Liu Chien-hsin, deputy chief of the DPP's Policy Committee, said the MOU was sealed only hours after the country's chief financial regulator Sean Chen briefed the legislature on it, which Liu described as tantamount to contempt for the legislature.

He accused the administration of having Chen sign the pact on behalf of Taiwan under the title of "representative of Taiwan's financial supervisory agency" instead of using the designation of "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu customs territories" as the country is known in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Noting that Chen's three Chinese counterparts inked the pact under the titles of representatives of Chinese financial supervisory agencies, Liu said this suggests there is only one China and is therefore backward and unequal.

"We should stick to the name by which we are addressed at the WTO," he said.

Liu said his party is concerned about whether Taiwanese financial controllers will be able to carry out their duties in China and whether the pact will provide China with access to local people's financial information.

"None of these concerns were addressed, because the content of the pact had not yet been publicized," Liu complained.

However, Premier Wu Den-yih said on a separate occasion that day that the government considers the wording in the pact to be equal.

"It was the only option after China expressed opposition to seeing Taipei using the title `Executive Yuan, ' despite Taiwan's preference for it," he said.

"By the same token, Beijing gave up the title of China because of our objection to it," Wu noted.

Meanwhile Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said the Executive Yuan gave the legislature due respect with Chen's briefing the previous day.

"It was a pity that the DPP lawmakers refused to attend the briefing to protest the legislature's decision to hold it behind closed doors," Wang said.

In a related development, financial analysts in Hong Kong played down the impact of the pact -- which will give Taiwanese and Chinese banking institutions wider access to each other's markets -- on Hong Kong's status as a regional financial center.

Liu Darby, chief executive officer of Core Pacific-Yamachi, a Hong Kong investment bank, said it will give a shot in arm to Taiwan's financial industry, which is lagging behind its foreign counterparts.

He dismissed speculation that the MOU will undermine Hong Kong's role as a bridge between the financial sectors of Taiwan and China, saying that Hong Kong is an international financial center in which the financial institutions of China and Taiwan play relatively small roles.

Li Bing-hua, an executive with President Securities in Hong Kong, echoed his views.

"The movement of capital in Hong Kong is freer than in Taiwan and China, so Hong Kong will still attract investment from financial sectors both in China and Taiwan," Li said.

(By Stanley Cheung, Sophia Yeh and Maubo Chang)