A group of academics yesterday called on the public to stop the government from signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing, saying that there was a hidden political agenda behind the proposed cross-strait economic pact.
At a forum hosted by the group Taiwan Advocates yesterday, Taiwan Thinktank chairman Chen Po-chih (陳博志) said the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Wang Yi (王毅), had stated that after Taiwan signs an ECFA with Beijing, there would be few cross-strait economic issues left for both sides discuss, so dialogue on political issue would be unavoidable.
Soochow University political science professor Luo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has expressed its hope to sign an ECFA this May. If that happens, Luo said, Taipei and Beijing would start talk on political issues from the middle of this year, and that political dialogue would possibly include signing a peace treaty with Beijing.
Luo said that a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) victory in the 2012 presidential election might be too late if President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) signs a political treaty with China during his term.
Luo said the DPP’s priority was to win the municipality elections. If the DPP is able to secure three of the five seats up for grabs at the end of the year, the party would govern more than 13 million people, accounting for 60 percent of Taiwan’s population.
The DPP could then employ a “Boris Yeltsin impact,” making Ma a “lame duck,” he said.
National Taiwan University economics professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) told the forum that he estimated that Taiwan stood more to lose by signing an ECFA, “hence the public and the oppositions should do what they can to stop the government from signing an economic treaty with Beijing this year.”
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), political science professor at National Chengchi University and a former representative to the US, said he thought it would be difficult to stop the government from signing an ECFA, but added that if the pact were signed, the government could not prevent the public from launching a referendum on it, and therefore people could exercise their rights to have their a final say about the pact.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS