While protesters took their anti-economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) message to the streets in Taipei City, officials from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government yesterday swung into action to promote the cross-strait trade pact, which is scheduled to be signed on Tuesday in Chongqing, China.
Cabinet officials — including Minister Without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘), Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), Council of Agriculture Chairman Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) and Vice Chairman Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華), and Deputy Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Kao Charng (高長) — each chaired workshops on the subject in Taipei, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Taichung and Keelung yesterday.
Executive Yuan Spokesman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that similar workshops would continue nationwide, with government officials to explaining the content of an ECFA to the public face to face.
PHOTO: CNA
The event in Taipei County’s Junghe (中和) drew 1,000 people, although some of them were mobilized by KMT county councilors. Interviewed by cable station Formosa TV, some said they did not know why they were there.
Chiang said the government also planned to purchase newspaper ads and TV ads to promote an ECFA. A recent full-page ad published in the Chinese-language Apple Daily carried a statement by MAC Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) rebutting opponents’ criticism of an ECFA.
Yiin yesterday said the government had held more than 2,000 workshops on an ECFA since last year.
“Policy explanation is never enough. We have to continue efforts to make people understand the benefits and impacts of an ECFA,” he said.
Asked for comment, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the government respected the people’s right to participate in an anti-ECFA rally held by the opposition yesterday.
He reiterated that the final version of an ECFA would ensure benefits for Taiwan and its people, urging the Democratic Progressive Party to oversee the government in implementing an ECFA rather than oppose the trade deal.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching