The issue of direct links between Taiwan and China should be put to a referendum, experts at a forum on cross-strait relations said yesterday. Meanwhile, a newspaper survey said that the majority of Taiwanese backed direct links with China.
Experts on cross-strait relations debated the impact of direct transportation between Taiwan and China on the country's economy at a forum hosted yesterday by the Foundation on International and Cross-strait Studies, a non-profit research institution.
The issue of cross-strait transportation links has been highly controversial. Those in favor say the move would boost the nation's economy, while those opposed fear that it might "hollow out" the country's industries.
A majority of Taiwanese want the government to open direct trade, transport and postal links with China, a survey released yesterday showed.
Sixty-one percent of those polled by the blue-leaning Chinese-language daily United Daily News said they hoped the government would soon open direct links with China.
President Chen Shui-bian (
He has said his government prefers not to open direct transport links if they cannot be managed properly.
But Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
The United Daily News survey found that 67 percent of respondents supported Ma's idea, while 23 percent oppose it.
The survey of 1,116 people was conducted from Jan. 11 to Jan. 13.
Experts were divided as to the impact direct links would have on the country.
Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫), a research director at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said that direct links wouldn't have a strong impact on the economy.
"The South Korean government's Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy once cited Taiwan as a negative example to show that the over-reliance on OEM [original equipment manufacturing] makes a country economically stagnant," Kung said.
The OEM production model has prevented Taiwan from differentiating itself from other newly developing countries, he added.
"While [other countries] progress in the development of technical innovation, Taiwan, comparatively, is losing its advantages and competitiveness," Kung said.
Kung said that the controversy was sparked by "class interests" and not "political position."
"Company owners support the issue in order to save transportation costs, and the general public, anxious about unemployment, stands on the opposite side," he said.
Since Taiwan's ban on direct civilian exchanges imposed in 1949, all merchandise has been shipped through third ports, mainly Hong Kong, and there are no direct flights or postal services.
Lin Chu-chia (林祖嘉), a professor of economics at National Chengchi University, however, rebutted Kung's argument, saying that people were against direct links because of inadequate information.
"The interests of the people are based on the interests of companies. If the companies fail to survive in Taiwan as a result of the ban on cross-strait direct links, it would not be a great benefit to the general public," Lin said.
Lin said that the implementation of direct links would encourage companies to keep their roots in Taiwan.
Lin said establishing a supply chain using specialized firms will depend on the extent to which employees and goods can travel freely between the two sides.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has