Aviation industry representatives were divided on the cross-strait service trade agreement at a public hearing yesterday, with airlines welcoming market liberalization while airport operators and unions expressed concerns about increased competition.
The hearing at the Legislative Yuan, was the seventh of 16 hearings scheduled in the current legislative session, which aim to gather businesspeople from various sectors to discuss the pact, which is to be assessed and voted on by lawmakers.
The discussions covered a wide range of industry sub-sectors, including cargo, airline services and sales, and airport services.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Airlines such as EVA Air and China Airlines urged the government to speed up ratification of the pact.
“Taiwan should leverage China’s huge market and Taiwan’s proximity to China,” Liao Chih-wei (廖至維), an EVA Air representative said.
Liberalization of air transport operations is expected to benefit local tourism, they said.
However, Yao Kuang-tsu (姚光祖), secretary-general of the Taoyuan County Trade Union, said workers were concerned because past liberalization had created fierce competition and resulted in lower wages.
Chen Kuo-hsun (陳國勳) of the Taoyuan International Airport Service Trade Union and Huang Shu-hui (黃淑惠), representing the national drivers union, urged the government to protect local jobs.
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Lin Chu-chia (林祖嘉) pledged that only Chinese investment would be allowed, while restrictions on Chinese workers would remain.
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