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Updated Wednesday, December 23, 2009 9:48 am TWN, The China Post news staff



	Chairman P.K. Chiang of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), right, and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin, president of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), shake hands at the fourth round of cross-strait talks in Taichung City. (CNA) Enlarge Photo

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ECFA now top priority

The matters like better protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the proposed taxation agreement left out in the current round of talks will also be included in the ensuing round of talks.

The next round of Taiwan-China talks, the fifth round since talks resumed last year, is slated to take place in China during the first half of 2010.

The signing ceremony of the three latest pacts was witnessed by SEF Vice Chairman and Secretary-General Kao Koon-liang, and other Taiwanese representatives including Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman and SEF Vice Chairman Liu Te-shun, Council of Agriculture Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa, MAC Chief Secretary and SEF Deputy Secretary General Chang Shu-ti, and SEF Deputy Secretary-General Ma Shaw-chang.

The ARATS representatives included its Vice Executive President Zheng Lizhong, Vice President Li Bingcai, Secretary-General Li Yafei, Vice Secretary-General Ma Xiaoguang, and Vice Secretary-General Zhang Shenglin.

The SEF and ARATS are semi-official organizations designated by the governments of Taiwan and China, respectively, to handle cross-strait communications in the absence of official contact between the two sides.

Officials at the Cabinet-level MAC confirmed that both the ECFA and the IPR issues will be covered in the next round of talks.

“Despite the fact that inking a cross-strait ECFA is unavoidable amid the increased economic interaction between the two sides, many discussions remain to be conducted and many arrangements remain to be made,” explained ARATS Vice President Zheng when responding to questions from reporters at a news conference.

Stressing that the ECFA is purely an economic matter, Zheng said, China will take “the scale of Taiwan's market” and “the impact of the trade pact on Taiwan's economy” into consideration in a bid to “maximize the benefit (to Taiwan) at the least cost.”

Due to the sharp difference between the size of the two markets, he emphasized, “China will definitely consider the absorbing capacity of Taiwan's market and how much its people can take when signing the ECFA with Taiwan.”

According to political analysts, Zheng's emphasis on the economic fronts of the ECFA and his promise to weigh Taiwan's market scale are a clear sign of China's efforts to seek the Taiwan people's backing for the pact — paving the way for work-level negotiations on the issue that are scheduled to begin early next year.

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