A cross-strait expert yesterday expressed concern over the government’s plan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing, urging President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to suspend negotiations on the trade pact and seek public consensus on Taiwan’s global economic strategy.
Former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deputy chairman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said the ECFA had four flaws.
The government’s economic strategy is unclear, its evaluation of the pact’s benefits is incomplete, it is insincere in communicating with the public and the opposition, and its execution ability is questionable, said Tung, currently a professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of Development Studies.
Tung made five proposals to address the problems.
First, he urged Ma to form a committee to strengthen national competitiveness and solicit opinions from opposition parties, experts and academics and industrial and labor representatives to formulate the country’s strategy of global economic integration.
Second, he proposed that the government sign a preferential trade agreement with Beijing to deal with the negative impact brought to the local industries by the economic accord signed between Beijing and ASEAN.
Third, to gradually normalize economic relations across the Taiwan Strait, he urged the government to continue negotiations on trade issues through dialogues between the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS).
Finally, he called on the government to clearly explain the benefits and drawbacks of an ECFA and stipulate distinctively in the proposed accord that China will not block Taiwan’s effort to sign economic deals with other countries.
Although critics have warned that the agreement would jeopardize Taiwan’s sovereignty, make it too economically dependent on China and lead to an influx of Chinese capital and goods, the Ma administration hopes to sign the accord during the next round of meeting between SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), scheduled for the first half of this year, with the MAC stepping up efforts to promote the pact.
MAC Deputy Chairman Kao Charng (高長) will attend an ECFA workshop in Sansia (三峽), Taipei County, on Sunday, and MAC Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) will attend another one in Tucheng (土城), Taipei County, next Sunday.
MAC Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) yesterday said the trade deal would be purely economic in nature and steer clear of politics.
In other developments, SEF adviser Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) tendered his resignation on Tuesday, one day after taking office.
Chiang is still trying to convince him to stay, said SEF spokesman Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章), adding that Lee wanted to become a non-paid adviser because he did not like doing desk job.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS