Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that the wording of the three agreements signed between Taiwan and China on Tuesday was unclear and contained loopholes.
“The DPP will try to determine whether the government makes any compromises as it draws up regulations following the three agreements, such as lowering Taiwan’s import standards or increasing the types of jobs available to Chinese laborers,” Tsai said.
Taiwan and China signed three agreements on Tuesday on fishing industry cooperation, quality checks of agricultural products, and cross-strait cooperation in standard inspection and certification.
Tsai said that since the agreements would grant authorization to private firms to certify imported merchandise and agricultural produce from China, as well as import Chinese labor, the DPP would monitor which companies are given the jobs for signs of preferential treatment or foul play.
Meanwhile, although agreeing that police had made improvements in respecting protesters’ freedom of expression, Tsai said the security measures to protect Chen were “beyond the standards used for the president.”
Tsai said she regretted the fact that the government “pretends it doesn’t see the human rights violations and repression of dissidents by the Chinese government.”
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
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