FOCUSED ON ECFA:If he becomes a TSU lawmaker, Hsu Chung-hsin plans to devote his time to the pact, which he says makes it hard for Taiwan to upgrade its economy
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信), a law professor at National Cheng Kung University, confirmed yesterday that he had accepted a nomination by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) to be one of its top two candidates on its legislator-at-large list.
Attorney Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said he had declined a similar offer by the TSU.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday that Koo and Hsu had been picked by the TSU as the top two candidates on its list.
As a small party aligned with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the TSU hopes to attain a threshold of 5 percent of total votes in January’s legislative elections, in which a second-ballot voting system will allow voters to pick the party of their choice.
The TSU hopes to secure at least two of the 34 legislator-at-large seats.
The party said this was its only goal in the two-in-one elections and has pledged to support DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), the DPP’s presidential candidate, by not nominating any candidate in the 73 single-member district elections.
Commenting on his decision to accept the nomination, Hsu said the TSU had first contacted him two weeks ago and had approached him on three occasions.
“I accepted the offer to be a candidate as long as Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen agrees, because she was my advisor for my doctoral dissertation,” he said.
If voted into the legislature, the economics law professor said he would focus on economic -issues, including the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed by Taiwan and China in June last year.
The agreement, which provides tariff breaks and other favors that risk unduly tying Taiwan’s economy to that of China, will make it more difficult for Taiwan’s industry to upgrade through branding and greater emphasis on research and development, he said.
“We don’t have to depend solely on China economically. There is so much the government can do to help local small and medium-sized enterprises [SME],” Hsu said, giving the example of southwestern Germany, where authorities provided assistance to SMEs with low-interest loans and the integration of research-and-development capabilities.
Koo, who is representing former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in a corruption case against Lee, said he had declined the offer, but TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) had asked him to give it more thought.