Taiwanese artists, academics and representatives from the publishing and media sectors issued a joint statement yesterday calling on the government to reopen negotiations on the service trade pact that Taiwan and China signed last month.
The statement demanded that the Legislative Yuan hold individual public hearings on every industry affected by the pact and postpone a review of, or voting on, the pact until the government has released reports evaluating the impact of the agreement on Taiwan’s industries, society and national security.
The government should also recommence negotiations with China on the basis of the results of the legislature’s item-by-item review of the pact, according to the statement, which was issued by 18 academics, artists and representatives of the publishing and media industries.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Rex How (郝明義), a presidential adviser and chairman of Locus Publishing Co (大塊文化), questioned the negotiation process and criticized the government for not fully communicating with local businesses before signing the agreement.
Jang Show-ling (鄭秀玲), professor and chair of National Taiwan University’s Department of Economics, said the service pact would affect more than 1,000 industries and millions of workers in Taiwan, but the government has not been honest with the public about the impact of the agreement.
China has not committed in many areas to allowing Taiwanese companies to provide cross-border services, Jang said, adding that this could trigger an exodus of many Taiwanese professionals as well as small and medium-sized enterprises to China.
Under the agreement, China will open 80 service categories to Taiwanese investors, while Taiwan will open 64 categories to Chinese investment, including e-commerce, transportation, finance and medical care.
Although the sensitive publishing sector was not included in the pact, Jang questioned whether the opening of wholesale and retail services would allow Chinese publishers to sell their books in Taiwan.
“The doors are wide open,” she said.
Popular novelist and filmmaker Giddens Ko (柯景騰) called for a serious public debate on the issue, saying that the signing of the agreement should have followed a more democratic process.
“I hoped that the negotiation process could be more transparent, so that we could have a basic trust in the government,” Ko said.
Ruling and opposition legislators have reached a consensus that the agreement should be reviewed by all legislative committees during a Legislative Yuan extraordinary session, scheduled to be held from yesterday through Friday next week.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS