Taipei Times
Date: May 01, 2019
By: Lin Liang-sheng, Chen Jou-chen and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

Former president Ma Ying-jeou gives a speech on revitalizing Taiwan’s international competitiveness at a seminar organized by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation in Taipei yesterday.  Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times

Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday called the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and participants of the Sunflower movement “sinners” for damaging Taiwan’s economy.

He said that under their blind obstruction, the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement fell through.

The agreement and other proposals he made were prioritized around Taiwan and beneficial for the public, but the DPP, with its anti-China sentiment, “opposed [them] for the sake of opposing,” he said at a conference held by the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation in Taipei, adding that the agreement was a lost opportunity.

During his eight years in office, the number of births defied expectations and increased by 15,000 per year, while last year, there were only 181,000 births, he said.
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