Taiwan Photo: VCG

The so-called "Mainland Affairs Council" of the island of Taiwan released a statement on Monday, the 16th anniversary of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), claiming that the Chinese mainland has in recent years exerted economic pressure on the island for political purposes. A mainland expert said that the claims made by the DPP authorities are false, and it is the DPP that has undermined cross-Straits economic and trade cooperation.

The statement claimed that the mainland's determination in 2023 that the island constituted a trade barrier, and suspension of preferential tariffs on a total of 146 ECFA products were actually using cross-Straits economic and trade measures as political bargaining chips and as tools of economic pressure and trade weaponization.

Wang Jianmin, a research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday that the council's claim of so-called "economic pressure" by the mainland against Taiwan region lacks any factual basis. 

"The mainland has not adopted systematic restrictive measures against normal cross-Straits trade. On the contrary, the DPP authorities have continued to align with the US' containment policy, repeatedly imposing additional restrictions on cross-Straits investment, trade and industrial cooperation, including curbs on certain trade and investment activities, thereby affecting cross-Straits economic and trade exchanges," he said.

In 2023, the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) announced that it has launched a trade barrier investigation into trade restrictive measures that China's Taiwan has placed on products from the Chinese mainland, the Xinhua News Agency reported at the time. 

Asked to comment on the announcement in April 2023, then Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council spokesperson Zhu Fenglian said that the Taiwan regional authorities have long imposed unilateral restrictions on the entry of more than 2,400 mainland products into the Taiwan region, damaging the interests of relevant mainland industries and enterprises.

At a regular press conference on August 17, 2023, then MOFCOM spokesperson Shu Jueting said that the range of mainland products banned from import by the Taiwan region has shown an overall expanding trend in recent years, with the products involved in this investigation having been adjusted from 2,455 at the time of filing to the current 2,509, underscoring tightening import controls on products from the mainland.

In addition, the DPP statement claimed that in 2025 the value of ECFA early-harvest goods exported to the mainland as a share of the island's total exports to the mainland hit a new low since the ECFA took effect. According to statistics from the General Administration of Customs, the total cross-Straits trade volume reached $314.33 billion in 2025, with the mainland's exports to the island rising 11.2 percent and its imports from Taiwan growing 6 percent.

Cross-Straits economic and trade ties have been affected by multiple factors including the external environment, but the DPP authorities' continual reinforcement of restrictive policies is one of the important reasons, Wang said, adding that attributing the problems facing cross-Straits economic and trade to the mainland is not only inconsistent with the facts, but also a political maneuver that aims to confuse right and wrong.

"As the body in charge of cross-Straits affairs in Taiwan island, it is regrettable that the council made such remarks, and that its related statements neither help in objectively understanding the realities of cross-Straits economic and trade nor contribute to the healthy and stable development of cross-Strait economic and trade relations," Wang said.