President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the government was ready to address problems that could emerge after an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) is signed with China, adding that he would protect the rights of local workers and traditional industries.
Ma, in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, defended his administration’s plan to sign an ECFA with China ahead of a debate on the economic pact with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Sunday, adding that an ECFA would bring the country advantages with few disadvantages.
“The government is certain about the direction we are heading, but we will not hide the negative impact of an ECFA. We are prepared to help local workers and industries that will be affected,” Ma said during a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting at party headquarters.
The Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait completed a second round of negotiations on an ECFA in Taoyuan last month and are scheduled to hold the next round in China at the end of this month.
The Ma administration hopes to sign an ECFA in June.
Citing a report by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, Ma said an ECFA would create 260,000 jobs in Taiwan, while about 80,000 workers could lose their jobs or suffer lower salaries as a result.
The government plans to set aside NT$95 billion (US$3 billion) within the next 10 years to assist traditional industries and protect their interests.
Presenting a report on the development of traditional industries after an ECFA is signed, Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) Minister Jennifer Wang (王如玄) yesterday dismissed concerns manual workers’ salaries would drop if Taiwan signed an ECFA with China and said the average pay of workers would not be adjusted as the quality of local workers was much higher than that seen in China.
In related news, Minister Without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) yesterday challenged media reports that cast doubt on the benefits of an ECFA with China, saying the deal would encourage businesses to keep their roots in Taiwan.
In a story yesterday, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) said an ECFA would facilitate the relocation of local businesses abroad, which would exacerbate local unemployment and cause a contraction in domestic consumption.
Kenneth Lin (林向愷), a professor of economics at National Taiwan University, made the comments following statistics released by the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday that said 50.69 percent of Taiwanese export orders last month were produced overseas, marking the first time the percentage exceeded 50 percent.
“What Lin expressed concern about is exactly why Taiwan needs to sign an ECFA with China — to reduce certain tariffs,” Yiin told a press conference.
Yinn said the percentage of Taiwanese export orders being produced overseas during the former DPP administration jumped 33.7 percent, from 13.3 percent in 2000 to 47.8 percent in 2008.
“Local companies moved overseas under DPP rule as it opposed a similar agreement with China and implementation of direct cross-strait transportation,” Yiin said.
Meanwhile, Yiin rebutted a Business Weekly report that questioned comments made by Yiin that “an ECFA would not necessarily lead to a free-trade agreement [FTA] eliminating tariffs on 90 percent of commodities within 10 years.”
Although the WTO requires FTA signatories to include the elimination of tariffs in “substantially all trade” and “substantially all sectors,” there is as yet no specific rule on what percentage constitutes “substantially all” among WTO members, Yiin said.
There are at least 23 cases under which signatories to an FTA have not cut tariffs down to zero on more than 90 percent of their trade and services over a 10-year period, Yiin said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods