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MAC dismisses charges over restricted fishing area

The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) rejected charges yesterday that a restricted area set up in Ilan County for Chinese fishermen would enable them to work in Taiwan, insisting that Chinese nationals are still barred from taking up jobs in the country.

MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) was responding to a report published by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) that the Council of Agriculture (COA) had opened a small section of Nanfangao (南方澳) port where Chinese workers could perform odd jobs and stay overnight and that it was planning to extend the measure to other locations.

Opposition legislators and labor groups criticized the move and accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of reneging on a campaign promise not to allow Chinese workers on Taiwanese soil.

Lai said, however, that the government has not altered its stance on the issue and explained that allowing the Chinese fishermen to stay ashore was merely an extension of their offshore activities aboard Taiwanese fishing boats, and that they were not earning extra pay for their work on land.

She asserted that the measure would not negatively impact employment opportunities for Taiwanese workers because Chinese fishermen employed by local fishing vessels will do the same work as before even though they can now be housed on shore.

“The government has no plans to open its door to Chinese laborers at the present,” she said.

In a statement issued later yesterday, the COA’s Fisheries Agency confirmed that Chinese fishermen would be limited in the restricted area to jobs also done on board the fishing vessels, such as repairing nets.

It also stressed that the principle of allowing local fishing boats to hire Chinese fishermen to help with tasks offshore had not changed, and that the Chinese fishermen would not be allowed to take on jobs outside the restricted area.

Labor rights groups have argued that some of the jobs the Chinese fishermen would be allowed to do offshore should be performed by domestic workers, especially at a time of rising unemployment. They also accused the government of “permitting Chinese laborers to work in Taiwan in a disguised form.”

The COA is expected to set up similar port centers for Chinese fishermen in Wuchi (梧棲) in central Taiwan’s Taichung County by the end of this year, while similar areas would be established in other regions next year, such as in the Keelung and Hsinchu areas in northern Taiwan and Pingtung County in southern Taiwan, the report said.

In the past, Chinese fishermen have not been permitted to set foot on Taiwan’s shores except to take refuge when strong typhoons affect waters around the nation.

Meanwhile, Lai yesterday said Taiwan will hold talks with China on financial market investments, including permission for China investment in local stocks and Taiwanese investments in mainland securities and banking institutions.

The issue will be included in the upcoming talk between both sides’ top negotiators, Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), in Taipei between late this month and early next month.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
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