• By Chen Yu-fu and Jason Pan / Staff reporters

The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) proposal to establish “free trade zones” on the remote islands of Kinmen (金門) and Matsu (馬祖) is a test project to facilitate Chinese rule under “one country, two systems.” Taiwan Economic Democracy Union (EDU) convenor Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) said in a statement yesterday that he called on the public to be alert to the dangers of such a situation. offer.

EDU and Taiwan Citizens Front members and academics held a press conference outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei as the legislature’s Economic Committee discussed amendments to the Offshore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例) proposed by KMT legislators Jessica today. Chen (陳玉珍) and Chen Hsueh-sheng (陳雪生) of Kinmen, Lienchiang County (Matsu).

With the support of fellow KMT lawmakers, the proposed changes, if approved, would allow the outlying islands to establish free trade zones and a special international zone for medical care on Kinmen and Matsu.

Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times

“The KMT’s plan will pave the way for Taiwan to be brought under Beijing’s rule within the framework of the ‘one country, two systems’ principle,” Lai said. “This would be a political pilot test to pressure Taiwan to open to free trade by allowing Chinese goods, workers and personnel to flow into our frontline islands and eventually all of Taiwan.”

He said the so-called “pilot program for the free trade zone” would be open only to workers, manufactured goods, investments and companies from China, and not to companies from any other country.

“The KMT’s plan is not actually to facilitate ‘free trade’, but to allow Chinese companies to enter and take over as a demonstration of China’s ‘one country, two systems’ mentality, which will begin to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty,” Lai said.

“It’s outrageous when we learn that the ‘free trade zone’ will be overseen by the local governments of Kinmen and Lienchiang, and not by Taiwan’s ministries or legislature. This would be contrary to the constitutional articles regarding the definition of the powers of central and local governments. It is the KMT’s plan to place the frontline islands under China’s commercial and administrative control,” Lai said.

Tsai Ming-fang (蔡明芳), an economics professor at National Central University, said that if the plan is implemented, it will cause commercial and economic activities in Kinmen and Matsu to decline and become impoverished.

He said that by opening the islands to cheaper goods and lower-cost labor from China, local people’s trade and livelihoods would become dependent on China, leading to unemployment and loss of competitiveness.

That could force them to apply for jobs in China, Tsai said, helping Beijing achieve its political aim of dominating Taiwan’s economy and making it easier for it to take over the two islands.