Lawmakers in the legislature’s Transportation Committee lashed out at National Communications Commission (NCC) Chairwoman Bonnie Peng (彭芸) yesterday, accusing the commission of being powerless to regulate Chinese investment in the telecommunications industry.
Peng and NCC officials were asked to brief the committee on Far EasTone Telecommunication’s (遠傳電信) announcement last week that China Mobile (中國移動), China’s largest telecoms carrier, would invest in the nation’s third largest telecoms operator by purchasing a 12 percent stake in the firm.
Should the deal go through, it is estimated it will cost China Mobile NT$17.7 billion (US$534 million), less than 1 percent of its annual revenues.
The companies signed an agreement in Hong Kong and made the announcement through a Web cast.
Far EasTone’s share price has risen to NT$37.25 as at the close of trading yesterday, from NT$35.2 on April 29.
The unexpected move incurred criticism from lawmakers on the Transportation Committee. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said the announcement had been made to cause speculation on the markets. Lo claimed that Far Eastern Group had been able to boost its total market value to NT$94.3 billion following the announcement.
“[The announcement] is intended to cheat and lie to individual investors in the stock market so they will invest in the company,” Lo said. “But the NCC have done nothing about it.”
Lo said the maximum penalty of NT$600,000 for violating the Act Governing Relations between peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (兩岸人民關係條例) meant nothing to the company.
Peng said the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) remained the nation’s highest authority when approving Chinese investment in the telecommunications industry. The NCC was only planning to allow Chinese investment in second-category telecoms carriers, not first-category carriers, she said.
The Telecommunications Act (電信法) states that first category businesses hold licenses allowing them to construct networks and offer services, whereas second category firms can only lease networks to offer services.
“Chinese firms are prohibited from investing in telecommunication services,” Peng said, adding that the MAC is canvasing suggestions from different administrative authorities to formulate a list of industries in which Chinese firms would be allowed to invest.
Peng said the NCC has asked Far EasTone to brief the commission about the investment on Monday. The firm’s representative assured the commissioners that so far it had yet to receive any investment from China Mobile.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-ching (葉宜津) said Far EasTone had openly challenged the government because the NCC sets no standards and different government authorities were busy passing the buck, rather than handling the problem.
Peng said the commission was entitled to revoke Far EasTone’s license if it deemed the investment a serious violation of the Telecommunications Act. Yeh encouraged Peng to take action.
KMT Legislators Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) and Yang Jen-fu (楊仁福) also criticized government officials.
Yang Jen-fu asked officials from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the MAC to work with the NCC to handle the matter.
Also See: Widening the door for PRC spying
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS