Taiwan has decided not to participate in Expo 2015 in Milan after reviewing an Italian government proposal that it present itself as a “corporate entity” at the world fair rather than a nation, officials said yesterday.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been in talks with Rome in the hopes of working out an arrangement, “but it is a pity that Italy only agreed to [our] presence as ‘Taiwan Corporate’ in the ‘corporate area,’” ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said.
According to a government source, Taiwan failed to secure a commitment from the Italian government that the nation would have a pavilion in the expo’s country area. Rome had proposed that Taiwan be placed in the corporate area.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has assessed Rome’s proposal by soliciting opinions from Taiwanese firms about how their participation would generate new business opportunities and concluded that the expected economic benefits would be “limited,” an official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak on the matter.
They “were not enthusiastic” about the world fair, she said.
A report from Milan by television station TVBS on Monday quoted Lai Tien-fu (賴天福), chairman of the Taiwanese business association in the city, as saying that an area of about 330 ping (1,090m2) had been designated a “Taiwan corporate” pavilion near the pavilions of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Japan.
The cost of a corporate pavilion was about NT$300 million (US$9.69 million), a third of the NT$1 billion it cost Taiwan to participate in Expo 2010 in Shanghai, Lai said.
It was a shame that the government decided to shun the expo out of “national dignity and fiscal situation” concerns, Lai said.
Lai said that he filed petitions with Taiwan’s representative office in Italy and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), only to be given the cold shoulder.
Meanwhile, a report on the expo’s Web site said that the Italy-Taiwan inter-parliamentary friendship group raised a parliamentary question with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to find out why Taiwan’s participation in the expo had not yet been ensured.
The report said the parliamentary question bore the signature of Italian Senator Lucio Malan, president of the friendship group.
In his question, Malan said the Italian government was risking excluding a democratic country from the expo out of “fear of the giant, Beijing.”
The report said that Malan wanted to bring the diplomatic detente between Taipei and Beijing to Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino’s attention.
Valter Zanetta, president of the association for cultural and economic relationships between Italy and Taiwan, was quoted in the report as saying that the offer made by Rome to use the title “Taiwan corporate” was not accepted because that would imply Taiwan is a company and not a country.
According to the expo’s Web site, participants in the expo are identified as official or non-official as defined by the rules of the International Exhibitions Bureau, an intergovernmental organization created to supervise the expo.
Official participants are 144 countries and three international organizations, while non-official participants may be groups of representatives, institutions or other entities.
Given the importance of the expo’s theme, the Italian government decided in 2011 to invite all UN member states to open the doors of the expo to non-governmental organizations and companies as key stakeholders in the global debate on the challenges related to nutrition and food, it said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying