A protest by pan-green lawmakers blocked the legislature from moving ahead with the review of the pan-blue camp's direct links amendments to the law regulating cross-strait exchanges yesterday, forcing Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Under the pan-blue camp's proposed amendments to the 28th, 29th and 30th clauses of the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (
Under the proposals, all ships, aircraft and other forms of transport registered in the Republic of China (ROC) would be allowed to travel to China, while those vessels and vehicles registered in the People's Republic of China (PRC) would be allowed to travel here.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
Cross-party negotiations on the amendments began yesterday morning but a consensus to move ahead with the vote was not reached until 3:30pm.
After the pan-blue camp resolved to vote on the proposed amendments one by one on the legislative floor, about 40 pan-green lawmakers sat on the floor or stood on the speaker and chairman's platforms to block further deliberations.
Many of the protesters held banners and placards that read "the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] and the PFP [People First Party] are passing direct transportation [amendments] to sell Taiwan. They are all the people's enemy."
The pan-green protest deadlocked the legislature and at 5:30pm Wang announced that the direct link amendments would be reviewed on Tuesday.
KMT caucus whip Pan Wei-kang (潘維剛) angrily criticized the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), calling their boycott "shameless" and saying the pan-green camp was ignoring the people's need for direct transportation links.
"These amendments would be beneficial to the people, yet the government did not work on them. Worst of all, the government has shown a lazy and unconcerned attitude toward them," Pan said.
"We don't think that direct transportation links and government-level negotiation conflict with each other," he said.
"We could still negotiate [with China] after the amendments are passed," he said.
The DPP caucus disagreed.
It said that if the amendments were passed, Taiwan would forfeit its bargaining chips and any room it might have for negotiations with Beijing.
"The pan-blue camp's proposal simply turns Taiwan into a local government of China. We don't believe that the people of Taiwan would accept that," DPP caucus whip Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) said.
"Navigation rights are a part of a country's sovereignty and Taiwan's sovereignty cannot be decided by a [legislative ] vote," he said.
Another DPP caucus whip, Ker Chien-ming (
KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday defended the pan-blue camp's effort to pass the direct link amendments, and said he would encourage the KMT caucus to continue negotiations.
"Both non-governmental and business circles have been talking about [direct flights], and the Economic Development Advisory Conference decided to open up direct fights," Ma said after taking part in the groundbreaking ceremony for the Taipei European School's Shilin branch.
Even if the amendments are passed, Ma said, the government might not carry out the new policy.
He suggested the government change the current cross-strait structure to "theoretical opening and exceptional prohibition."
"We joined the World Trade Organization [WTO] to open up Taiwan. If we retain the [direct links] limitations, I think it would be going against the spirit of the WTO," he said.
Additional reporting by Mo Yan-chih
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,