AN agreement between China and Taiwan to expand trade and bilateral investment in the countries’ services industries is at the center of a political showdown between the administration of Taiwan President Ma Yingjeou, opposition Democratic Progressive Party legislators and a group of mostly collegeage protesters that forcefully occupied Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan starting March 18. The political and legislative struggle exposes multiple crosscurrents in contemporary Taiwanese politics and geopolitics.
Under the trade in services agreement, originally negotiated and signed in June 2013 between Beijing and officials from Ma’s ruling Kuomintang Party, China would open 80 servicesrelated sectors to crossstrait investment and Taiwan would open 64. The Ma administration claims that the pact will provide a new and much larger market for Taiwanese services firms and would boost gross domestic product by nearly 1% annually.
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