Kaohsiung City Laundry and Cloth Dyeing Union president Liu Yi-teh (劉懿德) called President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) a liar for saying that the government would not allow Chinese workers to work in Taiwan when the cross-strait service trade agreement becomes effective and that Taiwanese workers would not be affected.
Liu was referring to the trade agreement Taiwan and China signed in Shanghai on June 21 that would open service sectors on both sides to further cross-strait exchanges.
“Ma apparently does not know that the laundry sector is already suffering. Many laundry stores have gone out of business as a result of the recession,” Liu said, adding that allowing Chinese investment would only make the situation worse.
Under the pact, 64 Taiwanese industries will be open to Chinese investment, while China will open up 80 industries to Taiwan.
Liu said Ma was being authoritarian-minded and that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers only care about the party rather than the public.
“The government not only implements policies that damage the people’s rights, but also ignores voices of opposition,” he said.
Tsou Ching-wen (鄒靜文), secretary of the union, said the service pact would have a huge impact on Taiwan’s laundry sector, which has already been hit by the recession, as well as competition from corporate laundry stores.
She accused the government of damaging the industry further by allowing Chinese investment.
Liu said most laundry stores in Taiwan are family-run coin-laundry stores, and are convenient, inexpensive and popular among college students.
Liu said the laundry market is already full, and allowing Chinese investment to compete with Taiwanese businesses will only make the situation worse.
Liu added that working in the laundry sector is not easy, so it is hard to find young people willing to work in the industry.
To cut hiring costs, many laundry stores are operated by the owner and the owner’s spouse, and Liu said he could not believe that the government is going to destroy their dreams and future.
“The government never talked to us before deciding to open up to Chinese investment,” Liu said, criticizing the government for not listening to the people and making decisions unilaterally.
“Don’t forget the people are the boss,” Liu said, urging opposition lawmakers to insist on opposing the pact, as well as to host public hearings outside Taipei to learn just how upset people are.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift