The organizer of the 2015 World Exposition in Milan is reportedly only willing to place the Taiwan Pavilion in the “corporate area” rather than in the “country area,” a matter on which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday declined to comment, citing insufficient information.
Following its participation in the World Exposition held in Japan’s Osaka in 1970, Taiwan, due to interference by China, has not participated in any of the subsequent world expos until Expo 2010 in China’s Shanghai. The Bureau of Shanghai World Expo Coordination sent an official invitation to the Taipei World Trade Center organization for a Taiwan Pavilion at the expo in May 2009.
However, even then the Chinese government had been making small moves that cast doubt on Taiwan’s sovereign status: first by listing Taiwan in the China Exhibition Hall area on the official Web site, then placing it beside the Hong Kong and Macau halls.
Photo: CNA
Though both incidents had been rectified after Taiwan protested, the shadow of China’s oppression and continual challenges to Taiwan’s sovereign status lingered.
The Chinese-language China Times yesterday reported that an Italian delegation, during a visit with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in Taipei last month, gave the assurance that they would contact the International Expositions Bureau and attempt to elevate Taiwan’s participation status at the global event.
According to the English-language Web site of the 2015 World Exposition, the expo, being a universal event, would be divided into four different categories, namely countries, international organizations, businesses and civil society organizations.
The site also said that invitations to the world exposition had been extended to “United Nations member countries” — Taiwan has not been a UN member since 1971 — adding that 130 countries had thus far responded to the invitations.
Commenting on the matter, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) yesterday said that “over the past five years, President Ma Ying-jeou’s administration has again and again given tacit consent to the ‘one China’ principle, and Taiwan’s participation in international communities such as the World Health Assembly and the International Civil Aviation Organization has been based on such consent.”
“This consent has caused the international community to mistakenly perceive Taiwan as a part of China,” Lee said, adding that the Ma administration is now getting a spoonful of its own medicine.
“The ministry’s inaction against Chinese oppression and now its inability to gather information on an international event, clearly showed a dereliction of duty to the people they serve,” DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said.
DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said that China must be behind Italy’s denial of Taiwan’s participation in the 2015 world expo as a country, adding that “if the Ma administration’s claims that cross-strait relations have never been better were true, then there should be something to show for it.”
“The government needs to actively negotiate with Italy on the issue and if we cannot affirm the sovereign status of Taiwan at the exposition, then we would rather not participate,” he added.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS