The cross-strait service trade agreement is part of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) “triangle policy” toward eventual unification with China and should not have been signed, a pro-independence advocacy group said yesterday.
“We believe that the agreement, along with the ‘one China’ principle, and a meeting between Ma and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), form a triangle policy of Ma’s goal of eventual unification,” former presidential advisor Huang Tien-ling (黃天麟) wrote in a booklet published by the Taiwan Society.
A collection of several academic works, the booklet titled Crisis of the service trade agreement — a modern-day Trojan horse was officially launched yesterday at a press conference.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Breaking down the agreement into how it affects the economy, society, national security, democracy and institutionalized negotiations, the authors conclude that the pact is more of a political agreement than an economic one.
The cross-strait service trade agreement, which was signed in June, has touched upon the core aspect of the nation’s industries under the common market structure laid out in the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) signed in 2009, and it could further tie the nation’s economy to the Chinese economy and have a devastating effect on small and medium-sized businesses, Huang said.
“Beijing’s strategy of reunification by trade is an open secret, which is why discussion of the agreement without a political deliberation would be foolish,” Huang said.
The agreement, which is due to be screened clause-by-clause in the legislature, was controversial due to the opaque way it was signed and the scale of its negative impacts on various local sectors of the service industry, in particular banking, retail and agriculture.
Closer cross-strait banking integration could cause a financial crisis if loans to Chinese end up as bad debts, National Taipei University professor Wang To-far (王塗發) told the press conference.
Once the trade in goods agreement is signed by the end of this year, Chinese investors would be able to dictate Taiwan’s retail market and integrate supply, wholesale and retail, retired National Taiwan University professor Kenneth Lin (林向愷) said.
The agricultural sector would face the same situation if the current ban on certain Chinese agricultural products is lifted, Lin added.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
STEERING FAILURE: The first boat of its class is experiencing teething issues as it readies for acceptance by the navy, according to a recent story about rudder failure The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first locally built submarine, allegedly suffered a total failure of stern hydraulic systems during the second round of sea acceptance trials on June 26, and sailors were forced to manually operate the X-rudder to turn the submarine and return to port, news Web site Mirror Daily reported yesterday. The report said that tugboats following the Hai Kun assisted the submarine in avoiding collisions with other ships due to the X-rudder malfunctioning. At the time of the report, the submarine had completed its trials and was scheduled to begin diving and surfacing tests in shallow areas. The X-rudder,
RSS