Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesperson Fan Liqing (范麗青) yesterday said that there is no precedent for reopening negotiations on signed agreements between countries and that the “authority” of treaties inked by authorized representatives from both sides of the Taiwan Strait must be defended.
Fan made the remarks at a routine press conference in China yesterday amid growing calls for the government to renegotiate the controversial cross-strait service trade agreement it signed with Beijing on June 21 last year.
The remarks followed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng’s (吳育昇) proposal on Tuesday to put the trade agreement to a referendum if lawmakers from different parties remain sharply divided on its passage.
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) proffered a different solution on Monday, urging the government to defuse the standoff by bringing the service pact into effect and then employing the “emergency consultation mechanism” to renegotiate the most debated parts of it with China.
“This would be a better approach since subjecting the agreement to even a standard revision by the legislature could trigger its complete renegotiation,” Wang said.
Dismissing the ongoing bid to institutionalize a cross-strait agreement supervisory mechanism, Fan said: “The normal process of equal cross-strait consultations should not be interfered with, nor obstructed.”
However, Fan said Beijing was willing to listen to the opinions of Taiwanese from all sectors of society to assure that most of them can benefit from the peaceful development of bilateral relations.
“The promotion of cross-strait economic cooperation and interaction is particularly beneficial for Taiwanese and has brought substantial benefits to both sides,” Fan said.
In response to the Taiwan Affairs Office’s comments, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said China’s lack of democracy makes it difficult for the leadership in Beijing to understand the essence of a true democracy.
“As Taiwan is a country of democracy and rule of law, its legislature is in charge of monitoring all exterior trade negotiations, as well as all legislation. It’s common sense to us, but I guess China could perhaps have difficulty realizing what this means,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said.
“Although China refused to reopen negotiations, it must respect Taiwan’s position and its interior procedures,” Lin added.
Lin described Beijing’s attitude toward Taiwan as “negative” regarding bilateral economic activities and said he suspected that China would not take such a hard stance in its trade dealings with other nations such as Japan, South Korea and South Asian countries.
In his National Day Rally speech on Sunday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) quoted the Taiwanese song One Small Umbrella (一支小雨傘) to describe his nation’s situation. Wong’s use of such a song shows Singapore’s familiarity with Taiwan’s culture and is a perfect reflection of exchanges between the two nations, Representative to Singapore Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said yesterday in a post on Facebook. Wong quoted the song, saying: “As the rain gets heavier, I will take care of you, and you,” in Mandarin, using it as a metaphor for Singaporeans coming together to face challenges. Other Singaporean politicians have also used Taiwanese songs
NORTHERN STRIKE: Taiwanese military personnel have been training ‘in strategic and tactical battle operations’ in Michigan, a former US diplomat said More than 500 Taiwanese troops participated in this year’s Northern Strike military exercise held at Lake Michigan by the US, a Pentagon-run news outlet reported yesterday. The Michigan National Guard-sponsored drill involved 7,500 military personnel from 36 nations and territories around the world, the Stars and Stripes said. This year’s edition of Northern Strike, which concluded on Sunday, simulated a war in the Indo-Pacific region in a departure from its traditional European focus, it said. The change indicated a greater shift in the US armed forces’ attention to a potential conflict in Asia, it added. Citing a briefing by a Michigan National Guard senior
CHIPMAKING INVESTMENT: J.W. Kuo told legislators that Department of Investment Review approval would be needed were Washington to seek a TSMC board seat Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday said he received information about a possible US government investment in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and an assessment of the possible effect on the firm requires further discussion. If the US were to invest in TSMC, the plan would need to be reviewed by the Department of Investment Review, Kuo told reporters ahead of a hearing of the legislature’s Economics Committee. Kuo’s remarks came after US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Tuesday said that the US government is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that
CLAMPING DOWN: At the preliminary stage on Jan. 1 next year, only core personnel of the military, the civil service and public schools would be subject to inspections Regular checks are to be conducted from next year to clamp down on military personnel, civil servants and public-school teachers with Chinese citizenship or Chinese household registration, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. Article 9-1 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) stipulates that Taiwanese who obtain Chinese household registration or a Chinese passport would be deprived of their Taiwanese citizenship and lose their right to work in the military, public service or public schools, it said. To identify and prevent the illegal employment of holders of Chinese ID cards or
RSS