Braving the rain, a group of protesters yesterday marched from Taipei’s Longshan Temple (龍山寺) to the Executive Yuan calling on the government not to prevent the rightful expression of popular will on a proposed cross-strait trade pact through a referendum.
The Executive Yuan’s Referendum Review Committee is slated to convene a meeting on June 3 to decide whether a referendum question proposed by the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) conforms to the requirements of a referendum proposal.
The TSU has proposed the question: “Do you agree that the government should sign an economic cooperation framework agreement [ECFA] with China?”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government believes an ECFA is necessary to keep Taiwan from being economically marginalized as other countries sign free-trade agreements with China. It hopes to ink the deal with Beijing by the end of next month.
Critics say that workers and industries will suffer once cheaper Chinese products flood the market, that Taiwan’s sovereignty will be undermined and that the deal makes Taiwan too economically dependent on China.
PROPOSAL
People Matters, the group that organized the march yesterday, asked the committee not to reject the proposal as it did last August after a similar drive by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), on the grounds that its referendum question was based on a hypothetical situation.
Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), a member of the group, said the KMT government should not reject a referendum proposal that has garnered more than 100,000 signatures.
SIGNATURES
The Referendum Act (公民投票法) stipulates that for the first phase of a referendum drive, an individual or organization must collect signatures from 0.5 percent of the number of qualified voters in the last presidential election — which was around 80,000 people in this case.
Of the nearly 200,000 signatures the TSU has already collected, 110,000 petition forms were delivered to the Central Election Commission last month for review and then forwarded to the Referendum Review Committee for further deliberation.
The protesters called on the government to dismiss the Referendum Review Committee and accept the right to a referendum.
A separate rally against an ECFA was also held last night by the Taiwan Society.
The rally featured stalls set up on Liberty Square selling “Made in Taiwan” produce and industrial products — part of a campaign to draw attention to the fact that an ECFA with China would jeopardize local industries and flood Taiwan with sub-standard products from China.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Monday called for greater cooperation between Taiwan, Lithuania and the EU to counter threats to information security, including attacks on undersea cables and other critical infrastructure. In a speech at Vilnius University in the Lithuanian capital, Tsai highlighted recent incidents in which vital undersea cables — essential for cross-border data transmission — were severed in the Taiwan Strait and the Baltic Sea over the past year. Taiwanese authorities suspect Chinese sabotage in the incidents near Taiwan’s waters, while EU leaders have said Russia is the likely culprit behind similar breaches in the Baltic. “Taiwan and our European
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
RSS