The liberalization of translation services across the Taiwan Strait, scheduled to take effect following the ratification of the cross-strait service trade agreement, could be part of Beijing’s “cultural unification” efforts and it would also hurt the sector in Taiwan, a lawmaker said yesterday.
Chinese competitors could leverage their higher capital and lower costs to purchase translation copyrights and squeeze out Taiwanese companies from government tenders once the pact takes effect, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) told a press conference yesterday.
“Intellectual property rights of corporate products and confidentiality of government documents would be concerns,” Hsu said.
“The further integration of translation services across the Strait poses another risk — Beijing’s censorship of literary works. In order to gain access to the Chinese market, Taiwanese authors and publishers could be forced to remove content that Beijing deems inappropriate,” Hsu said.
Government officials at the press conference played down the concerns, with Lee Pei-ju (李佩儒) of the Mainland Affairs Council saying that the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission would place national security and cultural concerns high on its agenda.
Chou Kuo-chin (周國欽), a deputy counselor in the ministry’s Department of Commerce, said the sector had been liberalized after the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) was signed in 2009, but there is no Chinese investment in the sector at present.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
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