Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said yesterday he would submit a proposal to the party’s Central Standing Committee this week asking headquarters to hold a debate on the party’s China policy.
Among the topics to be included in the debate would be whether the party’s rank and file should be allowed to travel to China, whether to loosen restrictions on Taiwanese semiconductor investment in China and whether Taiwanese firms should be able to set up 12-inch wafer fabs in China, he said.
On Friday, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) told Michael Splinter, chairman of the Santa Clara-based Applied Materials, that the government was studying the feasibility of a plan to allow semiconductor manufacturers to move their 12-inch wafer fabs to China.
Following Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu’s (陳菊) visit to China late last month to promote the World Games — which will be held in Kaohsiung from July 16 to July 26 — in her capacity as president of the World Games Kaohsiung Organizing Committee, Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair, another DPP member, has also said he will visit Xiamen, Fujian Province, later this month.
Gao said the majority opinion within the party was that allowing party members to visit China was inevitable and that as a result a set of protocols must be established regulating party members’ trips.
As to when the debate would take place or what format it would take, Gao said the Central Standing Committee would make the decision.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS