National Taiwan University economics department chairwoman Jang Show-ling (鄭秀玲) yesterday called on the government to renegotiate the cross-strait service trade agreement because of what she called its unequal terms and violation of 2001 Nobel Economics Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz’s definition of free-trade agreements.
Taiwan and China inked the cross-strait service trade agreement in Shanghai in late June. If ratified by the Legislative Yuan, it will open up 55 non-financial services sub-sectors to Chinese investment, including printing, tourism, restaurants, packaging, delivery service, car rentals and the hair and beauty industry.
Jang said the agreement was completely against democratic principles, saying that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration kept the nation in the dark by not holding public hearings about the agreement prior its signing, and also kept the legislature from being involved until after the signing.
“We are a democratic society governed by law; can the [Taiwanese] accept an agreement based on backroom deals?” Jang asked, adding that “the people are not against the Ma administration for dealing with China, but they are adamantly opposed to the Ma administration’s signing of an agreement with China that is riddled with serious flaws.”
Jang said that the agreement fulfilled none of Stiglitz’s definition of “basic principles” in free trade in an article published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper in July, explaining that “any trade agreement has to be symmetrical ... no trade agreement should put commercial interests ahead of broader national interests ... there must be a commitment to transparency.”
Opening up the beauty and hair sectors to China would harm local industries that are already at a disadvantage, Jang said, adding that allowing Chinese investment in printing and telecommunications posed risks to national security, as they were central to freedom of speech and privacy of communication.
The agreement would only benefit larger corporations and would have a destructive impact on the medium, small, and even micro, businesses that form 99 percent of Taiwan’s tertiary sector, she added.
When faced with Chinese companies — whose modus operandi is the monopolization of the entire market from production, manufacture, to distribution — as well as other domestic competitors backed by state-owned corporations, these industries would have no choice but to fall like dominos, Jang said, adding that the domino effect would directly affect more than 4 million Taiwanese workers.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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