The Executive Yuan today renewed its call for students protesting the Cross-Strait Agreement on Trade in Services to end their sit-in demonstration and return the Legislative Yuan to the people so that the nation can resume its normal functioning as soon as possible.
In the 21 days since the students began their occupation of the legislative chamber on March 18, the Executive Yuan has carefully considered and responded to their various demands, said Executive Yuan Spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun. On March 22, Premier Jiang headed to the Legislative Yuan to speak to student representatives. On April 3, the Cabinet passed a bill for monitoring cross-strait agreements and immediately sent it to the Legislature for further action. Also on April 3, the premier announced plans for a national trade and economic conference in which all sectors of society will be invited to discuss the nation's vision and strategies for economic and trade development. Now that the public is more aware of the demands of the students, and government agencies are strengthening their communication and legislative efforts, it is time for the students to bring an end to their protest, Sun said.
According to a poll conducted last week by the National Development Council, nearly 58 percent of the public believe the students should vacate the Legislative Yuan and allow the congress to get back to business. Also, nearly half of the respondents think the services pact should undergo an article-by-article review at the same time that the cross-strait agreement monitoring bill is being legislated, while only 26 percent thought the bill should be passed before the agreement is reviewed. Sun said the most pressing matter at hand is having the ruling and opposition caucuses work together to legalize the monitoring bill. The Executive Yuan hopes that the Legislature can pass this bill during its current session.
As the cross-strait trade services agreement has already been sent back to the Legislative Yuan committee for review, the Executive Yuan hopes the article-by-article review can proceed expeditiously and be completed as soon as possible. If the agreement does not take effect soon, Taiwan will fall far behind its major competitors because this trade in services pact and follow-up trade in goods agreements are critical to Taiwan's competitiveness. The Executive Yuan reiterated that the world will not wait for Taiwan nor can Taiwan afford to stay in place.