I never expected that I would become a household name. I never wanted to become a public figure, and a few years ago, when former vice premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) asked me to be a member of the National Communications Commission, I politely declined.
My contact with the cross-strait service trade agreement was entirely accidental. One day in June last year, as I was washing my hair, I happened to read Rex How’s (郝明義) article “We have less than 24 hours (我們剩不到2十4小時了).” At that time, the government and China had just signed the agreement. As an academic who has spent a long time studying industrial economics, I felt that it was necessary to understand the agreement, and so I took the plunge.
I realized that the agreement was unequal, not only as it would have a massive impact on the public, but also because the sectors that Taiwan would unilaterally open up to China — advertising, printing, the wholesale and retail sale of books, telecommunications, transportation — would affect Taiwan’s freedom of speech and national security, and even endanger democracy and freedom. Just thinking about it kept me awake at night.
Influenced by Sun Chen (孫震), economics professor and former president of National Taiwan University, who used to be an active participant in public debate, I submitted an article to the media on July 1 last year in which I attempted to explain the pact and its possible consequences.
When I could not find any explanations or assessment reports by the government, as the chairwoman of the university’s Public Economics Research Center, I organized nine forums and invited academics and experts in economics, journalism, law and telecommunications to participate in discussions from July to December last year.
In addition to creating 15 slide presentations of the research presented at the forums, we selected the three most important sectors that would be affected by the agreement for an impact assessment.
This information is available on the center’s Web site and at www.facebook.com/renegotiation.
Over the past nine months, we have made a great effort to complete these measures — work which should have been done by the government.
KMT Legislator Chang Ching-chung’s (張慶忠) decision to pass the agreement 30 seconds into a joint legislative committee meeting has met a strong backlash, and everyone wants to know what is in the pact. The information we have put on Facebook is the only reference material available in Taiwan. This has been termed a “service trade agreement for dummies,” but when the government got wind of it, instead of providing the public with a better version, it began to discredit us by saying we were endangering the country.
Lately, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and other officials, ministers and leaders of industry have again been telling the public that the advantages of this agreement outweigh its shortcomings as “China is opening up 80 items to Taiwan, while Taiwan is only opening 64 items to China.” They do not seem to understand that opening up the wholesale and retail sector will include — in addition to weaponry, agricultural products, drugstores and pharmacies — the wholesale and retail sale of books. Still Ma says that the publishing industry will not be deregulated.
Another problem is that the provision of cross-border services is unequal. Based on my understanding, these pretty, but empty statements which all avoid being negative are made by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research’s WTO and Regional Trade Agreement Center.
It is expected that the proposed conference on trade will be a farce dominated by slogans.
Anyone, high official or ordinary person, should look at the specific commitments made in the attachments to the agreement before they decide whether to support it. It will have a direct impact on our jobs and living standards, and it has nothing to with whether you support the pan-blue or the pan-green camp
Jang Show-ling is chairwoman of the Public Economics Research Center at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
RSS