Taipei will continue to promote its economic and trade relations with the US this year, with a focus on pushing for participation in the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Representative to the US King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) said on Wednesday.
To create conditions favorable for Taiwan’s inclusion in regional economic integration initiatives, the country also needs to shore up its preparations for trade liberalization, King said while attending a New Year’s Day flag-raising ceremony held by the Taiwanese expatriate community in Washington.
Taiwan has on many occasions urged the US government to support its bid to join the TPP, which is currently being negotiated among 12 Pacific Rim countries.
In his New Year’s Day address, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) reiterated that his administration will work toward gaining membership in the TPP as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as part of efforts to boost the economy.
RCEP is being negotiated among the 10 ASEAN member states and their free-trade partners, including Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.
According to a recently published article by Evan Feigenbaum, a senior associate in the Asia Program at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, if the TPP is concluded this year, it will set a new competitive standard in Asia.
Major countries, including China, will need to adapt as the agreement begins to affect their economies, Feigenbaum said.
Although many people see the TPP and RCEP as competitors, he said competition between the two models “may change in 2014, as China has begun to take an interest in the TPP.”
Chinese reformers view external pressure, such as the pressure that the membership requirements of the TPP would entail, as a way to promote change at home, he said.
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
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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