70% of Taiwan people wants cross-Straits pact review

TAIPEI - A survey made public here Friday showed 70.4 percent of Taiwan people want to review the controversial cross-Straits service trade pact clause by clause "right now".

In the survey published by Taiwan's mainland affairs department, about 42.5 percent supported the pact while about 40.1 percent opposed it.

Signed in June 2013, the service trade pact normalizes and liberalizes service trade between Chinese mainland and Taiwan, and opens up mutual markets in the service sector. Under the agreement, the mainland will open 80 service sectors to Taiwan, while Taiwan will open 64 sectors to the mainland.

In mid March, hundreds of students stormed Taiwan's legislative chamber in protest at what they see as "undemocratic" tactics by the ruling Kuomintang to speed up the ratification of the pact. Protestors retreated on April 10.

The island administration agreed to review the pact clause by clause and have submitted a draft oversight regulation concerning the signing of cross-Straits agreements to the legislative body, but the legislative body decided not to start the review until the oversight regulation is passed.

So far seven bills of oversight regulation have been tabled at the legislative body by the administration, the oppositions, think tanks and individual lawmakers. It is expected to take some time to pass an agreed version.

The survey by Chengchi University in Taiwan was conducted from April 9 to 13 by telephone interviews of about 1,100 residents over 20.

About 58.8 percent of people considered cross-Straits consultations a benefit for the region's peace and stability.

The talks between the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits and the Taiwan-based Straits Exchange Foundation have produced a number of cross-Straits agreements since 2008, including the service trade pact.