The assessment of the impact of direct cross-strait transportation provides the public an objective picture of how direct transportation may influence Taiwan's economy, society, politics and national security, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday.
The government has geared up to prepare for the materialization of direct transportation. The government has five major tasks at hand, Yu said.
The tasks are to amend regulations concerning cross-strait relations, to strengthen the national security network, to speed up industry restructuring, to establish social order network and to strengthen quarantine systems, Yu said.
Launching direct sea transportation between Taiwan and China will help secure Taiwan's status as a major sea-transportation hub and turn the nation into an air-cargo and air-passenger transit hub, the assessment said.
However, direct cross-strait transportation and the three links may lead to an influx of goods from China and a backflow of goods manufactured by Taiwanese businessmen in China, according to the assessment.
A reduction in Taiwan's trade surplus and deflation might subsequently occur as a result of the direct transportation.
Besides, increases in Taiwanese traveling, doing business, consuming and purchasing real estate in China might cause domestic demand and real estate prices to fall, the assessment said.
In the long term, the assessment pointed out, direct transportation and the three links will change the structure of Taiwan's industries.
Agriculture and the industrial sector will shrink. Agriculture and aquaculture, the hardest hit sectors, will have to adopt high technology and upgrade products in order to survive.
Direct cross-strait transportation might worsen Taiwan's unemployment problem. Taiwan might also lose certain amount of manpower to China, the assessment said.
Direct transportation is beneficial to China's economy, might do little for Hong Kong's economy in the short term and would have limited impact on Japan's economy, the assessment said.
Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (
Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (
The ministry suggested no Chinese ships and aircraft be allowed to cross the Taiwan Strait.
The rule that no Chinese ships and aircrafts are allowed to cross the middle line of the Strait is a key factor maintaining the stability on the straits, said the ministry, adding the rule should not be lifted because of direct transportation.
Direct transportation should be first launched in the south of Taiwan and gradually expanded to the north and the middle of the island, the defense ministry said.
For direct air transportation, the defense ministry suggested no new air routes be added. It is better to adopt the existing international air routes for the direct air transportation, the ministry added.
If an emergency should threaten national security, the direct transportation should be partly or completely suspended, the ministry recommended.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching