ECFA

The Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA or 兩岸經濟合作架構協議) was the bilateral trade agreement between Taiwan and China signed in June 29, 2010 in Chongqing (重慶), China which was pushed for by the Ma administration and, in that way, a predecessor agreement to the CSSTA. For critics of the Ma administration’s economic policies and pro-China stances, the ECFA was seen as a way to accomplish the eventual political unification of Taiwan and China by increasing Taiwan’s economic reliance on China. On the other hand, the Ma administration touted ECFA as something which would not be deteriorating of Taiwan’s sovereignty or make Taiwan dependent on China, and advanced the view that closer economic ties with China bring Taiwan only benefits. Many of the arguments used to advance the CSSTA were first used to advance ECFA.

ECFA was hotly demonstrated at the time, with tens of thousands demonstrating against the agreement on June 26, 2010, just a few days before its passage, and scuffles breaking out between DPP and KMT legislators within the Legislative Yuan. In this way, demonstration against the ECFA was a forerunner of the Sunflower Movement four years later, as well as marking a crucial bulwark of the Ma administration’s attempt to build stronger economic ties between Taiwan and China and sell this to the Taiwanese public.

Read Next:

• What was the CSSTA?

• What were economic justifications for the CSSTA?

• Was the Sunflower Movement an anti-free trade movement?

Demonstrations against ECFA in June 2010. Photo credit: Chia Ying Yang/Flickr/CC