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.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a