The legislative caucuses yesterday reached a consensus to conduct an item-by-item review of a cross-strait service trade pact to decide whether to approve the agreement.
The caucus whips of all parties signed a paper saying that the service trade agreement between Taiwan and China, signed on Friday last week in Shanghai, will not take effect without being ratified by the legislature.
Against the government’s wishes — that the legislature review and vote on the agreement as a whole — the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus conceded to the demand by their Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) counterparts that each provision be voted on separately.
The agreement, under which China will open 80 of its service sectors to Taiwanese investors while Taiwan will open 64 sectors, contains 24 articles and sector-specific commitments, ranging from commerce, telecommunications, construction and distribution to the environment, health, tourism, entertainment, culture, sports, transportation and finance.
TSU caucus whip Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) said that the agreement was more likely to be rejected by the legislature if each provision was put to a separate vote than if the agreement were voted on as a whole.
If the agreement is voted on as a whole, people whose livelihoods may be affected by the pact will see their opposition to the agreement overridden by those who favor it because the latter will push lawmakers to ratify the pact, Hsu said.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chein-ming (柯建銘) said that if any of the provisions or commitments covered under the agreement were rejected by the legislature, the whole agreement would be annulled.
That would mean cross-strait negotiations over the opening of the service sector will have to “start from scratch,” Ker said.
Citing the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the government has said that the agreement does not require legislative approval to become effective. However, it has also said that it would respect the legislature’s rights of rectification.
On Saturday, when asked whether the government would renegotiate with China if part of the agreement were rejected by the legislature, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) only said that any revisions made by the legislature would make it difficult to implement the pact.
He urged the legislature to deal with the service trade pact the same way it handled the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) three years ago.
In August 2010, when the ECFA was reviewed by the legislature, the DPP proposed 18 counterproposals to revise the name, preamble and all provisions under the ECFA, but they were all voted down by the KMT.
The KMT then proposed a motion that the ECFA be voted on as a whole. DPP lawmakers boycotted the vote and the ECFA was ratified by the legislature.
The council did not respond yesterday to the latest legislative decision regarding the review of the services pact.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique