China intends to marginalize Taiwan, and that is why it signed a trade pact with ASEAN states at the regional summit meeting in Laos on Monday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
"Taiwan is excluded from the current integration within ASEAN. This is harmful and unfair to economic and trade development in East Asia," ministry spokesman Michel Lu (
"Taiwan can offer ASEAN members quality goods at good prices through the multilateral trade mechanism, so why exclude Taiwan from the regional body?" he asked.
The trade agreement between China and ASEAN is one of Beijing's economic approaches to marginalize Taiwan, Lu said.
Related government agencies will try to communicate with ASEAN through different channels and discuss how to respond to regional economic integration in the future, he said.
"Taiwan, with its trade and economic strength and highly educated people, can be a contributor to East Asia," Lu said.
As ASEAN leaders agreed to hold the East Asia Summit outside the formal ASEAN regions next year, Taiwan will try to join the summit even though it knows the possibility of participation is slim, he said.
"We face practical difficulties. On the political front, China will certainly prevent us from joining the summit. Yet we still need to look for opportunities to participate," Lu said.
Jich Wen-chich (
"If the trade pact will exclude non-partners, the existing multilateral trade bodies would not allow it to do so. The World Trade Organization (WTO) may take actions to alleviate [the impact incurred by the pact]," Jich said.
The WTO imposed many restrictions on regional free trade agreements and preferential treatment, which would limit the influence of the China-ASEAN trade accord, Jich said.
Most countries have low tariffs for imported electronics, which represents a vital portion of Taiwan's export market. Therefore, the trade accord between China and ASEAN, which aims to lower or abolish tariffs, is unlikely to affect Taiwan too much, he said.
The China-ASEAN trade pact can be seen as a sign of integration in East Asia, Jich said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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