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Taiwan's Opposition Pushes For China Trade Referendum

TAIPEI (AFP)--Taiwan's pro-independence opposition on Sunday renewed its pledge to hold a referendum aimed at stopping the Beijing-friendly administration from signing a comprehensive trade pact with China.

The Democratic Progressive Party said it hopes to collect at least 80,000 signatures before the end of August in the first part of a two-step process required by law for the campaign, announced last month, to go ahead.

Once it reaches its target figure, the party will then have to enlist the endorsements of up to one million supporters before a referendum can take place.

"Concerns are mounting about signing an ECFA (Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement) with China as it is not a pure trade agreement. Rather it has something to do with sovereignty," DPP spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang said.

"People here are entitled to decide if Taiwan people, through a referendum, approve such an agreement with China," he said.

The Ma Ying-jeou administration is targeting the pact - similar in scope to a free trade agreement - with Beijing to boost the flow of goods and personnel across the Strait and to help the island tackle recession.

Chinese President Hu Jintao told visiting Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the Kuomintang, in Beijing last week that talks on the ECFA were likely to start in the second half of the year.

Hu said the mainland would like to see an economic agreement that will benefit economic development on both sides and improve people's welfare, according to the Xinhua news agency.

Taiwan's Economic Minister Yiin Chii-ming had defended the trade pact, claiming that the island's economy could rise by 1.4 percentage points by forging an economic pact with China.

In particular, the petrochemical sector, machinery and auto components makers are expected to benefit from closer cross-strait ties, Yiin said.

But the DPP has strongly opposed the potential pact, which it claims would demote Taipei to the status of local government in any rapprochement talks.

China still regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification by force if necessary, although the two sides have been governed separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.

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