Negotiations between Taiwan and China on a bilateral investment protection pact remain stalled by a failure to reach a consensus on a potential deal’s dispute arbitration mechanism, officials familiar with the issue said yesterday.
Negotiators held talks in Beijing on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9 to try to resolve differences on arbitrating trade and investment disputes and clear the way for the signing of the deal, which aims to protect hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese investors in China.
However, it remains uncertain whether the pact will be signed or if a seventh high-level meeting between the top cross-strait negotiators will be held later this month as scheduled.
PUSH ON
In a push to get a pact that can be signed later this month, representatives will continue to negotiate this week.
If they fail to reach an understanding, the talks between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) would be put off again, officials said.
The two sides have reached a general agreement on a personal safety protection deal that would require the foundation and families of Taiwanese businesspeople detained in China for suspected involvement in a crime to be informed within 24 hours of the detention.
However, the investment protection deal has been more difficult to achieve.
Taiwan has proposed that disputes between Taiwanese investors and the Chinese government should be arbitrated by agencies such as the International Chamber of Commerce.
However, China wants to treat any disputes as a domestic matter and avoid using international arbitration entities.
Taiwanese officials, who declined to be named, said Taiwan has not ruled out accepting mediation rather than arbitration to resolve disputes, but they said whatever mechanism was adopted had to be enforceable in case local Chinese governments ignore mediation results.
RESERVATIONS
While Wang Yi (王毅), director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said last week that the chances of signing a pact were “unquestionably optimistic,” the Taiwanese officials were more reserved, saying whatever was agreed upon during negotiations needed to be signed before it could be considered a real deal.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure