88
Second round of negotiation agenda Further negotiations on the ECFA were temporarily delayed due to elections in Taiwan, but reassumed and accelerated after Ma Ying-jeou’s re-election. In April 2012, he reinforced his political support to the ECFA, aiming to accomplish the negotiation process in two years, covering four sub-protocols: the trade in goods, trade in services, investment protection agreement, and dispute settlement. He believed that Early Harvest Program, which negotiated only 20 percent of the total ECFA items, has only revealed part of the ECFA outcome. On the other hand, Ma also recognized that although the agreement terms are more favourable to Taiwan, the export growth of the PRC is higher than that of Taiwan (Want Daily 2012). The political support from the PRC is strong, but with a more political rather than economical objective. Premier Wen made several encouraging remarks regarding negotiations of ECFA at all stages, indicating the firm political will in support of ECFA. Even though the negotiation and collaboration across the Straits has been processed rapidly, the political sensitivity has never faded away. Beijing, as always, stood firm with its one-China principle and left little room for its own negotiators to maneuver (Tien and Tung 2011, 80; Y. Wang 2012). In March 2012, the new round of ECFA negotiations started and was expected at the beginning to be more difficult than “Early Harvest Program” by both sides along with the deepening of cooperation. The second round of negotiation covers up to 5,824 items in Taiwan and 6,727 in Mainland China with priority on petrochemical, textile, machinery, automobile parts, and liquid crystal display (LCD) etc. (Economic Daily 2012). In Taiwan, the Chairman to the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Yin Qiming believed that the second round of negotiation would be very difficult as the strategy of the PRC changed from unilateral benefit to mutual benefit. While on the Mainland side, the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office Director, Wang Yi, has announced publicly that large-scale negotiations must be carried out (Want Daily 2012). This round of negotiations is still continuing, and the information released indicates the difficulties and sophistication in the process as the cooperation extends further. For example, the PRC takes a firm position on LCD panels of zero-tariff. Another focus is on petroleum by-products. Yin Qiming stated that after China-ASEAN FTA, Singapore’s petrochemical products flowed into the PRC market without any barrier. It takes the PRC domestic enterprises and market some time to buffer the shock from the cheap FTA imported products, thus causes the PRC government a more cautious attitude on the negotiation table (Want Daily, 2012).
ASIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS VOL. 5. NO. 2