Shipping tycoon Chang Yung-fa (張榮發), chairman of the Evergreen Group, lashed out at the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration yesterday for what he said was long-term negligence in shipping policy.
Chang said this negligence would jeopardize national security in a time of war due to the lack of Taiwan-flagged ships to transport necessities.
"The government's marine transportation policy has long been lost since the passing away of late president Chiang Ching-kuo (
"Taiwan's sea shipping policy was only emphasized during the Chiang administration. Former president Lee Teng-hui (
Chang accused Chen of focusing too much on the election campaign, while marine transportation was not given enough weight in policy-making.
Chang said shipping policy only was only emphasized during the former Chiang regime, when the government offered incentives, including a tax exemption, for shipping proprietors and encouraged the building of national-flagged ships.
However, Chang said, these policies started to disappear when Lee came to power.
"The current minister of transportation and communications, Lin Ling-san (
"He [Chen] only cares about how to increase his voting support. The government is even trying to purchase submarines and build submarines. But the depth of the Taiwan Strait is only 100m, meaning a submarine can be spotted in the air. What's the point of building submarines?" Chang asked.
The tycoon and founder of EVA Airways Corp and Evergreen Marine Corp (
"Evergreen Marine Corp also couldn't resist this trend and its ships are forced to carry the flags of the UK and Italy," Chang said.
Chang said that the impact of losing flagged-ships would be huge in a time of war because no national ships would transport the supplies and commodities the country needed.
He criticized the government's policy toward China, saying Evergreen ships may sail to any harbors in the world except those in China.
In response to Chang's comments, Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) said the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has been working on improving the industry. However, regarding direct transportation with China, Chiou said, "It involves cross-strait government-to-government negotiations."
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening 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) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS