The government is considering establishing stores in big cities to sell authentic made-in-Taiwan (MIT) products as part of its effort to curb rampant Chinese counterfeiting, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday.
Lai said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Wednesday instructed the Ministry of Economic Affairs to set up a task force in charge of cracking down on smuggled Chinese goods when he visited a bedding company in Tainan and after listening to the grievances of business representatives.
Ma’s visit was part of his nationwide campaign to promote an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) the administration intends to sign with Beijing next month.
Lai said the government hoped the trial-run stores would allow consumers easier access to the 4,000 locally made products with made-in-Taiwan authentication, which guarantees high quality and reasonable prices.
Lai accused the former Democratic Progressive Party administration of doing a bad job on cracking down on Chinese contraband and therefore creating an unfair environment for local businesses that had to compete with cheaper and inferior Chinese bootlegged products.
On an ECFA, Lai said that while 17 traditional businesses could be hurt by the proposed accord, the negotiating team would “do its best” to exclude them from the “early harvest” list.
The “early harvest” list refers to a list of goods and services that will be subject to immediate tariff concessions or exemptions, which are expected to form the backbone of the proposed deal.
Lai said Taipei and Beijing agreed during the last round of negotiations in Taoyuan last month that China would “do its best” to prevent the trade pact from affecting Taiwan’s weaker industries.
“The firewall is secured,” she said.
While neither side revealed their “early harvest” lists during the last round of negotiations, Lai said yesterday that if the items China wished to include in the “early harvest” list were businesses targeting the local market, it would definitely deal a significant blow to them because local Taiwanese products would have to compete with cheaper Chinese products.
Lai denied that the country is compelled by the WTO to open up 90 percent of the market to China within 10 years after the trade deal is signed.
“It is not compulsory,” she said. “An ECFA is not a free-trade agreement demanding the parties to open up their respective markets immediately after the agreement is signed. An ECFA is an economic agreement in the spirit of the WTO, but it has the unique features of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.”
There was too much “false information” and “misunderstanding” about an ECFA, she said, adding that the administration would “proceed gradually and carefully every step on the way” and take into consideration the development of the country’s overall economy and business sectors during the process.
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