objective demand for economic development across the Straits.
ECFA has a very strong lineup of some "23 million plus 1.3 billion people". It is the most discussed topic, which has attracted most attention among people, according to a media survey done inside the Taiwan Island. No one can avert the impact of ECFA, noted "Business Weekly" in Taiwan.
Popular sentiments are apparent to all, but those from the "green camp" in Taiwan have turned blind and resist. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan's largest opposition party, hurl all invectives to the ECFA and make hamfisted efforts to intimidate Taiwanese, saying that the signing of ECFA will cause a rising unemployment and lead to an undermining of Taiwan's agriculture.
