Patent rights and trademarks of many renowned Taiwanese agricultural products have been infringed upon by Chinese traders, a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator said yesterday.
The infringement of trademarks of local products like Kukeng coffee and Chihshang rice was seriously undermining the rights of local farmers, DPP Legislator Lin Yun-sheng (林耘生) said.
He called on the DPP administration to take strong action.
Lin claimed trademarks for famed products such as wine from Puli, Hsinchu rice noodles, Hsiluo soy sauce, Tungting oolong tea and Tungkang seafood had been registered by Chinese traders with the Beijing authorities.
Lin said that Taiwan and China are members of the WTO and that disputes over trademarks and patent rights should be dealt with under the WTO framework.
Nevertheless, the Chinese authorities had evaded talks with their Taiwanese counterparts in international forums, Lin added.
Huang Pei-hsun, a section chief from the Agriculture and Food Agency (AFA) under the Council of Agriculture, said the agency would sponsor a ministerial meeting to work on ways to resolve the matter.
The Mainland Affairs Council and other government agencies would be present at the meeting, Huang said, adding that they would consider sending representatives from the tea industry to China with government assistance to seek protection for their products.
Council official Chen Chun-hung said that if Taiwan and China resume dialogue, the council will help farmers seek protection for their products in China.
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:
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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