TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The service trade pact the government signed with China June 21 was a poisoned apple for the local jobs market, opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Chen Chi-mai said Friday.

The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou approved the agreement to open up 64 sectors of the economy to competition from China without consulting relevant business sectors, critics said, predicting a disaster for local small and medium enterprises.

The first poisoned apple was that self-employed business people would turn into middle-aged or senior unemployed, the second was that the wages of white-collar workers would drop and the third poisoned apple was that Chinese competitors would find it much easier to enter Taiwan and find work on a large scale, Chen said.

Without any approval by the Legislative Yuan, the government could change the rules and allow more Chinese citizens to enter with investment as a pretext, he said.

DPP legislative whip Pan Men-an said that details of the trade pact also implied that even the livelihood of cleaners would be threatened. The cleaning of buildings and the handling of waste were listed by the accord as sectors to be opened to Chinese competition, Pan said.

As a result, more than 77,000 people active in those sectors in Taiwan could face threats to their job security, he added. The occupations affected included the cleaning of buildings and floors, the extermination of pests and the recycling of waste, the DPP lawmaker said.

Former Premier Yu Shyi-kun, also a senior member of the DPP, said the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement Taiwan signed with China in 2010 amounted to giving meat to feed a tiger, while the latest service pact was like bringing that tiger into the house.

The government responded by saying the service trade pact did not include the opening of Taiwan to Chinese workers, but only to investments from across the Taiwan Straits. Chinese investors could come to Taiwan and set up companies and affiliates on the island, but their main employees would still have to be Taiwanese citizens, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.

After protests by opposition lawmakers, the government agreed to a point-by-point review and an item-by-item vote on the pact by lawmakers, possibly during a special session likely in late July. The Ma Administration initially only wanted to submit the agreement to the Legislative Yuan for a quick review.

The DPP said the trade deal was one-sided and would threaten numerous sectors of Taiwan’s economy with low-quality services from low-wage competitors in China. Before the end of the year, the government also wanted to talk to China about a follow-up pact about the trade in goods, posing an even larger threat to the island’s economy, the DPP said.

In order to counter public skepticism about the accord, the government reportedly intended to hold up to a hundred meetings across the country to explain its impact, reports said Friday. Ma and Premier Jiang Yi-huah were likely to attend some of the meetings and address questions directly, reports said.

The government was reportedly worried that the negative mood surrounding the pact with China would affect negotiations for trade deals with New Zealand and Singapore now under way, reports said.

