If President Ma Ying-jeou continued on his course of “improving relations with China without consulting the public,” protesters should consider traveling to Taipei to lay siege to the Presidential Office, a lawmaker from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party suggested on Tuesday.

The DPP is aiming to rally 100,000 people in Taichung Sunday on the eve of the December 21-25 visit to the city by Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin.

One of the themes of the protest is “Break the Black Box,” an allusion to what the DPP calls the lack of transparency in the process of negotiations with China.

The DPP says the government should provide more information about its plans to sign an Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with China next year. The accord is expected to to become the main topic of cross-straits talks after the fourth round in Taichung.

Before signing such an agreement, the government should gain advice from business, invite supervision by the Legislature, organize public debate and a nationwide referendum, the DPP said. If the president did not follow that trajectory, he would invite even more public anger, according to the opposition.

“You must give the people a clear explanation, otherwise the people will be angry and not only besiege the site of the Chen Yunlin’s talks, but in the future travel up to Taipei to surround the Presidential Office,” said DPP lawmaker Lee Chun-yee.

On the one hand, Ma says he is willing to debate the ECFA, but on the other hand he is going ahead with the cross-straits talks, “paving the way for a political One China,” Lee said. Legislator Yeh Yi-jin said the ECFA talks should be postponed until the people had been consulted. At a news conference on Tuesday, Lee and a number of colleagues symbolically beat up a black-painted box. The cardboard box was imprinted with the Chinese flag and the Kuomintang logo.

The December 20 protest will open with marches through Taichung along two separate routes, one of them under the theme “Break the Black Box,” the other with the title “Protect the Rice Bowl,” referring to what the DPP calls the threat to Taiwanese jobs posed by the government’s liberalization policies in fields ranging from education to agriculture.

The DPP-sponsored protest is expected to wrap up with a mass rally Sunday evening, before Chen arrives in Taichung the following days. The opposition said Monday it was planning other protest actions to take place all through the duration of the Chinese envoy’s stay.

Chen and his Taiwanese counterpart, Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman P.K. Chiang, are expected to sign agreements next week on cooperation between fishing crews, avoidance of double taxation, industrial certification standards and standards for agricultural products.

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