Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday urged farmers to look before they leap when it comes to China's offer to import 13 types of fruit through a tax-free mechanism.
"We have to think about it. Why are they doing this to us? Why do they have to be so nice to us?" he said. "In addition, exporting our fruit to China will never be the permanent solution for our farmers worried about the slowing sales of their products."
Hsieh made the remarks during a speech at a seminar for agricultural exporters and researchers yesterday morning. He said he would remind farmers to think about why the Chinese government would be so friendly to Taiwan.
"The main reason is -- we have our own authorization but they [the Chinese government] want to authorize us," Hsieh said.
He said that agriculture in China is far less advanced than it is in this country. Logically, the Chinese government should be encouraging its own production and trying to export its own fruit instead of welcoming imports, he said.
"The Chinese government avoids government-to-government negotiations. Under these circumstances, any form of investment would be dangerous because there would not be any protection by the government if something goes wrong," he said. "We should think about that before we make a move."
Hsieh used the recent China visits by leading politicians as examples to support his statement.
"Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) all received huge welcomes when they visited Beijing. Why didn't the governors of Sichuan or Jiangxi receive the same when they arrived in Beijing?" Hsieh said. "That is because Taiwan is an independent country, which is an unacceptable fact to them [Beijing]."
China has offered to allow the duty-free import of 13 types of fruit, including pineapples, papayas, star fruit, mangoes, guavas and plums.
Hsieh said that the government's job is to take care of its people, including farmers. The government will help farmers promote and sell their products overseas.
However, since government-to-government protection does not exist between Taiwan and China, he would urge farmers to rethink the Chinese offer, even though its terms are quite tempting.
"Fruit cannot be storepiled because they begin to rot very quickly. If the Chinese government suddenly changes its policies and holds up the import of fruit, what will Taiwanese farmers be able to do when they do not have the government's protection?" he said. "Absolutely nothing."
"We must consider these potential risks," he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods