The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday strongly protested China's attempts to get the WTO to downgrade the title of Taiwan's government agencies in the documentation of the nation's legal regulations sent as notification to the body.
This is the second time this year China has pressured the world trade body, after it demanded in July that the WTO downgrade Taiwan's representation from the permanent mission to a trade office such as Hong Kong's.
Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (
"Beijing's demand is outra-geous," Hsiao said. "The Presidential Office is the Presidential Office. What else can we call it?"
"This is a very serious issue as it would block Taiwan's progress in participating in the international treaties. It not only affects Tai-wan's international participation, but also damages the interest of foreign investors who expects Taiwan to join in the related international economic and trade treaties so that they could better and fairly understand Taiwan's domestic investment environment," she told the Taipei Times.
"China's moves to denigrate Taiwan's place in the international community are getting more and more persistent and frequent," Hsiao said.
Hsiao said the name of the governmental agency, such as the Public Construction Commission, an agency that is involved in major government procurement projects, cannot be removed from legal documents, because this would undermine the legality of the nation's laws and national sovereignty.
Hsiao stressed that the Republic of China is an independent sovereign state.
"This is a stark reality. Beijing cannot deny this truth," she said.
When contacted by phone by the Taipei Times yesterday, sources in Taiwan's WTO mission in Geneva said the office and the WTO Secretariat are still tackling the problem.
"There is no such problem as Taiwan's governmental agency's name change in the legal documentation. All the legal documentation, passed by Taiwan's legislature cannot be altered in any way when presented as a notification to the WTO," the source said.
"We have clearly expressed our stance to WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, who has accepted our causes and said he would come up with an objective and neutral judgment," the source said.
"We believe Supachai will tackle the matter objectively, which can be seen from the delay in the printing of the so-called `Blue Book,' a WTO directory which was supposed to be revised in April, following China's attempts to get the organization to change the name of Taiwan's mission early this year," the source said.
Taiwan's permanent representative to the WTO, Yen Ching-chang (
A drunk woman was sexually assaulted inside a crowded concourse of Taipei Railway Station on Thursday last week before a foreign tourist notified police, leading to calls for better education on bystander intervention and review of security infrastructure. The man, surnamed Chiu (邱), was taken into custody on charges of sexual assault, taking advantage of the woman’s condition and public indecency. Police discovered that Chiu was a fugitive with prior convictions for vehicle theft. He has been taken into custody and is to complete his unserved six-month sentence, police said. On Thursday last week, Chiu was seen wearing a white
EVA Airways, one of the leading international carriers in Taiwan, yesterday said that it was investigating reports that a cabin crew manager had ignored the condition of a sick flight attendant, who died on Saturday. The airline made the statement in response to a post circulating on social media that said that the flight attendant on an outbound flight was feeling sick and notified the cabin crew manager. Although the flight attendant grew increasingly ill on the return flight, the manager did not contact Medlink — a system that connects the aircraft to doctors on the ground for treatment advice during medical
The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union yesterday vowed to protest at the EVA Air Marathon on Sunday next week should EVA Airway Corp’s management continue to ignore the union’s petition to change rules on employees’ leave of absence system, after a flight attendant reportedly died after working on a long-haul flight while ill. The case has generated public discussion over whether taking personal or sick leave should affect a worker’s performance review. Several union members yesterday protested at the Legislative Yuan, holding white flowers and placards, while shouting: “Life is priceless; requesting leave is not a crime.” “The union is scheduled to meet with
‘UNITED FRONT’ RHETORIC: China’s TAO also plans to hold weekly, instead of biweekly, news conferences because it wants to control the cross-strait discourse, an expert said China’s plan to expand its single-entry visa-on-arrival service to Taiwanese would be of limited interest to Taiwanese and is a feeble attempt by Chinese administrators to demonstrate that they are doing something, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said the program aims to facilitate travel to China for Taiwanese compatriots, regardless of whether they are arriving via direct flights or are entering mainland China through Hong Kong, Macau or other countries, and they would be able to apply for a single-entry visa-on-arrival at all eligible entry points in China. The policy aims
RSS