TRADE
Jiang, AmCham talk pork
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) on Wednesday said that he is confident a deal can be reached with the US on pork imports containing traces of the drug ractopamine. Jiang raised the matter at a meeting with members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (AmCham), saying that he knows some elected officials in the US are concerned about Taiwan’s ban on such pork. A Council of Agriculture delegation addressed the matter when it was in the US, Jiang said, adding that he believes “any similar issues eventually will be resolved.” The government maintains a strict ban on imports of pork that contain ractopamine and it has promised pig farmers that the restriction will not be lifted. AmCham has been pushing for the government to change its policy, hinting that inflexibility could stall progress on a proposed investment deal with the US.
POLITICS
Lien’s idea met with caution
A Shih Hsin University professor yesterday voiced caution about a proposal by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) that the city government set up a holding company to help boost its earnings. Lien said earlier this week that there were several ways for the city to increase its revenues, including establishing a holding company, securitizing liquid assets and issuing public bonds. A holding company would be a convenient way to “centralize administrative powers,” he said, adding that he hoped such a company could eventually turn a profit, which in turn could be used to fund all sorts of city programs. However, public policy and management professor Hsu Jen-hui (徐仁輝) yesterday told a press conference that although Taipei is in better financial condition than other municipalities in the nation, it still has debts of more than NT$160 billion (US$5.33 billion). That means the city government needs to manage its finances more cautiously, Hsu said.
EDUCATION
Students reach Cambodia
Eleven National Yunlin University of Science and Technology students yesterday arrived in Cambodia’s Battambang Province to begin a two-week art, science, computer and digital education project with elementary schools. The volunteers hope to help village residents become more familiar with technology, the university said. The head of the university’s College Student Affairs division, Tsai Tsuo-liang (蔡佐良), praised participants for their passion and willingness to help others overseas. The volunteers raised the money to fund their trip, as well as buy 56 second-hand laptop computers. Donors included Formosa Petrochemical’s Mailiao plant, Taiwan Engineers Without Borders, National Yunlin students and faculty and members of the public, the university said.
SOCIETY
20,000 passports lost: MOFA
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has clarified the reported figure of lost and stolen passports to be about 20,000 per year, with a total of about 120,000 over the past six years. The figures are from MOFA’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, which is in charge of processing applications, verification of documents, and issuing passports. MOFA officials said yesterday the pronouncement was to correct erroneous figures reported by some local media outlets, where numbers were cited as 260,000 for lost and stolen passports in the past six years. The rate of passports lost has been decreasing, from 2.76 percent in 2008 to about 1.51 percent last year, the spokesperson said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift