wfn.org | PCT General Secretary urges churches to promote ECFA petitions

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3035 Edition

>April 26~May 2, 2010

PCT General Secretary urges churches to promote ECFA petitions

>Reported by Sam Lee

>Written by Lydia Ma

PCT is one of the sponsors behind a new petition to make ECFA a  referendum 
issue. During

a press conference on April 23, PCT General Secretary Andrew Chang  urged 
churches to

continue amassing signed petitions. Taiwan’s former President  Lee Teng-hui and 
former

Vice-President Annette Lu also attended the press conference.

Former President Lee underscored it was important to understand  why Taiwan and 
China

were signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA)  instead of a 
free trade

agreement (FTA) because the difference between the two is the  reason why ECFA 
will be

fatal for Taiwan. He said an FTA is an agreement between two  sovereign 
countries, whereas

an ECFA is an unequal arrangement making Taiwan subordinate to  China.

This anti-ECFA initiative is not merely a General Assembly  initiative because 
many Christians

and local PCT churches have joined the campaign against ECFA.  According to 
reports, a

candlelight march against ECFA took place on April 24 at Kaohsiung  Central 
Park and many

members from Cheng-Chung Presbyterian Church attended the march.

One of the conveners of this march, Liu Kuo-song, is a seeker from  Cheng-Chung 
Church. He

is often heard on radio shows or seen at various parks raising  awareness on 
the impact of

ECFA on Taiwan. He retired from a state-owned corporation after  having worked 
at private

corporations and is well aware of the challenges facing Taiwanese  
manufacturing companies.

When Liu worked at state-owned corporations, he noticed many  pro-KMT 
corporations had

invested a lot of capital in China because they had never  identified with 
Taiwan. He is

convinced the Ma administration is pushing for ECFA and setting  the stage 
toward economic

integration to facilitate trade between China and major  corporations by 
greatly reducing

production costs. But the average citizen will bear the brunt of  negative 
effects and fallouts

>arising from ECFA.

PCT General Assembly joined this round of anti-ECFA campaign in  March and has 
so far

collected 3,000 signatures. However, since many local churches and  members 
have also

mailed petitions directly to their local representatives, this  figure might be 
understated.

The total number of petitions collected has currently exceeded  86,000, the 
minimum amount

required to pass the first phase of the campaign. Despite a good  start, PCT 
General

Assembly continues to encourage churches to keep up their efforts  in 
collecting signatures

because standing up to policies that harm Taiwan is an integral  part of PCT’s 
confession of

>faith.

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