The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is mulling establishing a task force focused on studying Taiwan entering Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotations, a party official said yesterday.
If established, the task force may comprise party officials and think tank experts, and would conduct studies on negotiation strategy, policy recommendations and the holding of exchanges with foreign governments, as well as international academics, DPP Department of International Affairs director Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠) said.
The DPP sees joining the proposed free-trade bloc as key for Taiwan’s future and even though President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) also supports entering TPP talks and has expressed hope that Taiwan will be a member by 2020, his administration has yet to engage in any preparatory work, Liu said.
The DPP has already reached out to the international community for information on other countries’ assessment and negotiation strategies, said Liu, who recently returned from a trip to Japan.
From Dec. 2 until Thursday last week, Liu’s delegation met with Japanese academics and politicians to learn from the experiences they have gained from Tokyo’s ongoing TPP negotiations, he said.
Liu added that the DPP has established bilateral communications with Taiwan’s informal allies in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, South Korea, as well as the US, which the party deems crucial for its success in future elections and for the nation’s diplomatic presence.
Having established a representative office in Washington, the DPP has also started sending delegations to Tokyo every couple of months and to Seoul every six months, he said.
“It is part of our effort to connect Taiwan with the ‘democratic alliance,’ a proposal initiated by DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) advocating collaboration between Taiwan and other democracies in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the establishing of a mechanism to affirm that our positions and Taiwanese mainstream public opinion are understood abroad,” Liu said.
Separately yesterday, DPP spokesman Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said the party wants China to promote regional stability and refrain from escalating tensions.
Lin made the remarks in response to Beijing’s criticism of the DPP’s position on China’s new air defense identification zone (ADIZ).
Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Fan Liqing (范麗青) said yesterday in Beijing that by accusing China of expansionism, urging collaboration with Japan and the US and protesting the ADIZ, the DPP was trying to incite cross-strait disharmony.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS