Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)

Last Saturday while wandering around Taipei we encountered some of the remainings of a demonstration against ECFA

We spent some time researching about ECFA: Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement. It is the most important agreement since the civil war 60 years ago. In principle it is mainly focused on economic aspects (reducing or eliminating import duties, Taiwanese companies gaining access to bank and insurance companies in mainland China, more Taiwanese technology in China, etc.)

The issue is so important that back in April, and for first time ever, there was a televised debate about ECFA between the current president and the opposition leader. Pools right after the debate showed a small % advantage in favor of the signature of the ECFA agreement.

At Taiwan there are two political parties with confronted views, the blue party (Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT) and the green party (Democratic Progressive Party, DPP).

The blue party (the current president Ma is from blue party) is in favor of a closer relation with mainland China while the green party defends the independence of Taiwan. The green party was pushing to organize a referendum about the signature of the EFCA agreement, but the government delayed and blocked the issue and the agreement was signed this Tuesday.

You can read this article at BBC that provides all details and background about the agreement.

You can also read this article of a local newspaper that aligns mostly with green party positions (independence).

Check also this post from a well known blogger in Taiwan: ECFA Signing Round Up

If you have interest about the China-Taiwan relationship, you can take a look at the articles below (Spanish):

• China y Taiwán: un acuerdo comercial que acerca la reconciliación (AsiaRed)
• Taiwán: el primer bienio del presidente Ma Ying-jeou ( Xulio Ríos, Real Instituto Elcano)

China still considers Taiwan its province and has more than 1,000 missiles targeting the island to warn it against declaring formal independence. Highly recommended summary from BBC here

We are far from Spain but we still have our own “Estatut” debate :)