China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) earlier this week touted the possible upsides of the cross-strait service trade agreement, while playing down student protesters’ concerns that it will hurt Taiwan’s interests.
TAO spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said that Beijing has been closely following the situation and that advancing cross-strait economic cooperation benefits both sides.
“I believe we and the compatriots on both sides of the strait feel the same — we don’t want to see the progress of cross-strait economic cooperation affected,” he said about the protests in Taiwan at a news conference on Wednesday in Beijing.
He also downplayed some concerns voiced by Taiwanese over the service trade pact. Some worry about an influx of workers from China to Taiwan, he said, but that topic is not actually included in the service trade agreement. Taiwan has not opened its door to workers from China, he said.
He also denied the rumors that Chinese can immigrate to Taiwan for a fee of 48,000 yuan.
The trade-in-services agreement is an economic pact, he said, adding that the two sides of the strait cannot leave themselves out of the process of regional economic integration.
From China’s perspective, it is a mutually beneficial agreement, he said.
Pushed on why so many in Taiwan have opposed the agreement, Ma said: “The answer must be found within Taiwan’s domestic society.”
Improvements in cross-strait relations over the past several years are a hard-won achievement, he said, adding that no one wants things to go back to the tensions that defined the relationship prior to 2008 (when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office).
While Chinese news media has not covered the protests, it has still drawn attention from many Chinese netizens commenting in discussion forums.
Some argue that China made many concessions in the service agreement, and others say that Taiwan will lose its opportunity for further economic development if it refuses to open its market.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS