Whoops!

The KMT's domestic PR strategy to promote the ECFA is to say, "we need this or our country's economy will be devastated and marginalized."

However, that PR strategy puts the government in a very difficult negotiating position, as China can demand more favorable terms and postpone the signing, as seems to be happening now. The KMT is then left with the choice of caving in to Chinese demands that don't benefit Taiwan or contradicting their own insistence on the ECFA's necessity.

Whoopsie-doodle...

ECFA Referendum

The TSU has announced that volunteers collected 120,000 signatures in support of a referendum on the ECFA. As you may recall, the signatures and petition will soon go before the Executive Yuan's Referendum Evaluation Committe -- probably by the end of the month, according to the TSU. As the Taipei Times notes, only 86,000 valid sigs are needed to get past "stage one," so the list should be safe.

Yet that committee, made up entirely of Ma appointees, roundly rejected a similar petition last August. The previously rejected topic was:

「你是 否同意台灣與中國簽訂之經濟合作架構協議（ＥＣＦＡ），政府應交付台灣人民公民投票決定？」

Do you agree that the government ought to put an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) signed between Taiwan and China to a referendum before the Taiwanese people?

This time, the question asks:

你是否同意政府與中國簽訂「兩岸經濟合作架構協議」 （簡稱「兩岸經濟協議」或ECFA）？

Do you agree that the government should sign a cross-Strait economic framework agreement with China (often called a cross-Strait economic agreement or an ECFA)?

The new wording gets around most of the Referendum Evaluation Committee's previous objections, but the committee could still have one excuse it used last time:

“Instead, it asks the public to vote on something that has not yet happened — since the ECFA is not a concrete policy yet. Hence, we decided that the petition did not meet the criteria for a referendum as stipulated in the Referendum Act (公民投票法),” committee chairman Chao Yung-mau (趙永茂) said....

We'll see what happens around early May...but don't expect the Committee to rule differently, even if the public is less likely to buy the sole excuse "the ECFA is not concrete policy" this time around.